Back to school

I love this commercial.  As it notes, your own kids probably aren't going to react this way when you walk in the door with their supplies for the impending school year.  Well, not unless I happened to be your child. 

Call it a sick fascination, or just plain sick, but I loved getting new school supplies as a child.  I loved thumbing through blank notebooks waiting to be filled - especially the one serving as a journal for a high school English class.  I couldn't wait to use a fresh pack of Bic Banana markers.  A jar of paste or Elmer's rubber cement set my heart a fluttering.   The smell of fresh crayolas - the kahuna box of 64 with the built-in sharpner, oh please, please, mom.    They made me put my worries aside about whether I got a good teacher or if my best friend would be in the same class. 

The list sent home for needed art supplies told me exactly what kind of projects we might embark on in art class.  My mom groaned each year as she looked over the list of required supplies so that I might fully reach my potential in art class.  Oh, but I do know that groan, especially the several years that my sons' school decided kids should have two sets of supplies - one for the classroom and one for the art room.  My groan may or may not have been followed by a litany of well-crafted profanity.  What a pain the ass that was, not to mention pretty darn expensive, too. 

While I scoured the aisles and shelves for Fiskar round-tip scissors that sold out quicker in Wells county than bread and milk during a blizzard warning, my mom lamented over one thing - Prang brand watercolors. 

This is the original packaging that I remember.  In later elementary school days in the 70s, the metal box was replaced by a plastic one.  This was a great point of contention with my mom because Prang paints were expensive.  The cheap, prone to drying out, less than exciting Kmart brand water colors were much cheaper.  The one year she tried to get them past the art teacher, a note was sent home requesting that I come back equipped with the proper paint.  Although I suffered the embarrassment of not following directions, it wasn't so bad because I got to use the Kmart ones at home.  Well, until I got caught coloring my Barbies' hair with it. 

There was something about those Prang watercolors, unused, so vibrant and inviting,  that gave me this artsy feeling of well, having an ounce of artistic ability in my body.  Sadly, I really didn't.  That didn't stop me from loving those art supplies.  I'd pack and repack my artbox, not particularly caring if the jumbo box of crayons didn't fit.  What mattered was that I had 64 colors at my disposal for artistic expression.  If could somehow accent my collection with a Pentel outlining marker (silver with red outlining preferably that could give you a high before you knew what being high was all about) or a bottle of glue with the dauber top, I knew it was going to be a good year in art. 

As I hinted, I certainly wasn't the best at art in my class, but I also wasn't the worst, either.  This mainly because as one might suspect, art class was co-ed and most boys didn't have that desire to create a festive holiday piece such as this shamrock with some tissue paper cut into squares, a pencil eraser, and some glue.  As a mother of two children of the boy variety, I know most can't be bothered by expressing themselves creatively.  I probably didn't earn the S+ grade in the class for my picturesque drawings so much as my effort counted.  I really did want to be good at it. 

These projects were my favorite.  Try as I might to recreate the project at home (after the art teacher would often set out scraps and leftovers for us to pick through and take if we wanted), it never really was the same.  Perhaps, it was because we sat somewhat quietly at tables with the teacher's instruction and without the distractions of cartoons, dogs, and siblings.

My second favorite project types involved this.  Mod Podge.  How thrilling it was to catch a rumor that we'd be Mod Podging something as our next project.  Some tissue paper glued on a hunk of paper, brushed with this wonderous creation could create a stained glass window, mosaic type effect.  From experience, I can tell you that glue doesn't work if you're trying to do a little Mod Podging at home. 

 

Nothing beat a good paper mache project, either.  Especially the ones that used a balloon as a form.  Most of these projects took place in the classroom, and I'll never forget the teachers who trusted us to hold the corsage pin and pop our own balloons.  My dog loved the one we made in first grade - wrapping pieces of yarn around a balloon to create an egg shaped cage-like deal that we stuffed with Easter grass.  I can't remember what we shoved into it, but I'm guessing it was some sort of little bird like the ones you can buy in a craft store.  My mom loved the my project even more than the dog when she had to extract Easter grass from the dog's butt. 

Of course, I'm much older now and so are my kids.  A few notebooks, some pencils and pens, maybe a 3-ring binder constitutes back-to-school shopping now.  Blank pages and a good ink gel pen still call out to me.  As does a nice set of art pastels.  I don't know what I'd do with them because while my mom and sister can draw, paint, sketch and do all sorts of things artistic, I know my limits.  Still, there's something about school supplies that at least gives me the feeling that maybe I could create something beautiful and awe-inspiring. 

....and I just happened upon a recipe for homemade Mod Podge.