Art

Activities, Art, Fall, Preschool, Toddlers

Our Fall Crafts

September 30, 2019

Are you looking for some quick fall crafts? Here are some of the crafts Rosebud and I have done so far this fall. These are simple glueing activities that are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers.

Leafy Tree

Supplies

Leaves,

Paper,

Glue,

Green paint.

First, we made this leafy tree. It started out as just a simple leaf collage. Rosebud and I went for a walk and found a bunch of leaves. She wanted to make art with them, so we just started gluing. After she glued all the leaves, we realized there was a vertical space in the middle, so we painted it green to look like a tree.

To make it look more like a tree, you can draw the outline first or use other natural items to decorate it.

Halloween Spider

Supplies

Craft sticks,

Pompoms,

Google eyes,

Glue,

Glitter,

Construction paper.

I asked Rosebud what she wanted to make one afternoon and she really wanted to make a spider. When I asked her how she wanted to make it, she said she wasn’t sure, so I looked through my craft basket. We started off by gluing craft sticks for legs, adding a pompom for the body and then adding the eyes. Then she wanted to add a mouth and nose. To top it off, she wanted to add glitter and there is our Halloween spider. Not scary, but definitely a Rosebud creation.

Haunted House

Supplies

Craft sticks,

Construction paper,

Halloween foam stickers,

Jewels,

Glitter,

Glue.

I found a bunch of Halloween stickers at the dollar store and thought they’d be great for a collage. I got the idea to do a haunted house, so we did a 2d version with craft sticks. This project is great for fine motor skills because not only are they gluing and arranging items, but pealing stickers as well. Plus halloween is right around the corner. We started this project by painting a big piece of white paper all black for the night sky. At Rosebud’s haunted house, there is a pumpkin patch, a graveyard, the bat cave and the night sky with half moons and stars. Not to mention all the black cats and ghosts in and around the actual house. We had fun with this one.

Here are some supplies for your convenience.
 
 
 
What crafts are you doing this fall? Tell me in the comments.

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Activities, Art, Preschool, Toddlers

A Simple Ocean Collage

June 27, 2019

Here is a quick art activity for toddlers or preschoolers. I did this with my toddler class several years ago and they loved it. I was looking through old photos and found pictures of their collages. By the end our floor and table were covered with little white sticker papers, but they had a good time and worked on their fine motor skills in the process.

What you’ll need:

Ocean themed foam stickers and some kind of ocean themed paper. I found these scrap book ocean sheets at a local craft store, but you could also use blue construction paper or print out ocean pictures from online. If you are adventurous or want the project to have an extra level, you could have your children paint their paper before adding the foam stickers. That would stretch the project over a couple days. Otherwise, it’s so simple and you only need two materials.
 
I can’t find a link for the sheets that I bought, but here are some other ideas. You can cut a square from this role or make a larger display.

Here are the the collages made by my little friends who would be in first and second grade now. How time flies! As a side note, sorry for the lower quality of the images. The lighting in the classroom wasn’t that great, but at least you can see them.

Do you have any simple art activities planned for your kiddos this summer? Tell me in the comments.

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Activities, Art, Gift Giving, Parenting, Recipes, Toddlers

Salt Dough Keepsakes

November 11, 2018

I wanted to come up with an inexpensive and creative gift for my mother’s birthday. I also wanted Rosebud to be involved in making it so I decided to see what we could create with salt dough.

Ingredients:

1 cup salt,
2 cups all purpose flour,
1 cup warm water,
A pinch of cinnamon, (Optional)

Food coloring or powder paint. (Optional)

Directions:

1. Mix salt and flour together in a bowl.
If you are using powder paint to add coloring, you’ll want to mix it with the dry ingredients.
I added the pinch of cinnamon at this stage for a hint of scent, but that is totally optional.
2. Gradually add the warm water and stir until dough forms.
If you are using food coloring, add it into the water before mixing with the dry ingredients.
3. Once you have your dough, shape it into a ball and kneed for five minutes. the more you kneed, the softer it gets.
4. Time to have fun and see what you can create.

It took several tries, but I shaped the dough into a flat heart and Rosebud pushed her hand in the center to make the handprint. Trying to get a tired child to do something like this can be pure torture, but after the sixth try, we got our final product. The other handprints were missing fingers, missing part of the hand itself or barely noticeable.

To add some sparkle, I put some glitter on the heart. Finally, I poked two holes in the top so the heart can be hung as a decoration. I used a pencil to get good sized holes.

