Making a Non-Denominational Holiday Card

 I had to think of something that the kids could put on the front of a holiday card that would be sent to someone in which they would not know what their faith of religious sect is. So In asking for feedback I was told to use a candle. I agreed, a candle I thought was perfect and fairly easy to draw as well. After all candles convey light during the dark time of year, they provide heat and light and people are rarely offended by them.

The after school students an I are participating in the Holiday Mail for Heroes project which send mail to soldiers who are away from their families for the holidays.

I have made a link above to the projects main page if you would like to get involved.
below are the guidelines.

Card Guidelines:

Every card received will be screened for hazardous materials and then reviewed by Red Cross volunteers working around the country.

Please observe the following guidelines to ensure a quick reviewing process:

• Ensure that all cards are signed.
• Use generic salutations such as “Dear Service Member.” Cards addressed to specific individuals can not be delivered through this program.
• Only cards are being accepted. Do not send or include letters.
• Do not include email or home addresses on the cards: the program is not meant to foster pen pal relationships.
• Do not include inserts of any kind, including photos: these items will be removed during the reviewing process.
• Please refrain from choosing cards with glitter or using loose glitter as it can aggravate health issues of ill and injured warriors.
• If you are mailing a large quantity of cards, please bundle them and place them in large mailing envelopes or flat rate postal shipping boxes. Each card does not need its own envelope, as envelopes will be removed from all cards before distribution.

All holiday greetings should be addressed and sent to:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
P.O. Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

The deadline for having cards to the P.O. Box is December 6th.
Holiday cards received after this date cannot be guaranteed delivery.

 

So  I have included the tutorial that I made the help kids draw a lit candle.

Bitten by the rubber band bug

So working with kids I have seen an awful lot of the stretchy rubber band bracelets. I myself became intrigued by this new fashion phenomenon. I had also recently decided I wanted to learn crochet so I already had purchased some various sizes of crochet hooks. So I got some little elastic hair bands and experimented with those first. Then I learned from my mom how to use the band on a four peg spool knitter.

I used YouTube tutorials for making a dragon scale bracelet on a fork. Then I caved in,I bought myself a loom for the more advanced bracelets.

I have totally been bitten by the rubber band "bug". I love it ! Until recently I have been making the bracelets for the kids I work with in the after school program.I have been  giving them bracelets as incentive. we have also been making them as projects once a week. I have just started to post rubber band related items to my etsy shops.  I combined my love of making tassels with them and made some earrings for my tribal trends shop.  
This weekend I also learned three new variations on the "triple single" rainbow loom bracelet. I will begin posting some of my bracelets and the new charms I made with polymer clay for the bracelets on my sculptresslink etsy shop today.

Tons more turkeys

Yes, still more installments of turkey crafting madness. We are planning a Thanksgiving party for my after school program so I have made a "Pin the Gobble on the Turkey Game". I drew the turkey with markers on plain old copy paper. I then folded a sheet of red construction paper multiple times to get a multiple cut shape to make 40 "gobbles" for the game.

Another project that was recommend for my after school program is the potato turkey,you can also use a pine cone. Here I used a crumpled  piece of constrctuion paper as getting 40 potatoes or pinecones can be pricy and time consuming.

Tons of Turkeys

With Thanksgiving right around the corner. The elementary school age teachers of America unite on the craft frontier to make, turkeys. Lots, and lots, of craft project turkeys. So here are three of the turkey projects I have been working on.  One is the turkey wreath. This is made with paper plates, construction paper and glue. I found it a little advanced for the kindergarten kids in my after school program but they could do it with some one on one assistance.

The second one that is lots of fun is the paper cup turkey, which is good for all age groups. You will need: paper bathroom cups, brown paint (tempera or acrylic),
 google eyes, construction paper, scissors, glue, cotton balls or craft pompoms and construction paper in brown and yellow. If you are doing this with a group I highly recommend precutting the construction paper pieces.

