Spring Wall Collage

Apparently the Powers that Be heard all my complaining about snow and cold and took pity on me because March has been out-of-this-world beautiful!  We’ve slept with the windows open a few nights, have had several late night campfires, and have even brought out the sunscreen!  And technically it is still winter.  Winter!  Until tomorrow of course.  But still.  Winter here normally lasts well into April. 

This little project was all M’s idea, and actually took place a couple of weeks ago before all the nice weather, right when we were starting to get a bad case of cabin fever. 

It started off as a simple flower art project.  We were going to try blowing watered down paint onto flower shapes with a straw.

But that was really hard work!  We obviously didn’t have the paint watered down enough.  I thought we were both going to hyperventilate by the time one flower was done.  :)  So M decided to paint the rest with a brush.

We made the centers of the flowers pop out a little bit by adding them on top of two layers of mounting foam:

 

Pretty flowers:  

 

But that just was not enough spring inside the house.  That evening M made big plans to decorate the closet doors (this closet is in a little nook off of our living room) with a giant springtime collage.  At the time it was covered with coffee filter snowflakes – which were getting pretty old and boring – blah!

The plans were all his, and he did all the cutting and taping.  I simply drew a few shapes for him to cut, all according to what he wanted.

The rainbow was made by layering half-circles of color:  

Top of closet doors: 
Bottom half:

There are even a couple of butterflies. :) 

I love looking over at our closet doors. :)  Such a happy space made by a happy boy!

Have a beautiful spring!
Nicole :)

3-d nature art – hot glue style

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I haven’t mentioned much here about M’s enthusiasm for the glue gun.  He loves it.  He uses it only with supervision, is extremely careful, and is responsible enough that I trust him with it.  I would not advise a glue gun for every 5 year old’s art supply set though.  Ours is a low temp gun; I can not use a high temp gun without getting blisters – I would never allow M to use one.

The wonderful thing about hot glue is the freedom it gives you to build upwards when creating art.  Regular white glue would not hold as well, nor would it dry as quickly.  Quick-drying glue is important when you are 5 years old and building something as fast as your imagination can go. :)

I started with setting out a few supplies: Glue gun, glue sticks, sea shells, glass stones (florist style, flat marble), wooden beads, craft sticks, pine cones, and a sturdy surface to place everything on.  A thick piece of cardboard would work… we ended up using tagboard from the back of a certificate frame.  A piece of wood would be lovely as a base as well!

Then I sent M out to scavenge in the yard.  Since we’ve had a mostly brown winter it was easy for him to find several interesting things:

Then the fun began.  M was very particular about deciding just where everything should go.  He absolutely loved this.  He finished two masterpieces and begged to do more.  If I’d had enough material for bases, I think he would have done this all afternoon!

  

The finished artwork… Can you tell what they are supposed to be?

Playgrounds!  We added some peg people the next day:
I love that he built miniature play areas… it reminds me of a fairy land sort of thing – something I’m not sure he’s ever heard of (poor child) – beautifully made with bits of nature and, of course, the amazing hot glue gun! :)

Have a beautiful day! :)
Nicole

Art Project – Making Paper Beads

Honestly, this was a little project for me – I have wanted to try this since I first found out about paper beads a few years ago.  I was not sure that M would be at all interested, especially since the process includes the possibility of glue touching your fingers (oh the horror!).  But, as it turns out, he LOVES to make paper beads and happily kept at it long after I was finished.

I keep old calendars with pretty photos around just for projects such as this: 

I picked a few pretty pictures and cut them into long triangular strips.  I did not measure these in any way, just eyed them and cut.  The main thing to keep in mind here is that the broad end will be the width of your finished bead, so keep it fairly small.  You could also cut (or tear, for a bit of texture) simple straight strips.  The triangular strips allow you to see colors from the whole piece in the finished bead, though, so we chose to do it this way.

Other supplies:Glue, foam paintbrush, wax paper, toothpicks, styrofoam (or something to poke the toothpicks into), and a thin paintbrush or skewer for rolling.

M picked a strip and began rolling it around the thin paintbrush.  I showed him how to stop once the strip is halfway rolled and paint glue on the rest of it: 

Continue rolling it up, then pop it off the paintbrush and onto a toothpick and stick it in your foam to dry: 

Pretties: 

Once these were dry, I did take them outside and spray a finish on them, just because I happened to have some.  But M continued to make beads, and I did not spray them all (it was way too cold to go out and do it more than once!).  I don’t think we can tell the difference between the finished ones and the unfinished.  If you want to seal them and don’t have a spray finish, you could simply brush another coat of glue on the finished beads.

M was so excited once they were finished and ready for stringing – he got right to work!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Ice cold hearts for Valentine’s Day

 Early Valentine roses from my sweethearts – just had to show them off. :)

 

We did something different this year and made hearts from ice.  I saw an idea similar to this recently here.  It looked like fun, and they sure were pretty, so we decided to make our own version.  M is all about freezing things – he has loved to make colored ice since he was very little, so this was a good twist for that favorite activity.

Supplies – water, sparkly things, food coloring, silicone heart mold, and freezing temps outside.

