Art Time – Oh the things You can do with Melted crayons

Our Thanksgiving tree (find the pattern here) was up and ready to go, one week before Thanksgiving:But no autumn-themed scrapbook paper to make our leaves from!  Target dollar spot, you really let me down this year. I checked other places too – and could not find a single (cheap) autumn pattern anywhere – sigh.  I just love those scrapbook leaves. 

Ah well, this was a great opportunity for an art project I’ve been meaning to do for ages – coloring with crayons on a warming plate. 

We used scrapbook scissors (pinking and scalloping) to cut leaves from white cardstock; covered our little cup warmer with foil because melting wax tends to leak through paper, even cardstock; put the leaves on top of the foil and slowly drew with the crayons.(I do not have a warming tray, but this little cup warmer works great for small projects like these leaves.  You could also use a cookie tray taken from a warm oven, but make sure little hands don’t get burned!)

The crayon melts as you draw and begins to glide across the paper.  There’s something very relaxing about doing this!  M enjoyed it so much, he stopped making designs and began to just color entire leaves.  The smooth movement and the deep saturated colors on the paper put him into a sort of trance. :)  I think this would be a great rest time activity!  After he was done we turned the warmer off, crumpled up the foil, and were done.  No mess, which is always a plus, right? :)

Our leaves (mostly):

 

We also made some great little autumn shapes by melting old crayons and pouring them into cookie cutters… this is always fun because it involves SMASHING crayons with a hammer or piece of wood, or whatever you may have lying around that would make a good smasher. ;)

Sort:

Smash:

Melt and pour:

Let harden, then pop out:

A little wax leaked out the bottom of the cookie cutters, but everything turned out okay.  Still, I would use the flexible, non-stick muffin trays in place of cookie cutters, if you have them.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Art Time – Autumn Glitter Shapes

We made these last week, using some autumn cookie cutters from Target’s dollar spot.

Glitter is always so much fun, isn’t it?  And so pretty as it makes its way around the entire house.  Isn’t it fun to see a dusting of glitter sitting there, shimmering away on your couch as the sun hits it, two weeks later?  And then you realize you most likely had glitter on your bottom when you wore your black pants to church that morning, and you feel so thankful to have given someone behind you a pretty little treat like that.  Ah glitter.  We all need a little sparkle in our lives, don’t we?  ;)

So we gathered up some colored construction paper, glue, our cookie cutters and some glitter.  Trays were helpful for keeping the glitter under control, but apparently not helpful enough.

 

We had a saucer full of glue, into which we dipped our cookie cutters (wide side down).  Then we let them sit on our page for a while to let the glue drip down enough.  Next up was shaking on the glitter and then tapping it off.  I could have sworn I’d taken photos of actually doing this…

 

After they dried, M punched holes in the corners, we strung them up on ribbons, and added them to our oil pastel leaf banner, out in our breezeway:

Pretty, yes?  A great outside activity too, if you ask me. ;)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Art Time! Autumn oil pastel artwork

 

M and I recently made some autumn-themed artwork with oil pastels.  They turned out so pretty and were fun to make too.  M had to get past an initial “this feels weird on my fingers, and oh ack, it is making them dirty too” sort of thing, but then I reminded him that he is washable and he began to enjoy the process. :)  (That conversation was a bit surreal for me, considering the fact that he is normally drawn to dirt and messiness.)

Our supplies:

Construction paper in light colors, and cut in half (we used a light brown, white, and yellow); shape templates cut out so there are both the negative and the positive pieces (I found these printable shapes at Lakeshore Learning – they have quite a few free printables); and oil pastels.  We tried using cotton balls to smear the pastels, but found using our fingers gave us a much better result. 

The framed picture is there because we took a few minutes to look at it and talk about the many, many autumn activities going on in it.  I love this set of seasonal prints that I got for free at a book sale.  They weren’t painted by anyone famous or anything, but the detail and the style really appeal to me.  I’ve framed them and placed them in our breezeway above M’s little desk (we’ll switch them out each season):

We talked about the colors of autumn, and M decided that just about any color can be an autumn color if you do it right, so we decided to use all the colors of oil pastels.

