Wreath

I've loved these kinds of wreaths for years but they're [in my opinion] way overpriced and so is the garland.  I found some on sale (70% off Christmas at craft stores right now) for cheap and made a wreath with one of my least favorite barely functional embroidery hoops.  Just hot glued the garland on, all facing the same direction.  Very pleased with it:

Christmas Projects

 Here are some of our Christmas Projects for decorations and gifts this year:

 

                                        Advent Calendar: There was a different picture in each pocket.

Paper hand print tree.

My favorite project I did with my class:

   

 Two of Mercury's paintings, gifts.

 

   

Hand-strung necklaces as gifts from Mercury.

She picked the beads and strung them all herself, I just added the clasps when she was done.

 

Christmas pictures, just for fun.

 

  

Fancifully Adorned Stick

Check out this fun project I did with Mercury today:

  

                                                                                       
Mercury has a thing for sticks and picked another one up the other day while we were outside so we thought we'd dress it up a little.  We found a bunch of random beads/buttons- I am a bead/button hoarder and have hundreds if not thousands of beads and buttons that I will likely never use.  I have a whole container my mother gave me last year that she'd had for years...I have beads from my great grandmother.  So, we got those out and some paint pens, ribbon scraps, snippets of old colorful drinking straws, scrap puzzle pieces and googly eyes.  She told me what she wanted and where, while I manned the hot glue gun.  She's getting really into processes in her art now.  She colors with all manner of coloring media and then cuts and glues and uses stickers on the same paper.

     

                   

finished products

Using multiple techniques within one project makes some great end products.  It also gets me really excited about her making something more than just some scribbles on a color page.  The stick has started to become a character and will probably star in its own story that we will write and illustrate.  The whole thing was a blast, I would highly recommend it.

The rest of August's art camp...

Here are the rest of the art camp photos: 

We explored alternatives to traditional painting methods:

We used spherical objects to create paintings:

 

We did multi-day, multi-layer large scale paintings:

And for the grand finale we did large scale outdoor- 

get as messy as you can- hands and feet paintings:

 

 

It was a very fun couple of weeks.  

The kids went home quite filthy and extremely happy by the end of it.

Art Camp

I'm teaching a messy art camp this week and next week.  Here's some of our fun stuff so far:

Finger painting.  An oldie but a goodie...

 you can never match the messy joy kids get from it.

"Cars day"; first we did stamps:

Then we started rolling cars in paint and then zooming them across our "gigantic" paper:

Some of the finished products:

Custom Crayons

Casting your own custom crayons:

You can do this by making your own mold or using one you buy.  

Gather the molds you want to use: pre-soaked plaster, silicon or rubber molds.  

You can use chocolate or ice cube molds from the store.

Gather old or new crayons (broken are fine, you are going to melt them anyway).  

Peel the paper off of the crayons (soaking crayons can help get stubborn wrappers off). 

Once they are all peeled you can start melting them using an old crock pot.  

Make sure you use a crock pot you never want to use for food again 

because some wax residue will persist.

The marbling that you see in the crock pot  will disappear as soon as you disturb it.  

Keep this in mind when you melt your crayons- A nice marble of yellow and blue will just turn into green when you start to scoop it out of the crock pot.  If  you want to do multiples colors for one crayon you can heat small bowls individually over a burner or pour the crayons one layer at a time, waiting to melt a new color in the big pot before you can do it.  You'll have to wait until the previous color/layer is cooled before you pour the subsequent.  

Using a scoop (that will end up with crayon wax all over it) scoop the crayon wax 

into your mold until it is filled to the top. The wax will shrink as it cools and leave a low 

spot in the center of the top of your cast.  You can fill this or leave it as is.

When you are done pull your crayons out of your mold.

Use an exacto knife or other tool- clay tools often work well-

 to clean up any seam lines or pour spouts.

Enjoy! You can take it one step further by making molds of your own

sculptures/sculptures your children make and turn them into crayons.

"Homemade Silicone Molds" tutorial to follow, check back soon!