If you like playing with paper whether it’s new or recycled this chart for all sorts of ways to manipulate paper could really come in handy for making all sorts of things from flowers to scul…

Recycled cardboard is one of my favourite materials for children’s art activities. I like it because it is readily available and free! Read more...

How to age paper - 6 easy techniques to make paper look old and give it a vintage look with materils you already have at home

Good Friday to ya! Today I want to share something new - PAPER CASTING. Have you tried this technique yet? Danielle Flanders shared a video for the EASY process for Make It Monday #181: Paper Casting at Papertrey Ink earlier this week. The texture of casting is so cool! Well, I have played all week with various stamps and dies...and yes, used up an entire role of toilet tissue. However, a treasure basket filled with goodies to use later is the end result:) I'm just giddy with all these lovelies! I found, as Danielle did, that making the die cut FIRST and then using the stamp for the CAST, creates the sharpest images. I also cut some Bitty buttons from the left over stacks of TT. Some of them I spritzed with Tattered Angels Glitter Mist! The Rustic Wreath die was so delicate and pliable...tricky to stamp ink on later though. But worth the effort:) I encourage you to check out the video on the process . Get a roll of tissue and start CASTING:) I think these pieces look GREAT on a card. What do you think? Thanks for stopping by today. Have a Blessed Weekend! LauraJane:)

Let's build on the simple stamped collage technique we used last week and add to it more variables to create collages with more elements and depth.

Materials As much as possible I try to use recyclable materials for construction art lessons. I source these from Recreate or ask the children to bring things in from home. Recyclable materials Bottles Caps Cardboard boxes (cereal/shoeboxes etc.) Wrapping paper Scrap paper Containers (yoghurt pots/egg cartons) Other materials Tin foil Scissors Foam sheets Stickers Crepe paper Pipe

Sure, we've all heard of or tried aging paper with tea but what happens when you dump your used morning coffee grounds (grinds) on paper to see if that works too? That's what I wanted to know. For the experiment, I used five sheets of paper; two regular pieces of copy paper and three pieces of medium weight card stock. Actually, the three heavier pieces came from the office supply store in a pack and I think they call it "cover stock" there. The card stock already had a mottled look to it which helped. In the photo above, it is pictured across the top and the white pieces are the copier paper. I should have used a lot more newspaper to protect the floor since this experiment got kinda messy. One piece of card stock and one piece of copy paper got crumpled into balls and then flattened back out before having the coffee grounds dumped on them. At first, just the used coffee grounds were scattered fairly heavily on all the papers and lightly rubbed in. After a while of sitting with the grounds on top, I wondered if the grounds would work better if they were wetter, so the middle card stock and the bottom right copy paper got a drink of coffee too. Well, yikes, everybody got a drink of coffee 'cause it migrated through the newspaper to some degree to all the papers. Lesson learned: if you don't want some of the papers to get wet, put them on separate pads of newspaper. As the coffee grounds dried, they got shaken off so I could see if anything was actually happening to the paper. If you are more patient than me, you could just leave the coffee grounds sitting on the paper longer. I'm sorry to say that neither of the copier papers lived through the experiment...they were not heavy enough. When the remaining papers dried more, a brush was used to get some of the more embedded coffee grounds out/off. Now we have The Crumpled, The Wet, The Dry left. (Remember the Clint Eastwood movie, "The Good, The Bad, The Ugly"?) The Dry is not really dry because it got wet from underneath from the coffee-soaked newspaper. The Crumpled The Wet The Dry The Dry The Wet The Crumpled The coffee grounds' effect is softer in The Wet because they were diluted and dispersed more. On The Dry the grounds embedded more and were more obvious. The Crumpled had to be ironed to be flat enough to run through the copier. Actually, since the iron was hot, I just ironed all of them. The papers were a little thicker after all the moisture they had been subjected to, so they needed to be fed into the copier one at the time and given just a tiny push to make sure that the "grabber" on the copier could catch them. The Dry The Crumpled The Wet The papers were used in a St. Patrick's Day display. All of the papers used in the display had a sort of aged look but the ones aged with the coffee grounds looked (and actually felt) like old papers. The Crumpled The Wet The Dry (I should have taken a better "before" picture of the card stock but you can see in the above picture on the edges what it looked like before much aging. Also, this paper used in the display is not exact but has a similar mottled look to the original.) So, if you want to put your used coffee grounds to good use, age some paper with them for future projects! For other ideas for making paper look old, click on these other posts: Aging Paper and Aging Book Pages. I'm sharing this post over at Mod Mix Monday @ Mod Vintage Life Tutorials, Tips & Tidbits @ Stone Gable blog

Crafting Magic Fabric Lookbook Crafting Magic by Maureen Cracknell. Constantly reinventing the boho style, Maureen Cracknell invites you on a magical journey through creative illustrations of majestic creatures, hand-drawn florals, and glistening colors.

I have been on a total paper piecing kick as of late! In all honesty, I was kind of avoiding this quilting technique as it seemed a little strange (and possibly like I was cheating) to use paper templates to stitch blocks together. But it is really fun! (If not a little time consuming.) The end results are stunning and the technique ensures nice crisp edges. Plus you can create really intricate designs that would otherwise be a real challenge to quilt. I had visions of a quilt with butterflies and was thrilled when I stumbled upon Lillyella's paper pieced butterfly patterns. Having never attempted paper piecing, I thought this would be a fun project to tackle. Since I'm a newbie paper piecer, I followed some recommendations from 3 and 3 Quarters on using larger scraps of fabrics to make my life easier. This was a great tip and one I would encourage anyone to follow if trying paper piecing for the first time. Essentially, you attach your fabric to the back of the paper pattern and then stitch on the printed side of the paper following the stitch lines. Each piece is marked with a letter and numbers. The first piece you start with is always #1, which I glued down to ensure it didn't shift on me. Once my first piece of fabric was in place, I then folded back the paper along the line separating section #1 and #2, leaving a 1/4

I generally talk about using cold wax as a process of adding and taking away. The taking away is all about applying reduction techniques which is basically removing oil and cold wax with the intention of creating interesting effects and textures and to also reveal earlier layers of colour and texture. Here I will illustrate how you can use tissue paper to create some interesting effects.

Learn how to make beautiful, long-lasting crepe paper flowers with these step-by-step instructions.

Make a cool folded paper bracelet using recycled water colour paintings. These make a great mother's day gift, or a perfect tween party activity.

Learn how to make a craft stick harmonica and learn about the science of sound.

full photo tutorial - how to make a pretty paper orb

Most of us are probably familiar with the geometric type of origami, however, only a few know that this paper art can also be produced with curved paper forms using a difficult art technique known as “wet-folding”. This 3D sculpting technique requires a lot of patience and skill so there are not a lot of artists who have mastered it.

In this blog post I’ll show you how to dye paper with homemade plant dyes. The pink dye is made from avocado skins and the yellow is from pomegranate skins. With just a few tweaks to my usual fabric dyeing method, we can easily dye paper. Can you see the patterns on the pink paper?...

Don't let the intricacy and kaleidoscopic beauty of a marbleized design fool you. Those ripples of color may look hand-painted or machine-stamped, but they're actually created by liquid.

Today, I thought I would share one of the biggest resources that has ever been created for you. This post contains enough arts and crafts ideas to get you through the summer, fall, winter, spring... and many more rounds after that! I decided to have this resource include both art ideas AND craft ideas. The

Learn how to make a gorgeous art print made from your favorite fresh blooms. Our simple flower pounding technique makes it easy to transform fresh flowers into a gorgeous art piece you can hang, display, or gift.