Craft Time – Father’s Day Salt Ceramic Paperweight

Father’s Day is less than a week away, and so today we got ourselves in gear and made little mosaic paperweights for Daddy, Papa, and Grandpa.  Who doesn’t need a paperweight, right??  So – they are not only cute, they are useful too! ;)

I found the recipe for this salt ceramic mixture in MaryAnn Kohl’s book Preschool Art.  She didn’t mention using it to make a paperweight, but she did say it will dry “rock hard” without baking.  Perfect.

Mix 1 cup of salt, 1/2 cup of cornstarch, and 2/3 cup of water together in a saucepan.  Cook and stir over medium heat until it looks like this:

Take it out and plop it onto some foil.  Let it cool.  It’s very hot, so to reduce cooling time I flattened it out:

After it’s cool, knead it several times until it’s pliable and soft.  It will be a tiny bit sticky,  but that’s ok.  This recipe made a ball about the size of a large grapefruit.  I separated it into 3 parts and rolled each part into a ball. 

At this point, M decided he wanted lunch first, so I placed the dough in a baggie to keep it from starting to dry out.  Here’s how I had the project set up for him (I put everything on wax paper so the dough wouldn’t stick to the table):  

I gave him a variety of items to press into the paperweights – buttons, sea glass (from a stepping stone kit we did a long time ago), seashells, flat glass pebbles,  and colored macaroni.

We took the balls of dough out of the baggie, then slightly flattened each one.
M had a great time choosing things to press into the dough.  He got a bit more elaborate with each one. 
Here’s the one for Daddy (done first):
Papa’s:

And Grandpa’s: Let’s hope Grandpa really, really likes seashells. ;)

These really turned out nicely.  You can’t tell in the photos, but the salt gives a bit of a sparkle.  The sparkle, along with the whiteness of the dough, makes it look kind of “beachy”, so the shells and sea glass really look nice in it.  They are like mini beach-scapes.

The men in M’s life are really going to love these… but not as much as we love them. :)

I think this “salt ceramic” would work nicely for handprints too, and could even be painted after it dries.

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Art Box – June 14, 2010

Another week of letting M choose his own art box supplies… I am going to have to limit him to 4 or 5 items per drawer (so 8 to 10 items total) I think, because he just grabs and grabs and grabs, and it ends up looking like this:And honestly, I’m not sure what all was there!   He was a busy, busy boy!

He was in love with the little sticker roll he’s holding in the above picture.  He called it his “sticker machine” and used up the entire 200 stickers.  Yep.  200.  Thankfully I’ve had them for ages, not knowing what to do with them, and they only cost $1.00.

I’ve been thinking of ending my little Art Box series on here because, really, how interesting is it (to someone other than Mama) to see hundreds of paintings and collages made by a 3 year old?  And interest in the link-up seems to have waned (which is fine, I’m just sayin’)… but I realized what  wonderful memories of this time I have from these posts.  M has been nothing if not a creative and artistic little guy; I remember when he was 1 year old and hopping mad about something (who knows what) and after crying and screaming about it, all he wanted was “paint!”  “red!”  :)  He expresses himself so easily with art, and I love looking through his artwork and seeing how he’s progressed. 

Also, I have to say, it’s soooo much easier for me to pitch a bunch of it in the recycling knowing that I’ve got photos of it on here!  ;)

Speaking of recycling, sometimes it irks me a bit when he uses entire sheets of foam in a collage, like this: or those perfectly good pipecleaners, or whatever.  I must say if it’s not a work of art that we intend to keep I eventually strip it of all useful and reusable items before tossing it.  He has no idea how many times he’s used those buttons and craft eyes, etc.

So, on to business…

This week he made the following masterpieces -

Glitter, macaroni, eyes, and buttons:

Tissue paper circles: 

Sparkly pens, flat marbles, buttons, colored glass pieces, shells, pasta, eyes, oh my:

And he tried out some new stencils with his dot markers:

I think he’s leaving the painting phase he was in forever and entering into some new and glorious collage phase. :)

Thoughts or opinions about continuing to make this a linky?  Let me know in the comments!  I’m fine with these posts being  just for my memories, with the hope that others will get ideas of what to supply their preschoolers with.

If you do have a post you’d like to link up… it’s below!

Have a beautiful day! :)