Math is Awesome
A fun, new design to feed my inner nerd 🙂
Page 5 of 6
Cute Number Line for Kids
My daughter is struggling in math. And when I say “struggling,” I mean that she would rather gouge her eyes out than add 2+2. She hates math with a passion and I am on a constant hunt for ways to make it more tolerable… and even fun (although that may be asking too much.)
She goes through a bazillion sheets of paper a week drawing number lines to help with her homework.
I was sitting through yet another painful homework session and thought to myself, “Hey self, there should be a dry erase number line that she can reuse over and over again.”
And then I thought “Hey, I could create my own dry erase number line that she can reuse over and over again.”
And THEN I thought “Hey, I could design some cute math characters that I could add to a dry erase number line that she can reuse over and over again!”
And so I made one 🙂
My daughter absolutely LOVES the cute characters and can’t wait to start using it for her homework. I’m sure it won’t make her fall in love with math but I know that it will at least make her homework a little less painful 🙂
Here is the overall design I created:
And here is what it looks like on the dry erase boards. I made a set of 3 different colors because I’m not good at making decisions 🙂
I love art in any form but I’m especially fond of art that has a purpose (other than sitting on my wall looking pretty.) I’m excited that I was able to turn my silly little characters into a tool that has the potential to really help my daughter. Pretty fun! I can’t wait to make more!
I posted the number lines in my Zazzle shop in case anyone else is interested! http://bit.ly/1AZWxk1
Happy Easter
Happy Easter! May your weekend be filled with family, friends and lots of jelly beans 🙂
I created a new coloring page for my goobers and thought that I would share it with everyone. If you send me your finished masterpieces, I may even post them on my site!
Here is what it looks like… and here is the link to the full-size PDF version: Cute Easter Coloring Page (make sure you print it in landscape or it will be smushy)
Here are my kids’ masterpieces! I would love to see your colorful creations too!
ELLIE – Age 5
ISABEL – Age 8
JULIET – Age 5
HAPPY EASTER!!!!
I Heart Coffee
Growing up, I never understood why anyone would want to drink coffee. I loved the smell of it – but a single drop of the bitter, brown liquid on my tongue would immediately twist my face into an involuntary look of disgust.
I happily lived a coffee-free life for many years… until the birth of my twin girls. My world was turned upside-down and I’m pretty sure that my post-pregnancy hormone surge included some sort of devilish coffee-craving hormone.
The level of exhaustion new parents can face after the birth of a child is unimaginable. Baby books do not prepare you for it. Experienced parents don’t want to scare the uninitiated… or the post-baby fog has simply wiped clear their memories of it. I was completely not ready for it. Coffee and a binge-watching session of the TV show, “24,” are pretty much the only things that got me through the first few weeks of late night feedings (OK… and maybe the wonderfulness of my husband, the cuteness of my oldest daughter and the insanely adorable bundles of squishy love that I had just given birth to.)
Here is me and Juliet a few days after her birth. I was unbelievably happy but couldn’t hide the exhaustion in my eyes. Crazy times!
It’s now 5 years later and my new-found love for coffee has never waned. It’s only natural that thoughts of coffee love would pour out of my head, begging to be put on paper 🙂 And it’s only natural that I would simply have to have my own cup of coffee while creating a coffee cup masterpiece… it’s all in the name of research 😉
Even my kids got in on the coffee cup-drawing action! I love drawing with them!
Juliet decided that she wanted to open a coffee shop. Here is her “business plan.”
Here is the picture that Ellie created for Juliet’s fantastic coffee picture shop! It is topped with black marshmallows… what could be yummier?!?
And here is my final version. While I illustrated the design by hand with pencil/ink, it is one of the first illustrations I have ever converted to vector. I LOVE that I can print out a people-size coffee cup if I wanted to! Vector illustrations are sooo cool. Too much fun!
Between the 3 of us, I think that we have a pretty good start on our coffee picture shop inventory 🙂
Time for another cup of coffee!
The Sky is Falling
Threadless is currently hosting a “Sh*t the Internet Says” design challenge to celebrate all of the ridiculously silly terms, abbreviations and hashtags that are floating around the internet these days.
Most of my friends limit their abbreviation use to lol and rofl (thank you for that) but I do get to experience the wonderful world of hashtags on a daily basis. It makes me giggle when people use more hashtags than real words. #I #dont #understand #why #you #have #to #use #so #many #freakin #hashtags? #Cant #you #just #get #to #the #point? #ToEachHisOwn
For some bizarre reason, this challenge immediately made me think of Chicken Little. In my version of the classic fable, the poor little chicken desperately tries to warn his mother of the falling sky – but wastes so much time rambling off pointless hashtags that he gets squashed by the crushing blow of the falling sky (and confuses the heck out of his mother in the process.) It makes me giggle… which is OK because little chick and his mom don’t really get killed or maimed in any way. In their world, the sky is just a bunch of soft, puffy clouds 🙂
If you like my design, please take a second to vote for it on Threadless. I would really, really appreciate it!! Here is the link!
My First Threadless Submission
I just submitted my very first design to Threadless and I’m super excited! Fingers crossed that it does well… or at least doesn’t totally bomb 🙂 I’ve been thinking about submitting a design FOREVER and never had the courage to do it. Last night, I just went for it. I think that I was too tired to be nervous 🙂
Threadless relies on the user community to help determine which designs to print. If you like my design, please check it out and vote!
Even if this design isn’t successful, I’m really happy that I finally did it. The first step is always the hardest! Now I have to get back to work on some more fun designs!
