The Artwork of Stephanie Spangler

Tis the season again and so of course, I had to come up with a fun craft for my Sunday school kids to do to ring in the start of Advent. Rather than make a 3D wreath I decided to try a 2D wreath that the kids could "light" as the weeks passed. Here are the instructions on how you can make your own wreath as well as the templates you can print off for free! You will need: a printer at least 2 sheets of white cardstock scissors * x-acto knife * tape crayons or markers (purp

Recently I signed up for another workshop at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. This one was a painting knife class. For those of you who are fans of Bob Ross you'll be familiar with some of the effects he got from using painting knives occasionally on his show. While I have painted with oils before I had never used a painting knife - not to be confused with a palette knife. (The difference is in the handle; painting knives have a bent handle to allow space for your k

Everyone knows that Christmas time is a time when many people make gingerbread houses. This has been a tradition in my family too, but with a twist. Being German, my grandma always made a lebkuchen house rather than a gingerbread house. Lebkuchen is a German cookie, very similar to gingerbread in that it is comprised of many of the same spices: ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, etc. However, while gingerbread uses strictly molasses as a binder, lebkuchen uses honey. Afte

Well... September is here, summer is officially almost gone and what a busy one it was this year! I missed posting in August because I had three commissions I've been working on, including this one. A friend from work asked me to do a portrait, not of a house this time, but of an evergreen tree. The tree was taken from her friend's backyard to be used as the Christmas tree for her town's square. She wanted to give the portrait to her friend as a new housewarming gift. Whi