Birthday Party Centerpeices

I volunteered to make the centerpieces for my good friend Lisa’s, daughter’s birthday.  I’m sure there is a grammar mistake somewhere in that sentence.  Anyway, today was Saige’s first birthday.  I searched around on pinterest for some centerpiece ideas and then came up with my own rendition.  I got the jars for 1.99 at Michaels, along with the cotton candy for filling.  I had to go to Ralph’s for the skewers which I found kind of annoying.  Why doesn’t Michaels carry a package of long sticks?  Seems kind of necessary.  I made flags from different patterned paper and then cut out hearts and decorated them.  Really simple.  The best part was sticking the flags in the cotton candy.  It made this very satisfying kind of silent sound when I stuck them in.  Try it!  I’m telling you.

 

Tissue Paper Balloon Bowls

I love this project!  I’ve posted about it before.  If you want the step by step directions click here.  We made these in kindergarten today for our Thanksgiving tables.  I meant for the color choices to be a bit more “fall,” but we didn’t have any brown tissue paper so now they just look festive.  The most important thing to remember is to pop the balloons as soon as they feel dry.  If you let them sit too long air comes out of the balloons and it all goes down hill quickly from there.  The kids loved watching the pop and hearing the crackle of the balloon removing itself from the modge podged tissue paper.  So much fun!

Textured Turkey Paper Craft

A fellow art teacher at school made these fab textured turkeys with her pre-k students.  I just love them and bet the kids had so much fun making them.  Well done Sara!  I hope Gigi is in your class someday!

Our Kindergarten Community

Kindergarten has been learning all about Community over the past few weeks.  Yesterday we went to the fire station and today we finally completed our “in-house community.”  Well worth the wait I think.  I did it a little differently this year and am very pleased with the changes.  In years past it was more of a free for all.  We would brainstorm places, people, etc. we see in our community and then the kids would sort of go wild with their own creations.  This year, after we brainstormed, I had each student pick a building that interested them and we really focused on that structure.  First we gluechaed (a word I just made up to represent paper mache with only glue and water) it.  Then we painted it.  Then, thanks to one of the kid’s suggestions, made doors and windows, which really meant I slaved over the boxes with an exacto knife while the kids directed me.  Finally, I surprised them with super cool LED lights that I picked up at a garage sale for three bucks, that we glue gunned to their buildings.  This detail totally rocked and really took the experience to the next level.  We made little people from corks and then used the extra corks to create some trees, thanks to this idea I found on pinterest by The Picky Apple.  All in all, a fabulous long term project that the kids keep begging to play with.  So much fun and a great way to reuse some everyday trash. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Ruffle Skirt Take One

It’s Yom Kippur and we’re not in Temple.  I feel kind of bad about that so I wanted to do something that helps me feel close to God today.  A new art project usually does the trick and I’ve been wanting to take my sewing machine out for a whirl.  My friend Carla at BabyJiDesigns made the incredible skirts below for Gigi a few months ago.  I thought I’d try my hand at a few as well.  Not so easy but not crazy hard either.  This is the first one, which came out 3 sizes too small and doesn’t really flare out the way I wanted, but it’s not horrible.  Take two on the way!

Kindergarten and The Five Senses

Every year we start our science curriculum with the 5 Senses.  I finally got my act together and prepped huge pictures of each sense and laminated them so I don’t have to start from scratch every year.  We talked about the 5 Senses as a group and then I instructed the kids to cut out pictures from magazines to match each sense.  They LOVED it!  I think the fun part was leaving the posters all together on the rug so the kids could just come over and decide where the wanted to tape each picture.  I assisted with finding cool cutouts which helped them get even more excited.  This activity was super fun and the kids really got it.  And now I can easily repeat it next year.  Nice!

