Tag Archives: art

Secret Messages

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Crayons, wax and oil pastels are great at repelling water coulour paint. This property makes them a good choice for writing secret messages. White is the best colour to use on white paper as it is hard to see the writing before adding the paint! Unfortunately A chose to use a white oil pastel and our paper was more of a beige colour (blank newspaper print), so the messages weren’t quite as secret as they might have been 🙂

My message for L and A.

My message for L and A.

A wrote out all of the sight words that she is currently working on in white oil pastel. L drew a picture and wrote messages. Then the kids used their water colour paints to bring the messages to life.

Writing her sight words.

Writing her sight words.

Painting on the water colours.

Painting on the water colours.

We had fun writing messages to eachother, which were then ‘discovered’ by adding paint. This is also a great activity for practicing spelling words as well as sight words.

A word 'discovered'.

A word ‘discovered’.

Words appearing through the paint.

Words appearing through the paint.

 

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Sight Words Finger Painting

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IMG_3893Finger painting last week was so much fun, A asked if we could practice her sight words with finger paint. This time we used ordinary poster paint (Baby T was sleeping), and we squirted some into one of our play tubs. The tub was yellow, so we used green paint as it gave us a good contrast.

Squirts of paint.

Squirts of paint.

Smoothing the paint around the tray.

Smoothing the paint around the tray.

A had a great time spreading the paint around the bottom of the tray, squishing and sliding in it. When she was ready, she smoothed the paint across the bottom of the tray, and then proceeded to use the tip of her index finger to write her words. When she had filled the tray with words, she smoothed the paint over, and wrote some more words.

Writing a word.

Writing a word.

Writing more words.

Writing more words.

Potato Stamping

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Potato stamps.

Potato stamps.

There were some potatoes going soft at the back of the cupboard. I used two of them to make some stamps. Each potato I cut in half, and then cut a basic shape into the flesh of the potato. I used a small, sharp knife to cut away the extra potato, so I had to be very careful.

We used giant paint pads to apply the paint to the potato. These kind of stamping pads are great because they prevent excess paint getting on the stamp, and also avoids waste.

Potato on the paint pad.

Potato on the paint pad.

A stamping.

A stamping.

A used the potato stamps to stamp randomly all over the piece of paper. It looked very interesting, and she had fun. We will save this paper as wrapping paper.

 

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Finger Painting

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Finger painting palette.

Finger painting palette.

In order to make finger painting available for Baby T, I tried making some home-made edible paint. It probably wouldn’t taste very nice, but I just wanted something that wouldn’t hurt him if he put it in his mouth! So I mixed up a runny mixture of cornflour, water and food colouring, making it thick enough to feel like paint but thin enough to spread. It’s just a runny version of the slime we like to have sensory and messy play with.

Dipping her fingers.

Dipping her fingers.

Drizzling paint onto paper.

Drizzling paint onto paper.

Finger painting.

Finger painting.

The kids had a good time spreading the paint around in the tubs, drizzling it to make patterns, and swirling it together. They squished their fingers through it, and then made some paper prints from it. The paper soaked up the coloured water from the cornflour, leaving pretty patterns on the paper. They also used it to paint directly onto paper.

Paint in the tub ready to use for prints.

Paint in the tub ready to use for prints.

Once they were finished, it all washes off with soap and water. This was an inexpensive, easy and fun activity for a lazy Saturday afternoon.

A print.

A print.

L's finger painting of a red sunset.

L’s finger painting of a red sunset.

Christmas Garland

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IMG_3248Tucked away in the craft drawers I found a packet of cardboard Christmas garland shapes. It consisted of ten pieces of alternating bauble and snowflake shapes that could be decorated and then combined to string across the wall or the top of a door or window.

Shaking on glitter.

Shaking on glitter.

Glitter was the only decorating material we considered, so we took the glitter tub and the cardboard garlands outside. The kids painted on glue with paintbrushes and then shook glitter onto the glue.

Creating patterns with the glitter.

Creating patterns with the glitter.