First M filled the molds a little more than halfway with water.  We tried pouring, but decided to use the baster instead:

Then he added in some heart confetti and sequins, which pretty much floated on top.  I had foreseen this, and that’s why we only filled them halfway.  After freezing them we filled them the rest of the way and set them out to freeze again, so the sparkles were all contained in the middle of the ice:

We added yarn to the hearts prior to freezing so we’d be able to hang them up later:

See the wire rack in the photo below?  It’s best to place the mold on top of a rack or tray of some sort before adding all the water!  This makes it easy to transport.  I found this out the hard way. :)

After the hearts were totally frozen:

We added some salt (see the bits?) and a couple of minutes later we added drops of food coloring, then stuck them back outside to freeze again:

After we remembered them (3 days later!) we popped them out and hung them up:

 They are prettier in real life than these photos would suggest. 

 

We worried, a bit too late, about the sequins falling out when the ice melts.  M decided they will just make pretty decorations for the tree, but I’m thinking maybe pine branch tips or tiny pine cones would have been a better choice than sequins.  Oops!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Sweet Valentines

I couldn’t resist sharing the Valentines M has made so far.  Actually, these were all made within 24 hours of finding his art box last week.  He was a busy little cupid all day. :)

Can you see a theme running through most of these?  Apparently making heart faces is big this year.

(Ignore the date in the corner – my camera’s settings obviously need to be fixed.)

M hardly bothered to write anything on most of these, and then I ran across the one for his favorite cousin Sophie and on the back it said this:“Watch out for Captain Hook and Peter Pan!”  Haha – this is my favorite – such an unexpected (and mysterious, don’t you think?) message!  Little boys’ minds work in interesting ways, don’t they?  I hope his romantic messages improve beyond this at some point… or maybe I don’t, now that I think of it. ;)

And the sweetest valentine of all… a valentine pillow for baby sister or brother.  He worked for an entire day on this – sewing two pieces of felt together, with ribbons pinned on – so there’s something blue just in case – and then stuffing it up.

Check out that blanket stitch, he was so very particular about everything:

He was so proud of himself when it was finished!  He was going to glue more felt pieces on one of the sides to make a face (more faces!) but that hasn’t happened so far, and I love it just the way it is: 

Have a beautiful day! :)

Valentine Art Box

Let the Valentine-making begin!!

Whew, that’s a lot of pink and red!

I’m keeping it simple this year – just a few basic supplies.  I am neither in the mood nor energetic enough to do a lot of art cleaning up right now.

In our box this year… red and pink construction paper (cut in half); Valentine stickers – regular, foam, and scented (yum!); a couple of paper punches – a heart and a swirl, glitter in pink, purple, and an iridescent white; scissors, glue, a container of sequins and googley eyes (there are regular-shaped sequins and heart-shaped sequins); markers in shades of pink, purple, and red; a kit of foam finger puppet valentines (from Target dollar spot).

The foam finger puppet kit is basically this craft that we did a couple of years ago:(Target, quit stealing ideas from my blog – this is not the first time I’ve seen something we’ve done made into a neat little kit and placed in your aisles.)  (What?  Other people might have the same ideas because mine are not that original?  Nonsense!)

Happy month o’ love, everyone!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Magic Bubble ARt – review

 

Growing Tree Toys recently sent us this fun little kit to use and review. 

We’ve done bubble art before – with dishsoap, water, and food coloring – and truly the fun part of this is the bubble blowing.  So, yes, that’s simple to do at home without a kit; but I noticed that the colors this time, with the kit, turned out to be much more vibrant, and the included crafts were a bonus.

Here’s everything the kit includes:The picture is so very bright it isn’t showing the tons of punch out pieces that came with this.  There are 90 shapes and stickers included, and a little booklet that gives ideas of things to make.

Also included: pipe cleaners, dye, a stir stick, straws, green embroidery thread, paper cups, and a large bottle (much more than we needed) of soap with gold glitter in it. 

I was not sure about the glitter soap, but it did sparkle up the bubbles (as long as we occasionally stirred it), and looked so pretty on the paper after it had dried!  I’m afraid my photos aren’t good enough to show this, but take my word for it – very pretty!

The basic concept is to fill the cups about 1/3 full with water, soap, and dye; then stick in a straw and start blowing bubbles onto the papers and shapes.  This MUST be done over some sort of covering – we used an old towel – because the dye will stain.

M really had so much fun doing this.  I wish the kit had more disposable cups because they got very soggy very quickly, what with the bubbles spilling over the sides, but obviously regular cups could be used also.

Blowing 4 colors of bubbles all at the same time proved to be a lot of fun too: Take a look at that towel – definitely a good thing we used it!  Fingers were stained too, but all in the name of fun, and no worse than when dying Easter eggs.

Now, M would have been content to blow bubbles all day long, but he knew this was a review and very seriously did every single craft included.  In one sitting.  He is a sucker for punching perforated shapes out of cardstock, so I think that had something to do with it. ;)

Here is a look at about half of the bubble prints he made:

 

A few things he crafted from all this colorful goodness…

A crown:

A hot air balloon:

Flowers: 

Stick puppets, a fish, a door hanger, and some pretty patterned paper to use in the future:

As we were doing this (yes, I did get in on a little of the fun too!), I kept thinking about how perfect this would be for a birthday part, or any group of children.  More cups and straws would have to be used, but there is definitely enough soap and dye mixture and paper crafts to make this fun and engaging for a group of 4 to 5 children.

M ended up loving this much more than I anticipated!

Have a beautiful day! :)

*I was provided a free Kid Concoctions’ Magic Bubble Art kit in exchange for writing a review.  This review is entirely my own, honest opinion of the product.