Found this tutorial over at Counting Coconuts and thought I’d make some myself.
Sew So easy and Brother has already gotten use out of them while working math sheets but mostly they’ve been used as pretend pizza.
It took me an afternoon of cutting and sewing off and on to complete the set but I’m sure it could be done in less time sans interruption. The double layers of felt make them very sturdy so that even the littlest can have a turn.
Found these cutesy little wooden dolls on the clearance rack at Hobby Lobby and thought Dora might enjoy playing with them.
As it turns out Sister is enjoying them more. 
Last year the subject of art didn’t receive a lot of attention. Sure we did projects here and there. Sister even participated, for a time, in an actual art class. But the hassle of pulling out art supplies when there was already so much baby paraphernalia around just didn’t appeal to me and consequently, art fell by the wayside despite good intentions.
This year I’m trying to be more intentional because the kids love art. They like learning about the artists and talking about the paintings and they love the doing of art. Since I have much less time to plan elaborate projects, this year we are working from the book, Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Masters by MaryAnn F. Kohl and Kim Solga. The idea of this book captured me as soon as I saw it. The authors provide a bit of background on a given artist and then present a simple project in the style of that artist. Such artistic styles as Renaissance, Romantic, Impressionist, Abstract, and Surrealist are represented along with a number of others and introduced, basically, in order of their occurrence in history. We will tackle a new artist and project every third week and at this rate there is more than enough material for three school years worth of study. Woohoo! Art planning done for the next 3 years.
This week we discovered Edouard Manet ~ our first in a series of impressionists. (The book doesn’t begin with the impressionists, in fact it’s chronological from the 1300’s forward, but the advent of Impressionism better matched where we are in history so I chose to start there.) Early in the week we talked about Manet himself and looked at a few of his paintings online. The Google Art Project is awesome for this sort of thing because you can zoom in on many of the paintings and really get a sense of brushstrokes and color. The two we looked at were In the Conservatory and The House at Rueil.
To see a greater variety of Manet artwork we looked here; focusing especially on his still life paintings since that is what our project would be based on.
Today was the day for actual artwork: Still-Life in Melted Crayon. Do to the “melted” nature of this project I chose to wait until the Littles were sleeping before proceeding though in the future I plan to include them as much as possible.
First I set up some still-life arrangements – (Actually, the first thing I did is cover my table in plastic.)
Unfortunately, real fruit was not available today. Many thanks to Dora who let me raid her play kitchen for replacements.
Classic “Puppy on books” arrangement. What’s that you say? It’s not a classic? Hmm, you’re probably not a “Dogs Playing Poker” fan either.
Next, we broke crayons into a muffin tin and placed them in the oven to melt. (The book said to use old broken crayons but we already used all ours up this summer on a different project so I got a new box of 24.) It made waaay more paint than we actually needed so afterwards we let it cool and will store it away for another day. For painting rocks, perhaps?
Fortunately, we had 12 (one for each color) cheap brushes from watercolor kits long since used up. If you don’t have this many then q-tips would make a good substitute.
Whatever you use be prepared to throw it out afterward or save it to do this project again. They won’t be good for much else.
We practiced our technique on plain paper before starting our actual paintings. I recommend using a heavyweight paper because I noticed later that the test papers began to curl. Oh, one more thing – that’s an electric griddle in the front there. We covered it with foil and placed our muffin tin on it to keep the wax melted while we worked.
The results:
Brother’s Puppy
Sister’s Puppy
Sister’s Fruit Basket
and my attempt.
Our favorite part about this was the textures it produced. So fun to feel the paintings once they cooled.
Let me know if you try this. I’d love to see how it turns out!
Our family is hosting a pet show this Saturday (more on that after the fact) and there are lots of things to do in preparation. Namely, we must have ribbons. Cute ribbons. Ribbons that scream, “Win me!! Win me!!” but don’t cost an arm and a leg. So this is what we did.
Start with 2 feet of 1“ wide ruffled ribbon cut into 8 equal pieces. (That’s 3” each.)
You will also need 6 inches of coordinating 1.5” ribbon.
Make diagonal cuts on each end of the larger ribbon like so:
Now you have this:
From coordinating cardstock cut two 1 3/4” circles. I have this handy dandy scalloped punch so we used that.
It’s time to start assembling.
On the back side of your circle glue 4 pieces of ribbon in a cross.
We used hot glue which sped the process considerably since we didn’t have to wait for anything to dry.
Now fill in with the remaining 4 pieces of ruffled ribbon
Once all eight pieces are secured begin folding and gluing each piece back on itself creating a loop.
When all the loops are made attach the pointed end of the larger ribbon piece to the back.
Now attach your second cardstock circle to cover all the glue and unfinished edges.
Your done!
Oh and remember how I said they wouldn’t break the bank. Final cost approx 35 cents per ribbon. To be fair we snatched our ribbon up at a 50% off sale but even at 70 cents per these cuties are highly affordable and oh so awardable. 
They can also be made with paper.
Yesterday Sister asked if we could make a dress for one of her Barbie dolls. Sure, I thought, I can find some stretchy material and artfully arrange it around Barbie such that it slightly resembles an outfit but this was not what Sister meant. She meant actually sew a Barbie dress and at this though I balked because my sewing machine and I are incompatible. We’ve tried to make it work (created some curtains together, hemmed a couple of jeans) but our relationship has never become what you’d call serious. In fact it spends the bulk of its time in the closet cleverly disguised as a clothes rack. But for Sister I would try again. After all, how hard could it be to make something for an 11 inch doll. …… Ahem.
