Happy Earth Day

This next project was inspired by Earth Day. It was also inspired by our need for place mats on our dining room table! Out in front of our house we have a circle of wildflowers surrounding a large deciduous tree. The girls and I went out and picked flowers, leaves, grasses, as well as a few roses from Grandpa's bountiful back yard, and we set to work pulling the petals off of the flowers for our project. I laid out place mat sized pieces of clear contact paper in front of each kid (sticky side up), and they set about pressing all the organic materials onto the contact paper in their own unique designs. Elliot seemed to prefer to place all of her petals and leaves in one of the four corners of the contact paper, so I helped her spread them out, keeping in mind how these might look on our table. After the contact paper was thoroughly covered, I placed another piece on top of the collage (sticky side down) and pressed the two sheets together. I trimmed around the edges with a pair of fancy scissors, and now we have two new place mats to keep our table clean! As we did this project a couple of weeks ago, the petals have been turning various shades of brown, which has provided us a teaching tool to use with our kids. While we probably won't use them forever, they at least keep something decorative on the table while the flowers we are pressing are ready for use!

More Paper Flowers

I'm a bit late on this post, but better late than never! Last week's art project was from a kit that Rebecca received in her Easter basket. It comes from the people who produce those fabulous Klutz kits. I grew up with them, and I am excited to share them with my own kids. Generally they are composed of an instructional booklet with lots of fun ideas as well as a handful of materials to get a person started. They make books about making paper airplanes, making princess tiaras, crocheting, etc. The kit that Rebecca received was for making paper flowers.

The idea is to load a pipe cleaner up with lots of beautiful paper petals, add a leaf or two, a bug sticker, and there you have it. No glue, no scissors, just an easy concept that young children can tackle with minimal assistance. (Elliot didn't really participate in this activity, though she did enjoy bending the pipe cleaners every which way.) We blew through the materials that came with the kit, so we ended up making a trip to Michael's to get some fancy paper, new pipe cleaners, and additional bug stickers. The flowers made nice Easter presents for grandparents, and they are lovely to look at.

Happy Easter!

Last week we colored Easter eggs for our art project. We used the traditional method of decorating the eggs with crayons and then dunking them in various colors of dye. We also experimented with wrapping the eggs in rubber bands prior to submerging them, as well as making a natural dye out of vinegar, chili powder and water. Everyone got pretty into it, even Dad. We were wishing we had hard-boiled more eggs to color.

I half expected Elliot to punch her fingers through the shell of an egg or two during the process, but she was very careful. Both girls' scribbles on the eggs were pretty light, making them difficult to see once the eggs were dyed. Rebecca wanted to try placing a single egg in multiple different dye colors, which resulted in some different tones. Overall it was a an enjoyable project, and somehow the Easter Bunny managed to find our colored eggs and hide them outside for the girls to find on Easter morning. What fun!

And speaking of Easter, I thought I would include a picture of our once-crown-of-thorns from a previous post. After the Easter Vigil Mass I painted and decorated the crown with whatever I could find on hand, symbolizing the crown of the Resurrected Christ. Last year Rebecca helped me decorate our crown with jewels and gold-colored paint, but this year I thought I would add its transformation to the Easter morning surprises. He is risen indeed!

Spring Has Sprung!

It has actually been Spring where we live for quite some time, but with the recent celebration of the Spring Equinox we decided to make some lovely little blooms for this week's art activity. This was definitely another "use whatever's on hand" project. We took pipe cleaners, cupcake papers, napkins and pages of an old magazine to create a bunch of fake flowers. Elliot was only interested in bending pipe cleaners. I don't think she really could've done much more than that given the supplies I put before her. Rebecca and I, however, had fun making each flower it's own special creation.

I got this idea from a Klutz craft book (that Rebecca will likely get in her Easter basket this year, shh!) and thought it would be a good activity. We'll definitely do this again with other types of paper and perhaps some colorful felt. There are lots of possibilities here! And as long as the cat doesn't decide they will make good playthings, we can enjoy their sweetness for many days to come.

The top picture is a cluster of wild irises that have been growing in our gardenia beds since we moved into this house two and a half years ago. I originally thought they were weeds but I was happily surprised when the bloomed the first time. We didn't plant them, but we'll keep them!

Play-Doh

This weeks's art activity was playing with play-doh. While not new for Rebecca, it was Elliot's first experience with the stuff, and I must say that she was not impressed. Elliot, the girl who loves to dig in the dirt and make mud with the water left in the watering cans, didn't much care for the colored dough I placed in front of her. In fact, she spent the entire time opening and closing the play-doh containers. Oh well, better luck next time.

Perhaps the problem stemmed from the fact that Rebecca wanted me to make available all of the pieces in the "Play-Doh Fun Factory Deluxe Set," and when set side by side with a bunch of animal-shaped cookie cutters and child-sized tupperware containers, the gobs of dough weren't all that intriguing. It maybe would've been better to simplify things a bit and offer only the dough to start.

I guess they are bit young to really get into the play-doh process, as Rebecca left her mass of play-doh in a single large ball and poked and prodded at it instead of breaking it up and making things with it. But it was still a fun, tactile experience, and it was easy enough for me to set up and clean up without putting too much energy into planning, gathering new materials, etc. I'll save that for next week.

Oil Pastels

This week's project was to let the girls experiment with oil pastels. I personally have always enjoyed the deep colors and rich textures that come from oil pastels, not to mention the mixing capabilities, and I thought I'd let the girls try something they've never used before. So I gave them each a large piece of butcher paper and set each girl up at a desk in the nursery with the instructions to fill their paper with color.

When I initially brought out the box of oil pastels both

girls knew there was something special inside. These weren't just ordinary crayons that are kept in a jumble in multiple tubs so that each kid can have ownership over her own. Each pastel was laid out

carefully and in keeping with the color spectrum. I think Rebecca spent half of the time playing with the box itself. It wasn't until after much convincing by me that she finally set it down and began to color.

I'm not sure they made any real discoveries about oil pastels, but they did make a few discoveries about butcher paper. Rebecca decided she wanted to try putting the paper on the carpeted floor instead of on the desk, and I mentioned to her that it wouldn't work as well since the carpet is soft. Boy was she excited to see that it did indeed work! Elliot of course wanted to move her paper to the floor as well, and she discovered what crackly sounds the paper can make when stepped on! She then experimented with different poses to use while coloring, her favorite being the "standing on two feet and bending at the waist" position.

Recycling

So last week I will was unfaithful to my resolution: I didn't plan an art project for the girls aside from the almost daily coloring with crayons that they do anyway. I do find the evolution of a child's scribbling quite interesting, and I intend to make that a subject of a future post. Still, I think this is possibly the most success I've ever had with New Year's Resolutions, and I intend to continue full speed ahead.

This week our project was to take a few items from our recycle bin, combined with random objects from our art supply cabinet (namely feathers, buttons, and colored tissue paper) and create three-dimensional sculptures with the help of glue and tape. As soon as Rebecca saw the supplies set out on the table, she was in her chair working on her first (of four) sculptures. Elliot as usual was content to play with the supplies, the buttons in particular, so I attached loops of tape to a couple of recyclables so she could stick the buttons to them at her own pace. Double sided tape would work great for this also. As in previous projects, the buttons she stuck to the tape did not remain there for long as she repeatedly removed and re-stuck said buttons numerous times.

Each sculpture is unique and interesting! We just so happened to have a couple of friends over for this project, so we added their creations to group. I will definitely do this again with different objects.