Friday, December 30, 2011

The Children's Art Group: Cut and Paste

After constantly wishing there was an alternative to the expensive art classes and camps, I decided to start a local Children's Art Group, now with 30 members! We have some awesome little artists, enthusiastic parents, and we are having a BLAST focusing on process art and projects.



For this meetup, I wanted there to be a ton of different kinds of paper and scrap material, and ways to manipulate, cut, and paste it. SO, I had parents bring one or more of the following items:
child scissors, binding agent, and paper or scrap materials.

I gave parents a list of suggested materials:

Suggestions for Papers or Scraps
Greeting cards, wrapping paper, magazines, file folders, envelopes, newspaper, tissue paper, crepe paper, paper towels, junk mail, cardboard, photos, brocures, catalogs, printer scraps, cupcake wrappers, bubble wrap, etc.
It's always nice to have pre-cut pictures from magazines/catalogs, etc. in case some children get frustrated with the scissors or we have younger children who don't know how to use them.


Suggestions for Binding Agents
glue, glue stick, stapler, masking tape, duct tape, labels, stickers, contact paper, hole punch, ribbon, yarn, brads, etc. 


I taped a long piece of brown packing paper to the floor and separated the materials into 3 bins... paper scraps, binding agents and paper manipulatives, and extras.




L loved cutting straws













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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

New Favorite Hobby: Terrariums!



NEW HOBBY
Terrariums!

I just love the idea of a tiny contained world. There's just something about it that totally brings out the inner child in me. This is my first one and I can't wait to make another! I think my next one will be one for L....maybe a dinosaur one! I'm a bit giddy about it haha.



This one's theme is
Berry Picking



I found an old Hi Ho Cherry O game at Goodwill, cut off the stems of some of the cherries and hot glued them onto the "bush" and some in the acorn basket as well. The basket is just an acorn cap with a piece of jewlery wire bent and hot glued to make a handle. And the ladder I made using small sticks and hot glue.



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Friday, December 9, 2011

The Children's Art Group: Melted Crayon Art

The Children's Art Group
Melted Crayon Art
After constantly wishing there was an alternative to the expensive art classes and camps, I decided to start a local Children's Art Group, now with 30 members! We have some awesome little artists, enthusiastic parents, and we are having a BLAST focusing on process art and projects.



For this meetup I warned group members that we would be using hair dryers which would of course be loud. This was necessary of  because some kids are scared of hair dryers! I had members bring crayons, thick paper or canvas, and a hair dryer. We layed wax paper under the canvas to catch splatters. I already had 2 glue guns for everyone to use. We hot glued unpeeled crayons to the canvas and let the kids hold the dryer (high heat, low speed setting) and melt the crayons. L actually did the hot glue gun part himself and also loved holding the hair dryer while melting! Even younger kids with parental help can do this project though!







this parent was helping her son with the melting part.
 He was watching it melt and thought it was pretty cool!


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The Children's Art Group: Spice Painting




Spice Painting
After constantly wishing there was an alternative to the expensive art classes and camps, I decided to start a local Children's Art Group, now with 30 members! We have some awesome little artists, enthusiastic parents, and we are having a BLAST focusing on process art and projects.

I've done spice painting before with L, but I thought it would make a great group activity as well! So I told everyone to raid their spice cabinet for old spices (no hot spices) and bring a bottle or two of  white glue.  I poured a bit of glue into tiny plastic cups and added water to dilute it, then we let the kids help add the spices to the glue. Then the fun began!






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