kid krafts

The day before St. Patrick's Day, I realized that Ellis did not possess a single item of green clothing. And since these things are sometimes important to kindergartners and I never know what kind of theme-y thing they might hype up at school, I thought we better make a green shirt fast. He's going to need Tshirts for summer anyway.

So while at Target, I picked up a simple white T and meant to get the same for Marlowe, but there were none white in his size, so I got him green. Thus, I introduced Ellis to tie-dye. I have some green dye in my stash. (remember this?) And there's nothing more awesome than stirring a pot of dye. Thankfully, I managed to restrain myself from dyeing everything in sight. With Marlowe's shirt, I tried reverse tie-dyeing with bleach. I think I left it in too long, though. Oh well, they both ended up with fun green shirts.

Ellis was extremely proud of his.

That was the day we went to the zoo.

yea, so those last two of DPP? They aren't going anywhere, so I'm going to recover from my guilt-fest. Post them already, and move on to New Years posts and all that.

December 24

I thought that after the cardboard box "presents" under the tree picture, I ought to prove that the children were, indeed, well-endowed on Christmas morning. Much thanks to the paternal unit for doing pretty much all the wrapping. (Though I had to rewrap a couple that Marlowe "practiced" opening while we were waiting for Grammy and Poppy to arrive on Cmas morning)

December 25--The Big Day!

So this may be a totally uninspiring photo. Out of all possible pictures that could be had on Christmas, I had to choose one that had to be edited to smithereens because it was so hard to make out. But it captures one of my favorite moments of the day. After all that wonderful time with my wonderful family, of course. I had gotten Ellis a couple of art books, like with projects in them, not the kind with color plates and you leave on your coffee table. One of them was Good Earth Art by MaryAnn Kohl (love her!!!), with art projects focused on the world around us, either taking in nature, or clever ways for reusing materials. In the pile of Christmas Awesomeness, these books took a back seat. I figured they were more of a do-with-mom thing anyway, which was fine. As evening drew on, though, I looked over to the dining room table to see Ellis studying this book intently and then setting about on a project to make this little house from one of the many boxes then littering the premises. He's more of a Line the Cars up Rows Over and Over kind of kid, and not really a Making Projects kind of kid, so this had an extra measure of beam and joy from me. Definitely a highlight of my day.

Salad spinner art. Big hit with the 2yo.

I'm officially a fan of September. After a sizzling summer, September is coming in as a soothing balm.

Ellis had off the last two days of his first week of school for Rosh Hashanah. So on Thursday we enjoyed a crazy trip to the zoo where met up with the family of one of his school mates, which was total last minute Facebook kind of meetup, and great fun for the kids. And on Friday I took the boys for a little hike in Fairmount Park.

We stopped for a picnic. And then I brought out drawing things that I had packed. I told Ellis to try to draw things that he sees, he said, "the water, the trees, the light coming through the trees." then a little while later, "I see my family." Melt a mama's heart!

I got these soy "rock" crayons for the kids, and they are so nice to use. Perfect for Marlowe's little hand and for making leaf rubbings.

Last week I was browsing around a couple of shops, and I stumbled on a new store in a nearby neighborhood. It's a children's clothing retail store, but dedicated to more sustainable clothing options: recycled (aka gently used *grin*), eco-friendly, handmade, natural, that kind of stuff. I'm so excited bc I can bring in some of my gently used stuff, and they'll buy it outright, not consignment. And I might sell some of my Tshirts that I make--will just have to see if I'm up for that. (The store is The Nesting House in Mt. Airy and only goes through 5T.)

But I really hit jackpot with the basket of used Playmobil people and accessories. Woohoo!! I just had a little cash on me, so I just grabbed a couple of pirates and brought them home to Ellis.

One of the units for Ellis's summer session at school was pirates, so it's been all "Argh!" around our house. Then Ellis wanted boats for the pirates. I folded some paper boats for him, and he drew the cutest treasure map ever.

Of course, Marlowe had to have a boat, too:

Oops, man overboard!!

AAARGH!

I have a little back blogging to do, since I didn't get a chance to blog out VBS before we went on vacation.

I was in charge of crafts. And I feel need to reinvent the curriculum. I want the kids to take home something that their moms will like to look at and won't feed Clutter Monsters or get thrown in the garbage out of Clutter frustration. And to me, the curriculum does do just that. It certainly doesn't spark any creativity. I just couldn't do essentially busywork with the kids. Okay, soapbox over.

What I came up with was more Art-y than Craft-y, but that was fine. I also had to come up with something that would work for 2-12yos. Now, I pretty much owe everything to The Artful Parent blog and MaryAnn Kohl books. Both fantastic resources that I utterly depend on in my daily life. So I basically got all my ideas from there. I was happy with what I came up with.

