Great gamboling giraffes! With just a few simple supplies – cardboard tubes, drinking straws, foam beads, and string – you’ve got yourself one fantastic dance partner! We read Gir…
Easy catapult for kids
Not all Styrofoam is bio-degradable and the rest just ends up in landfills. This Earth Day, make the best out of waste with these recycled Styrofoam crafts.
When I was putting together our camp crafts roundup the other day, it got me thinking about all of the crafty things I used to do when I was a kid. One of my favorite things to do was weaving on a drinking straw loom, a project I learned in girl scouts. The result is […]
Pin It My niece was having bad dreams for several days in a row. My sister mentioned it in passing to her daughter's Preschool Teacher. To her surprise, her daughter came home with a Dream Catcher that she and her teacher made together. OK, let's just take a minute to applaud great teachers everywhere! Oh and I just love that crafting came to the rescue! Her daughter was so proud of her Dream Catcher that, knock on wood, she has had 3 nightmare free nights since bringing it home. When I saw how cute it was, I had to make one to show you. I of course left without taking a picture of my niece's. Lu loved her cousin's and agreed we had to make one for her room ASAP! Supplies: Paper Plate, Scissors, Paint, Yarn, Feathers, Beads, Hole Punch Optional: Stickers or Markers Cut hole using plate indent as guide. Punch holes around inside edge. Paint. While plate is drying, tie yarn to feather. Make several knots to act as a stopper for the beads. You will need 3 feather strings. Tip: roll a piece of tape around top of yarn, like an aglet on a shoelace. This helps young kids slide the beads on. This took awhile because we had to sort through the beads for the perfect beads. Our paint was dry by the time we were done. You may need to wait longer or overnight. Also, the thicker the paint you use the longer it takes to dry. Randomly string your yarn through the holes. Add a few beads for extra decoration as you go. My 4 year old needed help with this step. Decorate with stickers if you want. Punch three holes at what will be the bottom of the Dream Catcher. Tie feathers to bottom of Dream Catcher. Hang on wall or from bed post. If your child does have a bad dream have child blow the bad dream into the Dream Catcher. I would love to read my daughters a book about Dream Catchers. If you have any suggestions let me know. Sweet Dreams!
We took this original pin from Pinterest… And turned it into…. Cuddle Bug Activity Read the book “Water bugs & Dragonflies” by Doris Stickney with your client. After re…
The past few Halloweens, we've started some fun making traditions. Remember these and these? Well, we've also made these haunted houses, and I figured I should document it and let you in on some fun too!
Straw weaving is a great way to make bright chunky bracelets that are perfect for the kids.
Learn Pottery from Home with our Pottery Articles. Read all about Ceramics & Pottery on The Ceramics Blog!
Popsicle Stick Icosahedron: What is an Icosahedron? "In geometry, an icosahedron is a regular polyhedron with 20 identical equilateral triangular faces, 30 edges and 12 vertices. It is one of the five Platonic solids." - Wikipedia http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/common…
Try out this super easy homemade flubber recipe. It only takes five minutes to prepare but will delight your kids for hours.
Gangnam Style Paper Machine: Oppan Gangnam Style! Recently, PSY won the MTV Europe Music Award… Award for the best video. Totally justified, of course! So I thought I would hop on that train full of dancers and give to the world an idol carved from paper and glue. ***Between…
We are starting to save our spare change but instead of buying a money box we've looked at ideas for how we can create a DIY Money Box to save our coins!
As teachers, we are always looking for new creative things to do with our students. Whether it be a gift for mom or dad, or just something fun to do with them in the classroom, here are ideas for creative art projects and crafts for the elementary classroom.