Vote, vote, vote!! http://bit.ly/1AZf5Rk
Happy Perfect Pi Day
Hooray! It’s Pi Day! Today’s the day to celebrate the glorious wonder of math and that crazy little symbol, Pi. It’s also the day to eat lots of pie – that’s my favorite part.
Pi represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter and is equal to approximately 3.14159 (the number actually continues infinitely…. but I will never remember any more digits than that.) Pi day is celebrated each year on 3/14. This year is an extra special celebration because the date is 3/14/15 and represents the first 5 digits of the number instead of just 3 like most years. Yippee!
I could celebrate by calculating the circumference of circles but I would much rather make pie 🙂
Since I didn’t have an opportunity to actually bake anything this year, I thought that I would share a recipe for one of our family’s favorite pies – Juliet’s famous and super delicious “Green Pie.”
As everyone knows, my kids LOVE to draw. Last year, Juliet created a picture of a pie and decided that we simply HAD to make it.
She said that it was a chocolate pie with green frosting and chocolate sprinkles…. and she was going to call it “Green Pie.”
We started with our favorite recipe for S’more pie and “green-ified” it to match Juliet’s vision of “Green Pie.” The cool whip topping was dyed green and an all-important layer of chocolate sprinkles was lovingly scattered on top.
I think that we did a pretty good job 🙂
If you want to make your own super delicious “Green Pie,” here is the recipe!
JULIET’S GREEN PIE
Recipe by Juliet and Mommy (adapted from Keebler’s S’more pie recipe.)
INGREDIENTS:
1 pre-made Graham pie crust (I use Keebler’s crust with 2 extra servings… if you use a smaller version, you may have a little leftover filling)
16 regular marshmallows
½ cup milk
¾ cup heavy cream
1 cup milk chocolate chips (you could probably use semi-sweet if you wanted)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tub (8 oz.) frozen non-dairy whipped topping, thawed, divided
DIRECTIONS:
1. Make Ganache Layer: Pour semi-sweet chocolate chips in medium bowl. Heat heavy cream in saucepan until just about to boil (or microwave for 45 seconds to 1 minute… watch carefully so it doesn’t start to boil over.) Pour warm cream over chocolate chips and let sit for 1 minute. Gently stir for a couple minutes until smooth.
Let ganache mixture cool for 10-15 minutes until slightly thickened and pour into pie crust. Smooth evenly along bottom and up the sides. If mixture is too thin to stick to sides, refrigerate the pie for a few minutes and try again. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour to set.
2. Make Pie Filling: In medium saucepan, heat marshmallow and milk until melted and completely smooth – stirring frequently. Remove from heat and stir in the milk chocolate chips until melted and smooth. Cool to room temperature.
Fold 1 ½ cups whipped topping into cooled pie filling mixture. Pour evenly into pie crust. Smooth top with a spatula. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until set.
3. Finishing Touches: Add a small amount of green food coloring to the remaining whipped topping and gently fold with a spatula until color is evenly distributed. Spread green topping over pie. Use a small spoon to add decorative swirls if desired. Sprinkle with chocolate sprinkles. Store in refrigerator.
NOTES: Can be made a day ahead. Leftovers are usually good for 2-3 days. I usually like to make my own graham cracker crust but the pre-made version is fantastic for baking with kids (and it tastes good too.) Sometimes I also get a bigger tub of whipped topping so that I can pile on a nice rounded layer on top.
Enjoy! Happy Pi Day!!
Easter Bot
Humanoids aren’t the only ones who enjoy a visit from the Easter Bunny. Robots can have fun too – especially when their Easter baskets include Shrink Ray guns and Brach’s jelly beans (yes, I’m still obsessed with those delicious balls of sugar) 🙂
Meet Killbot Irontail. He may be a wee bit unconventional but he is unwavering in his mission to spread Easter joy to all the good little baby bots in the world.
I have an odd thing for rewriting the words to songs or poems. I wrote a song about the Alaskan Iditerod to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” I rewrote Shakespeare’s “To Be Or Not to Be” soliloquy to facilitate an internal debate on whether I was going to use powdered sugar glaze or royal icing to decorate my sugar cookies. And now, I rewrote the words to the classic Easter song “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” to share the adventures of Killbot Irontail (a little known and completely made up Easter icon.)
The song is especially fun when you sing it out loud. Try it. Just don’t do it in front of your husband who has never even heard the original Peter Cottontail song and simply thinks your crazy (that totally didn’t happen to me.)
If you are dying to have your very own Killbot Irontail (or know of someone really cool who might want one as a gift,) check out the Easter section of my shop!
And if you are a robot… be content knowing that Killbot Irontail is on it’s way to spread some Easter joy to you and your baby bots!
Hippity Hoppity
Easter is less than a month away! I can’t believe it. Even though the weather this winter has been insanely annoying, time has been moving much faster than I would prefer. I only have 4 weeks to stock up on Brach’s jelly beans before they leave the stores! hee hee.
Is anyone else obsessed with Brach’s jelly beans? I think that I might be the only one. They are my catnip.
I have been working on a few new Easter illustrations (mostly to keep my mind off of how much I want to taste the yummy goodness of Brach’s jelly beans) and I’m really excited to share them with everyone!
The first one is my “Happy Easter Friends” illustration. It is so fun and happy.
I put the design on a lot of party supplies in my Zazzle shop. They have buttons, paper plates and even t-shirts! You know what is going to be in my house at Easter time!
For those who want a fun design without the cutesy animals, I also created a bunch of items with just the “Happy Easter” word bubble. The background color on most of the products with this design can be changed to match your existing party decor so it’s super fun. Check them out!
I have one more Easter illustration that I will be sharing later this week. It is far (really far) from the typical Easter chicks and bunny designs but I think that you will like it!
treemanJAKE 