L made some interesting patterns on her baubles and snowflakes. She added glue in a swirl shape and covered it with one colour of glitter, and then blew the excess off. Then, she placed glue in the plain section and added a different colour of glitter to this glue. She also did some stripes using the same method. These look great.

Some of the garlands hanging up to dry.

Some of the garlands hanging up to dry.

Glitter patterns.

Glitter patterns.

A liked to use lots of different colours all over hers, which also look great. At least twice, the lid of one of the glitter tubes came off, dumping a heap of glitter onto the shapes. As there was a lot of glitter left on the muck mat, I painted glue all over the last two pieces of garland, and then pressed them glue side down into the excess glitter. The glitter colours were very mixed up, but I liked the way they came up, and we didn’t waste too much glitter!

Ready to be combined to make a lovely glittery garland string.

Ready to be combined to make a lovely glittery garland string.

Once the garland pieces were completely dry, I stapled them together, end to end. We tied the finished garland from the curtain rod on our large lounge room windows. It is quite festive!

Hanging from the curtain rod.

Hanging from the curtain rod.

Fingerprint Christmas Cards

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There were Christmas craft ideas in some of the email newsletters from Educational Experience in the lead up to Christmas. One of the ideas was to create fingerprint Christmas cards. We tried this out at home, making Christmas trees and candy canes with our fingers.

A liked to smudge her fingerprints together for her trees.

A liked to smudge her fingerprints together for her trees.

L carefully creating a tree.

L carefully creating a tree.

We started with plain white cards. The kids used green paint to create a triangle for the tree, and then brown paint for the trunk. The candy canes were alternating red and white fingerprints in a cane shape.

A making a candy cane.

A making a candy cane.

To finish the cards, we added sparkly star stickers to the top of the trees, and little Christmas stickers in the corners of the candy cane cards.

This was a quick activity with minimal mess. And the end result looked good. We gave these cards to teachers and staff at the kids’ school. The card’s recipients were very impressed. On the back of each card I wrote the name of the child that painted the card, along with the year and the class that the kids were in.

Spotty Dotty Christmas Wrap

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Foam dabbers.

Foam dabbers.

It’s easy and fun to make your own Christmas wrapping paper, as long as you don’t mind a little mess along the way! We used glitter paints in silver, gold, green and red, and white paint mixed with glitter. The kids applied the paint using little foam dabbers, basically a foam piece attached to a handle for easy use. We could have done similar painting using pieces of round sponge, but I find the handled variety a little less messy for the kids to use.

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L painting a tree.

L painting a tree.

A painting.

A painting.

L used the dabbers to make spotty Christmas trees and lines, while A just put random spots all over the paper. A also made one picture of flowers out of spots, which we won’t use as wrapping paper, we will place it up on the wall instead.

A's lovely flower picture.

A’s lovely flower picture.

Calico Bags

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A spotty calico bag.

A spotty calico bag.

We have re-usable bags of all shapes, sizes, and colours. Some of my favourite bags are the calico ones, they are lightweight and scrunch up small enough to carry in my bag. They are great for shopping and make perfect library bags, but they can be a bit boring to look at, so we took fabric paint to some new calico bags to make them unique and appealing.

The tin of fabric paint.

The tin of fabric paint.

Squeezy bottles of paint.

Squeezy bottles of paint.

A while ago my mother had given me a tin of old fabric paint tubes. She wasn’t sure if they were any good, but thought I might like to try them out. As we went through the tin we found only a couple of the tubes were dried out completely, but almost all of the nozzles were clogged. For these tubes, I cut the end off them to access the paint. There were also some 3D fabric paints in squeezy bottles that were still fine to use too.

Making hand prints.

Making hand prints.

We set out our calico bags with a piece of cardboard inside to prevent the paint from seeping through to the other side, and pegged the bag taunt to make it easier to paint. The kids did hand prints, used stampers, paint brushes, and squeezed the 3D paint directly onto the bags to make each one special. They had a ball. And when all the bags were finished, we waited until then were touch dry, and turned them over and did the other side.

Stamping.

Stamping.

Squeezing on 3D paint.

Squeezing on 3D paint.