We worked on it most of the day off and on (mostly off when I snuck away and ate oreos to relieve stress) but finally after much broken thread and bobbins that inexplicably stop producing stitches it was completed. Sister loves it. I see mostly flaws but I wanted to share it with you today so that I could also share this wonderful tutorial without which this sewing challenged mom could not have made her little girl’s day.
BTW – I also found these other great links for doll clothes which I may also try …. after I get another package of oreos in the house. After all, there’s no use starting a project unprepared.
Art you spend hours on then
give? away?
Why?
What’s the point?
I need a point.
Try it?
Why?
I might like it? Hah!
Fat chance of that but okay
just once … for you …
because you like it.
I think it’s silly
a waste of time ….
a …. a …. release …..
hmmm, nothing to do with
nothing but … fun …
a little (maybe a lot)
rewarding.
Okay ~ you got me.
This is my first attempt at an Artist Trading Card. I printed two copies of the picture (taken many years ago in a college photography class), wove them together and modge podged the top after adding the words.
It’s not exactly what I envisioned but all in all, I was pleased. And the recipient seemed to like it well enough.
Each Wednesday, Grandma and Papa bring my niece for an afternoon of play. The kids do well enough together on their own but today I thought it might be fun to have a project. Brother’s been learning about cave dwellers and our art book has a great picture of the Lascaux cave paintings. A quick search turned up this fun art project.
First the making of the mud … I mean, paint. We collected the dirt ourselves but left the lard making to Crisco. I’ve been down that road before and it ain’t pretty.
See all those bowls? You can never have too many shades of brown.
We hung open paper bags in a little alcove outside my front door then had the kids go into their “cave” and start painting. Technically speaking letting them paint directly on the brick would have been more realistic but the Lascaux paintings have been there for hundreds of years and I wasn’t sure I wanted muddy drawings on my alcove for that long.
Ultimately this experience taught us that although cave paintings may look primitive anyone who can get mud to look like anything other than mud is one heck of an artist.
Sister’s creation - complete with sunbather, surfer, fish & shark in the water.
Brother’s slightly more abstract creation.
A local art show hosts featuring all sorts of professional art and music hosts a youth gallery as well. In years past I’ve not paid much attention to the event but this year Sister is old enough to enter and (wonder of wonders) actually wanted to enter. Even so she seemed reluctant to share any of the art she’s done in the past deeming each piece imperfect in some way or another AND she seemed reluctant to create any new pieces held back by an invisible thread of fear that they too would fall short of perfection. Finally she produced a simple pencil sketch of a goose head that while great for a sketch didn’t really qualify as an art show entry. It lay on my desk for a couple of days. I was unsure how to tell her that an art show entry deserved more time than the 3 to 5 minutes she’d spent…. or even if I should tell her. I had no suggestions for something better and I did want to support her effort - slight though it was. Then lying in bed last night just before sleep overtook all thought, it came to me - a project divided into small pieces so as not to overwhelm; a subject she consistently drew with confidence and a chance to use most every medium in our arsenal.
The finished piece consists of nine 5″x5″ squares and the word “Heart!” mounted on a 16″ x 20″ piece of matte board.
Descriptions from right to left and top to bottom:
Watercolor heart, Bead “necklace”, Humpty-Heart Dumpty in ink and colored pencil
Clown heart in marker and foil shapes, a sunset scene in chalk, Curly cue Heart done with markers that change color
Checkered heart in crayon, Glitter heart, and Pipe cleaner with colored pencil border.
Though I cut out the letters she’d drawn and mounted the finished squares Sister completed the rest of the project on her own. (That is to say she did all the drawing and gluing and such while I sat nearby and praised each artistic choice.) She started at 9am and we delivered the finished work at 4:25. She was so proud. I was proud that we made it through an eight hour project together without a major meltdown and from the experience I gleaned these nuggets:
Lesson #1 - It may seem a little thing to the untrained eye but this artwork represents a great accomplishment. Sister would never have stuck with an ordinary project of that size but somehow because each portion was so small and because the goal of each was clearly defined she worked with gusto and was even heard to say, “Mom, I’m glad you thought of this! It’s so much fun.” …. more than once. This is important lesson for me - the mom, the teacher to understand. I am comfortable with large tasks finding it easy to organize the parts. Goals in my world are rarely unclear or poorly defined. But these skills do not come easy to everyone. To some they must be taught … cultivated - Sister is one of these.
Lesson #2 - Sister is so social that tasks done alone are drudgery but I can easily make a task worth doing or even fun simply by being present and engaged. For a mom, who like most mothers, is a multi-tasker extroidonaire sitting in one place doing “nothing” but offering encouragement to a single soul seems like a waste of resources but it is important nonetheless. In fact, it is far more important than the laundry left undone and the dishes in the sink.
Lesson #3 - Variety is the Spice of Life or Ditching School Makes Things Fun. This one I knew but it bears repeating. The curriculum is great as a guide but all work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy indeed. Sister enjoyed the day because it was different and I enjoyed it because she was happy.
A local museum hosts a free family art class every other Saturday. Today’s theme was the art, particularly sculpture of Ancient Mesoamerica. Sister surprised us (and our tour guide) by correctly defining “effigy” (in the representation of a god sense) and then later refused to make one because, “They don’t look real and what’s the point in making something that’s not real.” Instead she chose to produce a candle holder/birthday cake and a snake. Will made a totem, “because it’s easy.”
I paid homage to the God of Naptime - because napping is a thing near and dear to my heart and there has been far to little of it around here lately.
I was most impressed with Brother’s creation as he truly seemed to grasp the Aztec artistic style.
ever practical and slightly crunchy; the wife of my best friend and the mother of four incredible little teachers. Each day we explore our world and when there is time I come here to share our discoveries with you. My name is Toni. Thanks for stopping by.