Day 1
This was actually really practical. I ordered a bunch of blank canvas totes from the internet and had the kids decorate them with fabric pastels and markers. Then they had a handy bag for carrying around all their VBS detritus, and a useful souvenir of the week, too. We just used Marlowe's at the library yesterday.

Day 2
Bubble wrap printing. I though this would be great for the younger kids. I tried to think of another printing project for the older kids, but nothing was really working. I have to keep things pretty simple due to limited time and resources. So I ended up doing this for everyone, and they all loved it! I let the older kids squirt their own paint on their paper plate so they could experiment with color, but the youngers just chose one color.

Last year I collected old Tshirts from around church, and we use those as art smocks. I slit up the back, and we do a quick safety pin. Works really well. I also have dish pans full of soapy water right at our work station for quick cleaning of hands. We protect the tables by taping down plastic party tablecloths.

Day 3
I figured I could pass off wax resist paintings as magic to the 1st graders. I was unprepared for how excited the older kids got over this. I didn't even try to do the whit crayon part resist with the 2-3yos (maybe at home--but in that setting, too chaotic). They stuck stickers that they could paint over. I made several cups of liquid watercolor, and that worked pretty well.

Day 4
This was perhaps the awesomest yet. Tissue paper stained glass. Perhaps a bit more intense on the setup end of things. We taped down contact paper sticky side up. The kids then stuck the tissue paper on and we covered with contact paper. Then the older kids decorated with sharpie. (See this book a la Artful Parent) The kids loved this and really got into it.

And I loved covering the windows with their finished project.

Day 5
For the last day, we needed something super easy, quick,and simple. Beads + lanyard. The perfect campy craft.

I was really happy with how things turned out. I don't have any background in art--heck, I never even had an art class in school. But I've learned a lot from the blogosphere and my personal interests. I loved making a creative space for the 40+ kids that week. There was such great variety.

No, no funky seersucker pants this year. But I have been making some fun stuff for our vacation. (We leave tomorrow!! yay!)

For Marlowe:

When Ellis was 2, I got two blank Tshirts at Target, always meaning to freezer paper stencil them. Never got around to it, and he wore those shirts blank all summer. Always felt bad about it.
Well, now Marlowe is 2, and I got him two blank Ts at Target, bc he needed a couple extra shirts. And this time I got around to it!

I did an applique squirrel on one, and a freezer paper stencil of wind turbines on the other. I love the funky birds of the Jay MacCarroll print Germania. I'm using it in every thing, so sorry for the deja vu. :) I'm a little bummed my stencil got a little smudged. I ended up with several layers of paint.

Also for M. I was doing a lamination project for E (see below), so I wanted to do something for M to feel included. I laminated a bunch of pics that I got printed out at Staples, and stuck magnetic tape to the back of them. With a magnetic dry erase board, he is set. (He will NOT be getting a marker!)

For Ellis:

This is project I'm most excited about.

E loves writing words! He's constantly asking us how to spell things. He can't read yet (he just turned 5!), but he's doing a lot great preliteracy things. I made these sheets for him in the Mac Pages program. Pictures of things relevant to vacation, with the words, and a space for him to write the word. I printed them at Staples and got them to laminate them. He can write on them with dry erase marker now! They turned out awesome! I'm so excited about it!! I think he'll love these.

It's been hard to come back to my blog this week. To face that fact that I actually wrote "I love snow" a week ago. Before four feet of snow was dumped on our city over the course of the week. The amount of snow is astounding.

Needless, to say, we haven't been going many places. And the time at home has been nice. The boys have played, colored, watched movies.

I bought Marlowe these beeswax crayons for Christmas. We've really been enjoying them.

They are smooth like pastels, but not messy. And the smell is a deliciously sweet waxiness.

I sat and drew with them. I drew pictures of spring leaves and birds. Ellis, who usually draws monochromatic line drawings, drew rainbows. Marlowe scribbled in circular patterns.

In February I'm blogging things I love. Join me if you like and I'll link you.
For more love visit:
Gentle Home
Through a Glass, Darkly

I got a little help from my mom today and holed up to work on Handmade Holidays. So lots of creating in my neck of the woods, but nothing I can share yet. I'm sharing Marlowe's creativity from yesterday. I had Ellis and Paints and Handmade Holiday action going yesterday, so I put a couple of drops of liquid watercolor into a bowl of water for M, and he had so much mixing and pouring, basically his two favorite activities.

I hadn't intended to use this for today's DPP, but coming up dry in other respects. I just love this picture so much. I was addressing Christmas cards at the dining room table, and Ellis was just drawing. He made all these faces and told me that they were "happy," "sad," "angry." There's even some spare mouths at the bottom. He's into square people lately, hence the square heads. A recent family portrait had us all in rectangular body shapes. i love this!