Thank you all so much for sharing your Scandinavian stars with me over the last weeks! I am collecting of portfolio of images and stories of these lovely woven stars. I think the best part of this process has been the new friendships that have been forged. I love you gals! As a thank you, I have created a new tutorial inspired by one of your stars. Readers have shared family heirlooms, antique store finds, Girl Scout craft memories, and stories of weaving stars from paper or straw or wood in the "old country" as children. Please keep your stories and pictures coming! Antique Woven Swedish Advent Star Today I want to share a star from the private collection of Kristine Leander, executive director of our Swedish Cultural Center. Kristine lived in Norway in the eighties and early nineties. On weekends, she would travel to Sweden, haunting the antique shops there. On one of her trips, she found this lovely antique birch star. You can tell, simply by looking at this picture, that her woven star has seen many winters! I adore the woven details on the star tips -- so very pretty. The fact that it has become a bit warped over the years just adds to its charm. Kristine's star was woven from birch, and held a little light inside. It would have been hung in a window at Christmastime, to welcome family and friends to the warmth and comfort of home. This star held an electric bulb, but earlier Advent stars often held a small oil lamp! I created a tutorial for making this paper star, inspired by Kristine's antique star. As you all know, I love to work these stars from folded strips of vintage book pages; but you can make them from just about any material you'd like to use. Most of my readers prefer to use heavy scrapbooking paper, cut into strips. Use whatever you like -- and pretty please, share your star with me! I love to see your projects! You will need twenty strips of your chosen material to make your star. To see how I fold my paper strips, see this post. In this case, Kristine's center strips are very wide, so I made sixteen strips that are approximately one-quarter inch wide by six inches long; and I made four strips that were three-quarter inches long by six inches. Kristine's star had center veneer strips with tapered ends -- probably because the center strips were so wide, it would have been impossible to form the star tips without narrowing the strips on the end. I tapered mine by folding the corners in and securing with glue, but I would recommend simply trimming the strips with scissors and securing the edges with glue (if you are working with multiple folded layers). Next, find the center of each fat strip, and glue two pairs together, as shown. Now, take your skinny strips, and weave together with the fat strips. You will be creating two sides, that will be joined later. Secure each intersection with a dot of glue. (note: I am not sure it is necessary to glue the intersections, but I don't seem to have enough hands to make these without doing so. Plus, by gluing the intersections, I can control the spacing of the strips) The next step is to glue your star tips together. Begin by taking the adjacent strips and twisting them toward each other and gluing the tips together at right angles, as shown. Kristine's star had that lovely woven detail on the tips. To get this look, simply take the next adjacent strips and twist them in and weave across before securing. If the written instructions seem confusing here, simply recreate the pattern shown in the detail picture above. Next, take one of the sides and join it to the other side. You will need to turn one side by forty-five degrees, so that each star tip joins with a fat center strip. Glue to secure. Embellish as desired, or leave your star plain -- whatever you do, I promise your result will be beautiful! I like to add glitter and a hanger made from a strip of paper, but ribbon or twine would work just as well (and it will fit into those little square gift boxes much better without the stiff paper hanger)! Just for fun, I wove some one-eighth inch wide strips through the center. These strips are about four inches long and are secured with dots of glue in a couple of places. These woven stars are an old traditional craft, and lots of variations exist, but the concept is the same for all of them. If you choose not to make your center strips wider, you will end up with a star that looks something like the star shown below. See that tutorial here. Notice the tips on this star are not woven like they are on Kristine's star? This technique is easier to do than the woven star tips, but I must admit I'm kind of in love with the idea of weaving the tips from now on :) Happy star weaving! Maybe, if we all get started in January, we will have lots of lovely handcrafted items for Christmas gift giving this year :) To see more star tutorials inspired by an antique woven star, go here, and here.
I found a fun, cheap, and easy project in Family Fun magazine about making Lava Lamps with things you already have in your house. You will need 3 empty water bottles ( I don't normally buy this kind of water,...
Are you ready for the weekend? Today we present to you 5 great DIY. The children and you will enjoy making these toys and games and then playing with them. Perfect for summer afternoons! Domino via Cardboard radio via Peg dolls with cardboards sea creatures via Jumping Jack via Wooden doll family portrait via RELATED POSTS: 5 Fun Toys […]
I made Bradley a quiet book! I actually started it when he was first born because I needed a project and I knew I had more time then when he was a newborn, then I would later. However, after making just a few pages I got frustrated because I didn't like how I had decided to do the pages (on muslin...to me it was too flimsy and easily wrinkled), so I stopped. Over the last few months, Bradley has gotten harder to keep quiet and entertained during church, so I decided to finish the quiet book for his birthday (I do well with a deadline). With some brainstorming help from my mom, I decided to still use a few of the pages I had already made and transfer them (using the permanent iron-on adhesive stuff) to a heavy interfacing material. I then made all the other new pages directly on the interfacing. Then I sewed the pages back-to-back and sewed button holes for the binder rings to go through. I had always liked the idea of being able to take the book apart so I can easily trade out pages or split them up once I have multiple children. I'm happy with how it all turned out. We had Stake Conference yesterday and Bradley got to