Creative day 7 - Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day! As usual, any celebratory day begins early in our bed. The big squirrel was very chuffed with his gifts - including...

the card Alexander drew with crayon and water paint and the present they made at kinder - complete with an artists interpretation of 'Dad and Me in Trees', well modelled by bleary eyed Dad!



In addition to Fathers Day we also had a christening (or dedication) to attend this morning. Here is In thegift I made - I call it a name plate, but it is essentially a framed scrap book page. My boys have red ones in their room which hang above their beds. I also made this card last night which I love how it turned out. It was using the clip art found from How About Orange's link here..I ran the card through the printer and coloured it in with pencils and a gold gel pen. It was so simple but looks really professional. Also below are some other projects I was working on yesterday...a dress for a young lady's 2nd birthday. The fabric is so light it hangs beautifully - just needs a zip (and no hem, how great!) The other is the plan for a patchwork bag from a recent Burda Magazine. It looks like a good way to use up some scraps - but that will be a while off. Just drafting the pattern has been on my to do list for a while. Enjoy your day!!

Creative Challenge- Day 6

Almost a week now and we are still going in our creative challenge. We wove this bag from todays newspaper. The idea is to do it from magazines but we were just getting the hang of weaving - could also double as a hat?

The bag is a bit big but actually very sturdy - the other suggestion is to make it waterproof by covering it in clear contact. Pretty good for a first attempt.

Oh - and the other little change you may have noticed - a new template - hope it make it quicker to load and easier to read.

Creative Challenge - Day 5

Nothing gets people out and about in the community like a good... hard rubbish collection. It is the ultimate form of recycling- you put your rubbish out on the nature strip for someone to collect for their house (where it usually stays until the next hard rubbish collection) We had an item like that - on our usual drive to kinder we found a great little tikes car which I swiftly stashed in the boot and drove on, only to arrive home and find it missing a wheel! So, off I was hugging the curb driving slowly around the neighbourhood to find another wheel. I didn't find it so it will be waiting until next rubbish collection - but I did get some other gems - yes, I am easily distracted.

This easel seems hardly used by its previous owners but the boys were busily painting it with water today.

And these chairs - they are just a bit sundamaged, so I think I may address that with some fabric dye - watch this space....
And on a creative front, here are todays works. On black card Alexander did this with gel pens - it is a rocket in the stars.
This one is from kinder - so in effect cheating - but its a watercolour.

Art Day 4 - Nature Walk

We were out enjoying the sunshine today and collecting leaves along the bike path. We were amazed at how many different types we could find. Alexander did a drawing of a treeman, and we cut different leaf shapes out of the junk mail and he stuck them on the fingers/branches.
Even an artful snack....

An aside - part of this challenge is to get Alexander school ready. I recently had a meeting with the kinder teacher who said he didn't gravitate towards craft activities (he would rather play) and that he would need to learn to sit and concentrate on a task in order to get through school. None of this is really news to me. What wasn't mentioned at this meeting and I will need to follow up more is his hand of dominance. To me, he seems to write left handed but will do many other things right handed - particularly cutting. He has been good with scissors for a very long time, but always with his right hand. Today I was checking and he just couldn't do it left handed. An OT friend suggested he was still crossing over his mid line in terms of hand of dominance - hence the art of the day and we will be doing more cutting. If anyone has any suggestions for tasks that address this I would love to hear them....

Creative Challenge - Day 3

After a rocky start this morning involving fabric textas (inadvertantly left out) and skin, our creative juices were flowing well today. At playgroup we did hand stamping for our fathers day cards - and some wrapping.

Alexander and I did some more felting - this time over steel wool pads as pin cushions- the theory is they sharpen the pins.

The afternoon was spent creating cubbies with sheets and chairs. Hope you are creative too - check out JellyBabyBlog and TwoLittleButtons for their creativity.

Creative Challenge - Day 2

Todays plan was fathers day cards - but alas that didn't happen. My efforts to be creative and create a creative environment for my children is already proving a challenge - and its only day 2.
Alexander was using textas to work on a workbook, the twins painted their hands and put these prints all over my white (luckily vinyl) chairs. To give them a more productive outlet, out came the easel with chalk. It must have been fun for a while, but the lack the understanding that its only the blackboard they can draw on and I spent the evening picking up crushed chalk and wiping chalk off the walls and windows!
But- even with these challenges - our creative juices still flow. Today we worked in mixed media. Alexander used oil pastels to do a drawing on a canvas that we had previously painted with rollers. He did this while I did some stencilling of my manga eyes on fabric. The canvas is for Popeye for Fathers day.

The other part of our challenge is to get Alexander journalling about all the things we have been doing - however we haven't managed to get the book yet!,.

Challenge - Art Month

I have set myself a challenge and hope you join too. There has been lots of talk here and here about children's art and I have been heading this direction, but need to state it publicly to make it happen.

I am going to do Art with the Kids every day for the month of September. It is not always about the product, but the skills or the experience. I want them to work in 2d and 3d, and use all five senses.

I was busy last night working out what we were going to do and how it was going to flow. This week in the lead up to Fathers Day we are focusing on this, Dad and love.

Today's art/craft was painting. We were painting wrapping paper in Dad's favorite colour - orange. The aim was to make bubble prints.

Instructions - to a large bowl ad water, paint and dishwashing liquid. Then with a straw, blow large bubbles and put the paper over the bowl til a few bubbles pop. This is meant to print like popped bubbles. For us it was not very effective. Not sure if it was not enough paint, not enough or too much dishwashing liquid or the paper was not the best - but we didn't get much of a result.

Rather than end it here - we changed to do blowing patterns, by putting the watery paint on the paper and blowing it around with a straw. More effective - and I think we will 'find' images in them tomorrow.

We even did art in the bath- the kids were delighted to draw on the walls with special bath crayons. Tommorrow - fathers day cards....