Open Ended Art – Paper Mosaics

The open ended art theme at Teaching My Little Bookworm this week is Mosaics with Paper.
M’s cousin S was over the day we did this. She is an artsy little 4 year old and I knew she would definitely want in on the action.
I set up a tray of colored paper cut into squares, as well as some templates cut from cardstock. Knowing that our summer days are numbered, I was trying for a summer theme so I cut out a butterfly, a sun, a star, and a beach ball:

I gave them each some glue and they got busy! (That would be a puddle of glue that you see forming on M’s beach ball. He’s crazy when it comes to glue.)
(The necklaces they are wearing were from their previous project – they spent the entire day creating stuff. It was great!)
Here’s the finished pieces:
We are planning to create a mobile from these, but it just hasn’t happened yet!
Check here for more great mosaic ideas!
Have a beautiful day!

Our Art Corner

The linky at Teaching My Little Bookworm this week is about art spaces in our homes. Really, if I participate in any more linkies, my entire blog will be made up of link-ups to other people’s blogs, sigh. Yet, how can I resist such great ideas?! They can’t help that they (the other bloggers with these links) are such creative geniuses, right? ;)

So, here goes… our art corner is mainly in our kitchen, although there are other art areas throughout our home. We have a small eat-in area in our kitchen and this is what you normally see pictures of when M is doing art that I post about. Here’s what it looks like from a couple of different views:

Yep, we hang his art up here. Not only is that a little tacky (although we really don’t care, except I have been known to fly around taking it all down before *important* company comes), but it’s pretty much all hung up there with masking tape. Ugly, ugly masking tape. This is one of the many ways I’ve changed since having a child. Once upon a time I would never have allowed my walls to look like this! But I can’t help myself when those blue eyes look at me and say “where can I hang my art up, Mommy? I made it just for you!” So, there it hangs.

We also have a corner of our living room where M has his “desk” with crayons, scissors, lots of paper, stickers, colored pencils, etc. He does what he wants here as long as it stays in this area and he uses it all properly. Like, for instance, smearing the glue stick on the carpet means it will be taken away. ;) This is what it looks like – pretty messy:

There is also an easel in the kitchen. It has a chalkboard on one side and a white magnetic board on the other. He has markers and chalk here, more paper, magnets, and more stickers.

We also have a homemade outside easel that he paints on pretty regularly.

I store most of our art supplies, paint, stamps, do-a-dot painters, various things to paint with, freezer paper roll (we use this a lot to paint on) oil pastels, modeling clay, glue, etc. in a drawer in our entry closet:

I have a big bunch of newsprint and our paintbrushes in the kitchen.

I have a lot more crafty, artsy stuff in our basement in another plastic drawer organizer. This is where I keep our occasionally used items – faom sheets, foam stickers, sand paper, glitter, feathers, colored sand, extra glue, pom poms, and all the grown up craft stuff for me. :)

And I have 2 more of these drawers (I love them!) for miscellaneous stuff that I just can’t throw away. This is where we keep cardboard tubes, jars, bottles, etc.

So, there you have it. It seems like it’s spread out all over the house. We have a tiny home, so we have to make do with putting things where we can. My dream home would have a room dedicated solely to crafting and sewing.

For more posts about art areas go here!

Have a beautiful day! :)