play with it for the first time and he really liked it. It kept him entertained longer than anything else has. yay! The front cover. I used ribbon to make handles. Inside cover and first page. I put a pocket on the inside cover. I'm thinking I'll put snacks or other fun things in it later. The first page is a color matching page. The balloons are attached using velcro and you simply match the colors. The second page: barn with animal finger puppets; third page: picking apples apples attached with velcro and fit into the basket fourth page: mailbox; fifth page: ladybugs I intend to have this page be used for drawing and coloring and then "mailing" them. I sewed a zipper on top of the grass area making the bottom half of the page a pocket for paper, pencils, and crayons. But since Bradley isn't old enough to do that yet, I just made a felt envelope for him to put in the mailbox. He is at the stage where he likes to put things in and take them out of containers, so that will work for now. this shows the bottom pocket I made this page up in my head. Bradley has a book called "Ten Little Ladybugs" that actually has raised ladybugs in it and he LOVES it. One day at Hobby Lobby I saw these little ladybugs that were discounted and decided to get them and somehow incorporate them into the quiet book. Each of the flowers and part of the grass is a pocket. I attached the ladybugs with ribbon and sewed them inside the pockets. He can put them in the pockets and take them out. The red and green ladybugs in the middle of the page are sewn directly on the page and the leaves cover them (kinda a peek-a-boo thing). I had Bradley in mind when I made this page and he loves it! He held on so tightly to the ladybugs and got mad when I tried to turn the page. Even when he wanted to look at other pages, he wanted to just hold that orange ladybug tightly in his chubby fist. Sixth page: shapes; seventh page: Under the Sea This is a very basic shape matching page. I just used fabric markers to make the outlines. This is another page I just made up. I got a few ideas from some other pages online, but I knew I wanted to do a sea page. The sunk ship lifts up to reveal a shark. The fish can "swim" along the ribbon. The scuba diver and shark come off the page (attached with snaps) so they can be played with. I think this will be more fun when Bradley has an imagination, but right now he really enjoys trying to rip the fish off and eat them. Eighth page: 5 little Indians; back cover with another pocket Indian finger puppets and a ribbon campfire. I loved doing this project! It is FAR from perfect. In fact it's almost embarrassing how many mistakes I made, but I am so proud of it and I feel like it improved my sewing skills SO much! It was a great way to practice fine detail stuff and to get more familiar with my sewing machine.
Make old-school crafts like these God's Eyes using sticks and yarn.
TUTORIAL FOR LIZARD HEAD HERE http://www.elementaryartfun.blogspot.com/2013/05/catching-up-lots-of-fun-stuff.html I have been so busy lately and have hardly had time to blog. Thank you so much for the Versatile blogger awards. I will eventually get some time to reciprocate! I appologise! I really appreciate all my readers and your sweet sweet comments. I have two high maintenence toddlers at home that keep me on my toes! We have been doing so many things in here and I need to catch up and bring my camera this week to update the latest. Here are some things from a few weeks ago… These cubes are so easy to make and you can be so creative with what they put inside. Some kids put an alien inside, some made flowers, animals, tvs, and some made it into a giant robot head Ok this made my day. Today I had a parent tell me that they were on their way to the zoo and saw a painting of Van Gogh outside the art museum and the child said, “Look mommy, it’s Vincent Van Gogh!” It made the two weeks of yellow paint stains on my pants completely worth it!! Shout out to Artolazzi! Jenny Bartolazzi, you are a genius! Your ideas impress me and your posts never disappoint. I am so glad you blog so I can copy you! My kids are so happy with their chameleons because of you. I love the candid picture I caught of a student snuzzling up to her chameleons as though they were made out of velvet and purred like kittens!! You can find step by step instructions for these chameleons on her blog here: http://artolazzi.blogspot.com/2011/04/3-d-lizard-directions.html My kids used the same steps as we used on the bunny head to make the chameleon head They LOVED them. We watched these videos first, some of the other classes gave theirs sun glasses Some kids even made a cube cage for their Chameleons and I gave a prize to the one who could spell chameleon first! AND I will conclude with a random photo from one of my recent newborn photoshoots that has nothing to do with elementary art! This also keeps me busy! Is she not the cutest thing God ever breathed life into! www.shelbyjunephotography.com She makes my ovaries hurt!
Best science experiment ever! Make a fantastic eruption with hydrogen peroxide, yeast, soap, and food coloring! This science project is perfect for science shows for all ages: preschool, kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school! Even adults enjoy this one!
Get your kids psyched about STEM and STEAM with interactive activities they can do at home. They'll be amazed to use science, technology, engineering, art, and math in a setting that feels nothing like school.
Heute zeige ich 2 kostenlose Strickanleitungen von "Kleinkram", die ich bei Ravelry entdeckt habe. Knubbelchen Vielfach wurde dieses kleine Püppchen bereits gestrickt. Es eignet sich zum Spielen, Knuddeln oder als Deko. Designed wurde Knubbelchen von...
The best DIY pictured tutorials on crafts, diy decor, food, holidays, gifts, parties, printables and creative ideas.
A simple sewing project to introduce young children to hand stitching.
Happy Tuesday! It’s the best time of the week – time for a Tuesday tutorial! This week, we tackle a tough question – What do you do when you want to make a rubber band brac…
Cardboard Stackers Isn’t it great to make wonderful play things with stuff you have around the house? Isn’t that what they used to do for toys? These cardboard stackers are both fun to make and play with afterward. What is great about today’s project is that you have an activity to do with your kids...Read More
A paper mache teacup pattern to mark the 5 year anniversary of my blog, my experiment. A perfect time to say thank you and give you a present. There is… Read More