We each chose a cut out shape, or a page with the shape missing, and talked a tiny bit about how these are referred to as positive and negative spaces. 

To do this, place your shape on a piece of paper, and color around the outline, using quite a bit of pressure: 

Then use your finger to smear and smudge the color onto the paper.  For the above photo, you’d smear the pastel outward, for the photo below M smeared it inward: 

And look – pretty, pretty artwork:

We made several of these and plan to string them into a banner.  Hopefully I’ll have a picture of that to share at the end of the week.

The inspiration for this art project was from this post over at Catholic Icing.  I thought it would make a beautiful project for fall.  It would be fun to do something similar with watercolors, don’t you think?  That just might have to make it onto our art to-do list!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Learning by Heart – Oct. 21, 2011

“The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.”

      - Henry Ward Beecher

 I never see M more joyful than when he is playing in the leaves!  But why does he wear his bike helmet non-stop?  Do your children do this?? :)

Technology really seems to have something against me this year.  I lost my USB cable for my camera, so there are not many photos for this week.  {Sigh.}  We actually had a really great week and I was very excited to write about it.  Ah, the irony. :)

However, for you that means a nice short and sweet post. :)  Here’s a bit of what M’s week was like…

Nature Basket – I recently added a magnifying glass to this to add a new level of interest.  Here are M’s fall treasures thus far:

Pinecones, sticks, interesting weeds and rocks, a cattail, 3 feathers,
and a shell from our river walk. 

 

Remember last week when he learned our phone number and how to properly use a phone?  Well, this week he learned our cell phone number, and took to calling himself and talking to himself on both the cell and the home phone: I am not kidding.  He was actually having a conversation with himself. :)  Looks like a good one too, doesn’t it?

 

FINE MOTOR SKILL WORK:

Scissor Practice – I folded some construction paper in half and drew one half of an image on the front: M had to try to cut right on the lines and then guess what it was before he opened it up.  This tied nicely into our recent discussions about symmetry too.  Interestingly, he didn’t guess any of them right.  He guessed a hill, a blahblahblah (some nonsense word), a Christmas tree (?!), and a robot.  :)  They turned out to be, in order: a pumpkin, an acorn, a leaf, and a scarecrow – he could tell when they were opened up (thankfully!).  I drew the pumpkin, acorn, and scarecrow freehand, and found a maple leaf template on Google Images (I’m not sure of the link, but there are many available).

He did great with these and stayed right on the cutting line, having trouble only with the scarecrow who unfortunately lost part of his hat, and had his head entirely cut off. :)  Thank goodness for tape!  M had a lot of fun putting funny faces on them (the stickers are from Michael’s) and hanging them on the window!  This turned out to be a big hit!

 

Lacing cards – I sometimes forget about these, but we have many of them, and it is easy to make your own.  M still loves to do these, and he comes up with new things to do with them:Like “sew” them together and hang them up as part of the fall decor.  Sometimes I think our home looks like we have a 5 year old decorator, and then I realize we actually do and that I love it. :)

 

Caramel Apples – We had fun making caramel apples this week – just 3 of them because somehow we ended up with a very small amount of caramels. :)  M was in charge of unwrapping all the caramels (great fine motor work that takes a long time, but is highly motivating): 

I think we added a bit too much milk to the mix because even after our caramel had cooled and we had dipped the apples, only a very thin layer covered them.  But they were delicious!  And I think they were beautiful, don’t you?

 

Crocheting!  That’s right – crocheting!  I’ve been crocheting for over 30 years now, and over the summer M took a huge interest in this and we’ve been crocheting up a storm together ever since.  This is how we do it:My hands are on bottom, holding the crocheted fabric.  I love seeing how much alike our hands look. :)

It is too difficult for him to maneuver the crochet hook and yarn while holding onto the fabric, so we snuggle up and I hold the fabric for him.  He does everything else and he has really gotten very good at it.  Of course I guide him and talk him through it as needed.  It’s a good little extra snuggle time for us. :)

Here’s a “shaving washcloth” he made for Daddy’s birthday:

We did manage to squeeze in some math, science, art, and a little phonics work too, but those pictures are still waiting.  Hopefully I’ll be able to share them next week!

