Easy and Fun!

Outdoor Beading and Jewelry Making

Materials- Crafting Wire/Pipe Cleaners and Different types of beads

For me June is all about jumping around! My daughter has just finished school, starting camp, weekend vacationing, barbecuing, beaches you name it. But it's a great time for summer crafting. Yesterday I was running out the house to get to the park early but had time to grab some wire, beads and pipe cleaners in my bag. Why I feel this is such a great summer craft? You bring it anywhere! And it's guaranteed to make you friends. As we sat on our blanket beading necklaces and bracelets curious kids couldn't help but to come over and wanna join in. 

This is great for picnics, bonding and haha great for calming your kid after a exciting sugar filled day.

Spring Has Sprung

A New Leaf

Where do I begin? Well alot has happened for me and to me. But all for the best. I'm continuing to work on art and pursue new projects. But my heart keeps pulling me in different directions. I have a strong connection with myself, spirituality, nature, music, art, life and people. So I see alot of travel and self learning in my future. And I hope to keep you posted as I create and grow.

Yes Spring has Sprung! Finally!! It was a pretty long winter and we were so excited to clean the yard and plant seeds in our garden. Instead of buying plants and flowers from our local nursery we are planting everything from tiny seeds, painting rocks and stones and decorating with shells and knick knacks. I guess were growing love.

Julia had a week off from school for spring break and I really wanted to take a trip somewhere warm. But money was tight and we found so many fun things to do in New York. We worked on art at home painting pictures about spring, we also visited the CMA (Children's Museum of Art) in Manhattan, visited the Staten Island Zoo, and went to Julia's favorite park Rockefeller Park near downtown Manhattan. So we had a very productive week and every night we fell fast asleep.

Julia's Spring Painting- Created withTempera Paints- we used Q tips and paintbrushes

Children's Museum Of Art

Our Flags

Made with Cardboard, Glue/Stapler, Different Colored Fabrics, Buttons, Sequins and Glue

 Positive and Negative Shapes & Printmaking with Rubberbands and Blue Ink

Fun At The Park

 Graffiti Art in The City

Happy Spring Everyone!

Look who came for a visit

We live near a nature preserve and we have the most beautiful cardinals and blue jays that fly by. But we also have 8 or 9 roosters and chickens living around the corner. And it's really funny because sometimes they'll get loose and stop traffic and I'll have shoo them to safety. Yhea people get a good laugh when watching.
But this week 2 or them figured out how to get loose and walked around the corner and have been hanging out in front of my home. They love corn and sunflower seeds and are very friendly. You really cant catch them because their fast runners. But they have no problem getting close if your feeding.

And yes this little guy had no problem waking me up for work this morning. :(

Baby It's Cold Outside!

Snowflake Suncatchers

How do you make fun of the cold weather? Winter Art!

-Construction paper, Contact paper, Tissue Paper/Confetti & Scissors

I totally grabbed this project from Frugal Family Fun Blog. I'm a big fan of any site that shows me how to create projects on a budget. A big +

This is a really easy project but I did precut the snowflakes for the kids. After they enjoyed cutting tissue paper to make confetti and sprinkled it over the contact paper. And Viola' ! Yes this project is great for making hearts for Valentines Day or Shamrocks for St. Patricks. It's so much fun and inexpensive to do. And I really love how brightly the colors shine through.

Last Minute Project

 Buildings

-Construction paper, Colored Chalk or Pencils, Scissors & Watercolors

This is an easy project I'd like to share. I found some chalk in my art supply closet and thought it would be great idea to have the kids cut out some buildings and draw in some windows. After the kids glued it to their paper and they filled the backround in with watercolors.

You can really get creative with this one. When the paint dries you can cut out a sun, trees or people. I'd like to try this again in the future. Maybe make a large mural on butcher paper. But enjoy!

This Works Well With Music

A Little Bit Of Kandinsky

Yesterday we spoke about the artist Wassily Kandinsky a Russian abstract artist. I tried to talk about movement and shapes with the children. We danced in cirlces and made movements with our arms. I wanted them to create movement in their art. I found this project straight from Deep Space Sparkle Art Lessons for Kids: Kinders paint Kandinsky. I love this site.

Dancing With Circles

 - Black/White Paper, Colorful Stock Paper, Glue Sticks and Scissors

I had the children cut circles in different sizes and then glue them on their paper.

So red dances with yellow and black dances with purple etc..

The older children painted their Kandinsky's.

It's Hard Work But Somebody's Got To Do It!

Being Yourself

Inspired by the book A Bad Case Of Stripes

by David Shannon

The story of Camilla Cream is a really strange one. All of her friends in school hated lima beans and she wanted to fit in so she never ate them. Camilla was always worried about fitting in and what people thought of her. In fact, she gets so worried that she breaks out in a bad case of stripes!

I really love this book and remember reading it to my daughter. I read it to my class and the whole time their eyes grew bigger with excitment to see what would happen next. The colorful pictures in the book make it fun to read. It's great for imaginative thinking and teaching children that's it's ok to be yourself.

Crayon Resist Paintings

-White Paper, Crayons, Oil Pastels and Watercolors

After reading the book A Bad Case Of Stripes I asked my class to use their imagination and draw a picture about what they could possibly turn into if they had a bad case of stripes. I encouraged them to use lines, pocka dots and patterns. They drew in crayons and oil pastels. And then I had them paint freely with watercolors.

Leo turned into a strange planet

Allison broke out in pocka dots and attracted butterflies

Valerie drew flowers on her face

Oliver turned into a Green Monster because he loves to eat green beans.

 

And other pictures of a box headed girl and boy with a belly full of jelly beans.

Vibrant Portrait Painting

-Large White Paper, Pencils, Colored pencils, Crayons/ Oil Pastels and Watercolors

This was my last class before winter vacation. I wanted to have a free drawing class with a mix of everything we learned in last 4 months. I had them draw portraits of themselves or a classmate. And encouraged them to use the mirror in the room. We practiced drawing mouths, noses, eyes and tried to pay attention to detail.

This is an afterschool class ages 5-8. Some of the portraits are very detailed while others reminded me of artist Jean Micheal Baquiat.

Crayon Resist

I had them draw in pencils and colored pencils. Fill in with crayon and the option of finishing in watercolor.

 

This one is my favorite it reminded me of the artist Jean Micheal Basquiat