Next, I worked on the small rose. I roled out a coil for the stem and then made the leaf and rose petals by hand. You role the dough into tiny balls, shape them like a fingerprint and then smooth and bend the pointy ends into the stem. I start out with the outside petals which are larger and then work my way into the smallest center petals.

I baked the decorations for one hour at 200F and covered them with foil to avoid browning. The heart could’ve been baked a bit longer, but it air dried the rest of the way.

When it was cool, I painted them. For the heart and flower, I mixed white paint with a tiny drop of red food coloring. For the stem and leaf, I mixed the white paint with some green food coloring. When the paint was dry, I covered it with a coat of modpoj.

Rosebud was proud to give the birthday gifts and I was happy that we created something together. Have you made anything with salt dough? If so, what are your best creations?

6 Comments

Activities, Art, Fall, Parenting, Toddlers

Glitter Leaf Collage

October 17, 2018

We took a nature walk the other day to collect leaves for our glitter leaf sun catcher and we had some left over. One idea was to just simply glue the leaves on paper, but I wanted to be more creative. So, I decided to break the leaves into small pieces. That way it would make an interesting collage. Then to make it pretty and sparkly, I added some glitter.

What you need:

Natural items, (Leaves, acorns, pine needles, baby pinecones, twigs, flowers etc.)

Blank paper or coloring page,

Glue, (We used glitter glue.)

Glitter, (For that extra sparkle.)

What you do:

1. Put glue on your paper. I’d suggest using a paintbrush to spread it out. I used glitter glue from the dollar store which doesn’t appear to be a good choice because it barely glues things down, but it’s the only glue I had. Rosebud didn’t want me to take a good picture of this. Each time, she’d move the paper or put her hand in the way.

2. Glue the objects on to the paper. We used an acorn printable for our first project, but you can’t even tell it’s an acorn after Rosebud dumped all the leaves on top. Our second collage was on a blank piece of paper and that looked much better.

3. Make sure the items stick to the paper. Rosebud would place the items where she’d want them and I’d hold things in place so they would stick to the paper. I had her count to five or ten with me. Holding the items down were helping them stick.

4. If you used standard glue, you can sprinkle glitter on top as the final step. I mixed some glitter in with the leaves, but I wouldn’t do that again because when Rosebud dumped the leaves, the glitter went along with it.

Overall, this was a simple and fun project to do and Rosebud liked it. Since we’ve used all our leaves, it’s time for us to go on another nature walk. What are your favorite crafts using natural items? Tell me in the comments.

6 Comments

Activities, Art, Fall, Parenting, Toddlers

Glitter Leaf Sun Catcher

October 15, 2018

Lately, we’ve been doing activities with leaves. I was inspired by this post from, On Your Own, But Never Alone. I thought why not use the glitter leaves as sun catchers?

What you need:

Leaves that are dry, but not crunchy,

Glitter glue,

Paint brushes,

Mod podge,

Contact paper or clear sheet protectors,

String.

What you do:

1. Lay leaves on a flat surface and paint them with the glitter glue. You can paint just parts of the leaf or the entire thing. We used three different colors of glitter glue.

2. Set aside to dry.

3. Paint leaves with mod podge.

4. When dry, arrange leaves in contact paper or sheet protector. I didn’t have any contact paper so I just glued the leaves inside the sheet protector.

5. Punch hole in contact paper and tie a string. If you use a sheet protector, the holes are already there.

6. Find a nice place to hang your creation. Some leaves will catch the sun and others will not depending on the color. Either way, you have a nice glittery fall decoration.

What are you making with leaves this fall? Let me know in the comments.

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Activities, Art

Leaf Painting

September 18, 2018

Here’s a simple painting activity for the fall.

What you’ll need:

Paint,
Paper,
Leaves,
Tray or some other way to set up the paint.

I just took a cookie sheet, lined it with foil and put some globs of paints in different colors on it. Then I put one leaf in each color of paint so they wouldn’t be mixed at first.

All you do is cover the leaf with paint and stamp it on the paper. I showed Rosebud once and then she got to work, creating her pictures.

I didn’t have much paint so by the time we got to our third picture, I showed her how she could use the leaves as paintbrushes.

I’m looking forward to doing more fall activities. What are your favorite fall crafts and activities? Let me know in the comments.