 

Linking up to:

 

 

 

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Art Project and Craft – Coffee Filter Leaf Mobile

 
We love watercolor paints, and once in a while I like to make liquid watercolors with our regular tempera.  Simply thin the paint out with water, or use liquid starch for a shiny finish, until the paint is as watery as you want it.
 I know I’ve said this a million times… my paint palette of choice is still a muffin tin with an applesauce cup in each well!

Coffee filters, paper towels, or even loosely woven fabric (think muslin or any woven cotton) work great with liquid watercolors.  We decided to use coffee filters this time, and instead of using a pipette to drip the paints, or a paintbrush, we folded our filters up and dipped each corner into the paints.  This created a fun tie-dyed effect. 




M and his cousin S had so much fun with this that we ended up with over 30 tie-dyed coffee filters.  
What does one do with 30 tie-dyed coffee filters??
Well, thankfully I was in the middle of reading this post of Jolanthe’s, where she shared her beautiful tissue paper leaf mobile.  I stole her idea and used what we had available – colorful coffee filters. :)

We did not use all 30+ of them, so if there are any more creative ideas for these babies, let me know!

I drew a few leaves on several of the filters and cut them out.
An older child could do the drawing and cutting themselves.  I admit, this turned into a Mostly-Mama Craft, but I enjoyed it and I love the end result.

Punch a hole or use a needle and some string or yarn to thread a length of string through each leaf.  Tie them in varying lengths along a dowel rod.   I have a ton of dowel rods in my craft collection, although I’m not quite sure why.  If you don’t, you could easily use some popsicle sticks glued together or even a pipe cleaner, or get thrifty and decorate a paper towel tube to use (those things are handy to have around, aren’t they?).
 

Tie another length of string to the dowel for hanging and hang it in front of a sunny window. 

   

M loves his new leaf mobile!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Craft Time – Fall Scenes

Have you seen those adorable felt fall-themed stickers at Target’s dollar spot?  I loved them, and knew I had to have them, but wasn’t sure what to do with them once I had them home. 

We did a fine motor activity with them, which you can see here.  And I thought about using them to make patterns, but patterns are so last year  to M right now. :)  (That’s not to say he has patterning down pat, just that he thinks he does.)

Last fall we made this fun hand and arm print tree with paint and a leaf stamp:      It was so much fun and turned out nicely too.

Instead of doing the exact same thing this year, I decided to let M and my niece S use these stickers and make something similar.

We started off with blue paper for the background, glue, a pencil, scissors, brown paper, the stickers, and oil pastels.

I traced each child’s hand and arm, then cut them out.  The kids really enjoyed this project.  M enjoyed it more with S around than I think he would’ve without her.  This was right up her alley, she’s a crafty little girl. :)

They glued the back of their cut outs and got busy making their fall scenes.

Here is M’s finished piece of work:
I thought I had a picture of my niece’s artwork, but can’t find it.  Too bad, it was pretty great. :)  It did kind of crack me up that they each put only one leaf per finger, um… branch, on their tree.  Not exactly what I had in mind, but it was their project!

I was a little disappointed that they didn’t use the oil pastels more on their scenes, pastels show up so nicely on dark paper.  Oh well, they definitely enjoyed using the “soft crayons” and used them to make loads of pictures on plain newsprint:This is my favorite of M’s pictures.  I love that he traced his own hand, and that’s a car in the center!  It’s pretty good, don’t you think?  I was kind of amazed that he could draw a car already.  HIs drawing skills have really taken off.  I love that the wheels have smiley faces! :)

Two of my niece’s pictures: Apparently she’s ready for Halloween. :)  I do believe that is a cemetery, complete with ghosts behind the headstones.

They really enjoyed drawing with the pastels – it’s a nice change from ordinary crayons!  If you have them, I encourage you to get them out and let your children experiment with using them.

Have a beautiful day! :)