Brushing on paint.

Brushing on paint.

Splotching paint on.

Splotching paint on.

Spreading the paint.

Spreading the paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we were finished, we were all covered in paint, but we had had fun. Some of the paint didn’t come off as easily as others, and I needed to use some mineral turpentine to remove it from our hands and brushes. The kids thought it was super disgusting! Next time we buy fabric paint I will be checking to make sure it will wash off with soapy water.

Once fully dry, I heat set the paint with the iron. I used a tea towel over the design whilst ironing to protect the design, and prevent any stray bits of paint adhering to my iron. The finished bags look great, and are much more fun than the plain ones!

Dinosaur stamped bag.

Dinosaur stamped bag.

Hand print bag.

Hand print bag.

Rainbow Bookmarks

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I really love my laminator, it is so useful! Apart from preserving the children’s awards and other valuable mementos, it makes creating unique and durable bookmarks a breeze.

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For these fantastic rainbow bookmarks, we used colour diffusing paper (I bought it from Modern Teaching Aids). This sort of paper sucks up the colour and spreads it and mixes it, creating unusual and interesting patterns. Paper towel and coffee filters also provide a similar effect. This paper works well with water colour paints. Using felt tip markers (textas) to draw on the paper, and then using a spray bottle to wet the paper will also cause the colour to spread and mix. But for bright, vibrant colours, we always come back to using a few drops of food colouring in a small amount of water.

The kids used pipettes to place the coloured water onto the paper. They did big squirts and little drops, lines and puddles, using a range of colours. They enjoyed watching the colour spread out, and making new colours by overlapping the food colouring. They filled up each page with brilliant colour, and in A’s case, so much colour that some of the paper was actually dripping when I laid it out to dry!

A tray of food colouring and pipettes.

A tray of food colouring and pipettes.

Big spots.

Big spots.

And little dots. The blue and red puddle is mixing to give purple.

And little dots. The blue and red puddle is mixing to give purple.

Making lines.

Making lines.

 

 

 

 

 

I laid each of the wet pages out on a piece of scrap cardboard to dry flat.

 

Once these pages are dry, we can use them as beautiful and unique papers for any of our paper crafts.

Still wet paper.

Still wet paper.

Still wet. The pattern from the much mat can be seen through it.

Still wet. The pattern from the much mat can be seen through it.

 

 

A chose one sheet of paper to use for our bookmarks. The page was 30cm long, so I cut out six bookmarks, each 5cm across, by the width of the paper. I drew a faint pencil line on the back of the paper using a ruler to keep it straight, and then cut them apart. We fit three of these paper strips into an A4 laminating pocket, leaving plenty of room between the strips to make sure the plastic was properly sealed around the paper. L helped me position the laminating pocket and feed it into the laminator. It only takes a few moments for the laminating to finish, and then a few more to cool down.

The same page, dry and ready to use.

The same page, dry and ready to use.

I carefully cut the new bookmarks apart from each other, leaving a border of plastic seal around each one. I rounded the corners of each bookmark to remove the sharp point. L punched a hole in the top of each bookmark, and chose a ribbon to thread through the top. Once the ribbons were tied, the bookmarks were finished and ready to be used.

The paper cut into strips.

The paper cut into strips.

In the laminating pocket ready to be laminated.

In the laminating pocket ready to be laminated.

 

 

 

 

 

Finished bookmarks.

Finished bookmarks.

 

 

 

Tissue Paper Flower Art

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Sheets of tissue paper.

Sheets of tissue paper.

Spring has sprung, and A is feeling like doing lots of flowery arts and crafts at the moment. She made this delightful picture by scrunching up circular sheets of tissue paper into small balls and gluing them onto a sheet of blue paper.

Gluing down the tissue paper balls.

Gluing down the tissue paper balls.

Every time she scrunched up a piece of tissue paper, she said “Scrunching it up like I don’t want it any more.” And then she would stick it down using Clag glue. She even put a sun up in the corner to help the flowers grow. The stems, leaves and grass, she drew using green markers.

Adding grass.

Adding grass.