Craft Time – Votive Holder and Color Mixing Lesson

I’ve been wanting to make a votive or tealight holder with M for ages.  And of course, when I’ve finally put it on our schedule (yes, I am that nerdy), I realize we are completely out of orange tissue paper.  And I’m not running to the store just for tissue paper.  And, yes, it must be orange.  What other color is there the week before Halloween??

It ended up being pretty neat, actually, that we didn’t have orange, because we DID have red and yellow! :)  I asked M what he thought red and yellow make when mixed together.  “Green!”, he said.  Because of this.  Apparently green is what ALL colors make now when mixed together.  ;)  That is how the mind of a 3 year old works.

So I held the red tissue paper up to a sunny window and then put a yellow piece over it.  (M really liked this, and it has given me a great idea for a future color mixing activity.)  He was able to see that they made orange.  I think the fact that the “mixing” didn’t involve any real mixing (as with paint) was very interesting to him.  I could see the wheels turning in his head.

So, we got a small jar I’ve been saving just for this, some red and yellow tissue paper torn into small pieces, a foam paintbrush, and some decoupage glue.You can use plain white glue thinned with water too.  Paint glue on, then a layer of tissue, more glue, and a second layer of the other color of tissue.  Finish with a final layer of glue.

This was a messy project so I didn’t get any pictures – it was definitely a joint effort and I can’t hold a camera and paint glue on a jar at the same time.  Here’s how it turned out:
Have a beautiful day! :)

Raccoon Shapes Craft – printable :)

So, tonight I had two hours of uninterrupted internet time. I was going to write 3 posts for later this week, comment on all your lovely posts out there, and maybe even play some sudoku.:)


What I ended up doing instead was creating this little guy: Isn’t he cute?

Next week our theme is autumn animals – think owls, squirrels, bats… and raccoons. I found some great raccoon books at the library today, and wanted to make a fun workbox activity for M that went along with them. We haven’t done much with shapes lately, so I came up with this. He’s entirely made of shapes. Well, except for the googley eyes we’ll be putting on him and the whiskers (probably black yarn since that’s what I have on hand).

I looked all over internet-land and couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, so I *had* to make one from scratch (oh, darn!). DLTK has a cute one that is entirely made of hearts, but M, being very manly, is not into hearts so much. ;)

If you are interested in making one, or if you ever do a raccoon theme, you can print out the template and instructions from here. I’ll probably cut the shapes out and then use them for a template on black paper. I’ll let M color the shapes on the second page gray. If you have a kid who is good with scissors, they could do a lot of the cutting too.

Enjoy!

Have a beautiful day! :)