Birdie – Ari October Art

I have to admit that I actually bought some art supplies recently, although they are not meant for me! That being said, I haven’t been able to resist using them a bit. I’m fairly certain you all will forgive me considering the circumstances!

My 11 month old daughter recently discovered the joy of scribbling when she got hold of a ballpoint pen. So despite wanting to hold out till the end of the No Buy to introduce her to drawing, we caved and bought her a few art supplies. She tends to hit milestones early, I shouldn’t have been surprised!

“First Scribbles” *Ballpoint pen on wall, collaboration between my daughter and partner, September 19th 2022. Frame by me, gold acrylic paint pen.*

It turns out we might not have needed to buy any art supplies though, as she has figured out the Boogie Board and primarily uses that for her scribbles! Oh well, what’s done is done. She really loves the erase button, she often scribbles just to press it and see it disappear!

We bought her a very cheap pad of paper and a set of 8 larger washable crayons, all for about $5. She mostly bites the crayons and tears the paper, but she’s enjoying the new toys so that’s what matters. I can’t resist a good crayon, so I doodled a sweet Australian pup in my daughter’s sketchbook…

We also found a dinged up magnetic drawing board at the thrift store, admittedly we have gotten far more use out of it than she has! It’s gotten my partner drawing a lot more, so I’m really happy about that. I may still upgrade to a less broken one next year.

*Fun and adorable doodles by my partner,*
*Jasper Rae*.

So while this may be considered a “slip up” in terms of my No Buy, I’m perfectly content with that. No regrets here, only happy memories made! Thanks to this No Buy the purchases were made with intention, so that still feels like a win for me.

I have been feeling a lot more tempted lately, and I’ve occasionally found myself looking forward to the end of this experiment. Overall though I feel an abundance of gratitude towards this No Buy, I feel like I have been extremely productive this year and learned a ton of valuable lessons.

That’s it for now, I have another post very close to ready though, so I’ll see you again soon! Take care, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

*(This piece has been altered for privacy)*

I’m just too amused by this sketchbook page to not share it.

It took me so long to finish that she had already turned 10 months by the time I finished! It’s hard to make time for big projects like this when you’re a full-time stay-at-home mom, but it was very much worth it in my eyes. I even kept it as simple as possible, but I simply couldn’t find the time to work on it most days! It got done eventually though, as you can see.

You can’t tell just from the photo, but this is a VERY large sketchbook. I’m not sure of the dimensions, but it’s over 12″ wide. That contributed to how long it took to finish, each small illustration would have taken up most of the page in one of my travel sketchbooks!

Luckily though, starting today, I am only a part-time stay-at-home mom! Due to our situation we qualified for free daycare, so we now get 6 hours of free time every week day. She loved it too, no surprise there since she is such a social butterfly. She even napped TWICE, and she hates napping for us! I can’t wait to have so much more time to devote to my creative hobbies!

That’s all for now, I hope Monday was kind to you all, and I’ll see you in the next post!

Tag: Birdie

Art Supply No Buy: Autumn check-in (baby scribbles edition!)

Birdie’s favorite things at 9 months old!