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Activities, Art, Parenting, Uncategorized

Shell Painting

August 16, 2018

Here’s another simple painting activity. We’ve been doing some ocean themed activities lately so I thought we’d try stamping with shells. The shells didn’t stamp on the paper as expected. You have to move the shell to get the full stamp, but Rosebud had fun with this. she loves painting of any kind.

Three shells sitting in a bowl of paint next to a piece of paper. What you need:

Paints,

Paper,

Shells.

Directions:

There are no directions except to see what you can create. Use different colors. Use different types of shells. You could also keep the colors totally separated and make neat patterns.

Rosebud’s shell painting.

My only suggestion is to have plenty of paint. Enough to dip the entire half of the part of the shell you will be stamping.

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Activities, Art, Parenting

To Bead or Not To Bead

August 12, 2018

It's a rainy day here, so we are stuck inside. I've been trying to find things to do to keep Rosebud occupied. First, Rosebud helped me make breakfast. She loves to mix badder whenever I bake, but today I made French toast. She loves to beat the eggs and then mix it with the milk and sugar. I always have to tare her away from this and I have to explain that it's time to cook and cooking on the stove is hot.


After breakfast, we decided to make another sticker collage. This time with fish and flowers. Less than ten minutes later, I was scrambling again to find something to do.
Rosebud loves to go through my drawer of craft supplies which mostly consists of beads, shells and other jewelry making items. I had some string and larger beads so I thought, why not try some beading. It's a great fine motor activity and Rosebud loves to wear necklaces. I cut the string and put a little piece of tape on the end. We often do that for the kids at work to make it easier to pull the string through the beads. However, when we started beading, the tape was making the string too big to pull through the beads.
I had to go to plan B. I was hesitant to use the wire, but I was supervising her and knew it would be easier to get the beads on. I showed her how to string the beads which she was having trouble with. I expected this, as it was her first time. I decided that I'd put the beads on for her, but she had to pick out her beads and hand them to me. She picked out a couple of beads and then lost her train of thought. When I'd ask her which bead she wanted next, she'd say, "making a necklace." Then just scattered the beads around.

This was turning out to be a failure so it was time for a plan C. After a couple of good loud screams and plenty of tears, I packed up the beads and returned to the kitchen with the original piece of string. I thought we could try macaroni. Rosebud was excited about this, but the first thing she did was put a piece of raw macaroni in her mouth. I immediately picked everything up and tried to explain why we don't eat uncooked macaroni. We tried again and of course, the macaroni I have is too small to get the string through. There were more tears until she realized that she wanted to eat lunch.
What did I learn?
1. Have the appropriate materials on hand.
2. Remember how young she actually is.
3. Plan better for rainy days.
4. It's not a failure, it's practice. She was introduced to a new activity and we'll both do better next time.
5. The answer to today's question, is not to bead.

For Practice:

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For jewelry making:

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      Activities, Art
            
        It’s About the Process, Not the Product
        
          July 9, 2018                  

      
      
      

        
        
Here is another simple painting activity. All you need are some paints, paper and pinecones. Rosebud and I went over to the playground yesterday where she found a pinecone. I immediately thought we could use it for a painting activity.
We were trying to stamp with the pinecone because using it like a brush was too hard on the paper. As the title says, the process is more important than the product with this activity. My only suggestion would be to have more paints and more pinecones. I would put each color of paint in a container large enough to dip the entire pinecone so it could be stamped or rolled across the paper. I’d also suggest having one pinecone for each color of paint. I didn’t think of this until we had already gotten started.

Eventually I had to just dump the paints on the paper because trying to dip the pinecone wasn’t working. I had little containers of paint from the dollar store. Although this didn’t work as expected, I’m interested in trying to paint with other natural items to see what we come up with.


      


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      Activities, Art, Parenting
            
        Flower Painting
        
          June 5, 2018                  

      
      
      

        
        
Yesterday Rosebud and I did another simple painting activity. I set out several colors of paint in a bowl. A flower fell off one of my plants and recently we painted with flowers in my preschool class so I wanted to do the same with Rosebud.

I grabbed the paint, paper and the flower and headed outside. We sat at Rosebud’s picnic table and painted. That was after Rosebud smelled the flower and decided it smelled good. After a few minutes, the flower started to fall apart so we stamped with the petals instead of using the flower like a paintbrush.

I want to try this with different flowers and other natural items throughout the summer. This is how her picture came out. We are waiting for the next flower to fall so we can work on the next master piece.


      


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