Getting Ready For Gigi’s Baby Naming

So, we’re having over 50 people over the house in just over a week for Gigi’s baby naming.  Not sure what I was thinking on this one.  I’m slowly but surely gathering all my thoughts and ideas to make it a special day.  Uncle Ted’s coming over tomorrow to help make a chuppah type gazebo type awning type thing in the backyard.  We’ll see how that goes, since it’s supposed to be around a billion degrees on Saturday.  Yesterday I made part one of the bunting I want to hang…somewhere.  And tomorrow I will attempt the rest of it.  Here’s hoping this all comes together as I envision.

Not sure how this guy got involved, but isn’t he cute?

Up and Running (again) and Making Baby Barrettes

Every time I think I’m back in the swing of blogging it doesn’t quite seem to go that way.  I manage one post and then come to a quick halt.  My intention is to post more frequently, which means more daily art projects.  That is definitely what I want!  An 8 week old doesn’t quite coincide with that desire but we’ll see.  Last night and this morning I had some free time while G napped.  Though my girl doesn’t have any hair just yet, I decided to make some barrettes.  I was inspired by a few I saw online, like these and these.  Anyhoo, I ran out of barrettes mid project but still continued on with the tops.  It’s easy enough to get the actual barrette.  I am also OBSESSED with pinterest (follow me!), which lead me to these owls, so I decided to squeeze a little owl in there as well.  Everything was really easy to make.  All you need are some fabric scraps, barrettes or bobbi pins, pinking shears and a glue gun.  Enjoy!

Starburst Picture Frame

I found clear blocks for a dollar at Michael’s the other day and I’ve been waiting to feel inspired.  Inspiration struck today with my camera back in business.  These starburst picture frames, as Ev likes to call them, are super easy and pretty limitless. All you need is cardboard, glue, scissors, sequins (which are missing from the photo) a photo or drawing, paper or old folders, and a clear block of plastic.   Here’s how you do it.

1.  First, cut out a small circle from the cardboard.  If you don’t have a circle to trace I like to just cut off the corners of a square- a great kindergarten TLC lesson trick.

2.  Next cut out long triangle shapes from cool paper and folders.

3.  Glue the paper around the perimeter of the circle.

4.  Cut out the shape of the photo to match your clear block and glue it down in the center.

5.  Then take a super cool book like this one and use it to flatten down the triangles.  The folder pieces tend to curl up.

6.  Glue your clear block onto the photo.

7.  Glue lots of sequins around the photo block.

8.  Love and admire your creation and then give it to a friend as a gift!  This one’s going straight to New York to my friend Molly, age 7.

Collage Self Portraits

I LOVE this project.  It was so much fun to make and the kids had a good laugh at the results.  We call them whacky, yet beautiful.  Just like people.  I got the idea from an art project I saw at a friends house.  I embellished it a bit here and there.  I’d love to give the creator credit, but I don’t know who she is.  The steps are pretty easy.  Basically, take a 9×17 piece of construction paper and hold horizontally.  I pre cut heads, necks and chests for all the kids.  I gave step by step directions for gluing them down.  For the chest, the kids picked a pattern paper and glued on the template, then cut around the template.  This kind of cutting is great for kindergarteners because there is a guide/barrier for cutting.  After the body parts were glued down we added the border, which was made from pre-cut small squares from old magazines.  I tried to pick colorful magazine covers for this part so the paper was a little thicker.  After, I set up tons of magazine faces of girls, boys, men and women on the floor and the kids got to choose which ones they wanted to cut from.  This was crucial because looking through magazines with a group of 16 five years olds is not the greatest.  This way they could focus right in on the facial features they wanted to use.  After all the facial features were glued on, Brigitte helped the kids find letters in the mags to spell their names and paste to their shirts.  Last but definitely not least, the kids directed me on the hairstyle they wanted and I cut it out.  A few did it themselves.  I was okay with this since we had already spent a nice amount of time on the other parts.  Another way to do it would be to paint on the hair.  The likeness to the designers on some of these is pretty hilariously spot on.  Super fun project and a great keepsake at home.  I want to frame mine in a lucite box frame.

This was my sample.