Cardboard tube paintings

Cardboard tube painting. I read about this years ago in a preschool art book. I have found it to be very successful for 5 to 9 year colds as well. This is a cardboard tube from paper towel dipped rolled into paint. Then a smaller tube dipped into another color of paint at the ends. Kids also added detail with their own brushes.

 This is another project that I did with my after school program kids.
We spent two days on it. I drew some egg shapes on 8x10 inch construction paper for the kids to cut out. We spent the first day cutting out the egg shapes and choosing colors of paper we wanted then we made our stamps.
The stamps are made out of cut pieces of craft foam which we glued with white glue onto  precut pieces cardboard that we cut from old boxes.
On the second day when the glue on the stamp had dried we used a craft grade paint brush and brushed paint on the the stamp and printed  the egg by gently pressing on the back side on the cardboard stamp.

This stamp was used on the egg below.

Happy birthday Dr. Suess

Hundreds of school children celebrated the "birthday" of Dr. Suess today and Read Across America week.So I thought why not bring the fun to art class too? After all the art of Suess was just as important as the text. So in honor of these events we designed and made drawings of Birthday cakes for Dr. Suess.

After a day of drawing those cakes I thought today I would try my hand at making some Dr. Suess birthday cupcakes of my own.
I  used chocolate cake mix, white frosting  I mixed with some blue food coloring for fish cup cakes.
 I also mixed the white frosting with some green food coloring for the "Green Eggs and Ham" cupcakes.

I got red Swedish fish and sandwiched them with white frosting for cat hats and red shoelace licorice for cat whiskers.  I used some left over gel icing for all other details.

Gustav Klimt inspired "Tree of Life" mixed media

 I just recently finsihed a longterm substitute teaching position at an elementary school.
We looked at the " Tree of  Life" mosaic mural by gustav Klimt. I used a powerpoint and projected it via the computer on to a large flat screen television.
We looked at the orginal Tree of Life Mural.

Then we looked at several forms of reproductions of the image so that student could see how popular the image is.

We first learned about using brushes properly and I showed students how to drag the brush to make thicker lines and how to lift it up toward the tip to make smaller lines.

We then talked about blending and layering colors and using art stix for the background. The last step was adding on some sequins with glue

Birch Trees in Winter

This idea came from The beginning pages of the book Snowballs by Louis Elhert. This is a simple collage using strips of white paper, black tempera paint and white paper that was hole punched.I did this as a project with the after school program kids.

So many snowman so little time

 So I have not always been the biggest snow man fan. I know some people are all about the little guys but in the past  I was not as affected by the snowman craze. This year I have been bitten by a snowman bug it seems.

 I have been making a lot of snowman projects. I have created snowman earrings with polymer clay and  we be making many different snowman projects with the students in the after school program.

In the classroom while subbing I have also carried over this snowman craze of mine.

In the classroom student have been painting simple white outlines on blue construction paper to make snowman collages with.  They paint the snowman first then later glue on the button and precut construction paper hats and noses and foil paper scarfs.

We  have also been making snowman collages with students and using a template I found on Big Activities.Their is even a great step by step with visuals directions page you can print out.

The results vary and although the worksheets are identical students have unique perspectives on how their finished snow person will look.

So when you are teaching projects on snowmen you have to have some snowman earrings. These are easy to make but if you would like a pair to wear without the time it takes to make them you can order a custom made pair on my sculptresslink etsy shop.

I even made a snowman math activity for the after school program.
this is from an old curriculum guide I had. To do this first make copies of the snowmen,then cut them out color them in and write math problems on their bellies then glue sticks to them and write the answers on the bottom of the sticks. Then decorate a shallow box and put holes in the top to hold the sticks and the box will conceal the answers,

ho ho holidays

So the holidays are upon us and the holiday crafting with the kids started in Dec 1st. I will not recap on all that we have done but here are two quickies you can try with your little ones to let them make some things they can give as gifts.

Stamped wrapping paper use plain white butcher paper or news print sheets. You can use some sponge stamps and paint or some foam or rubber stamps and stamp pads. The example below use chunky foam stamps I found at A.C. Moore for $1.00,or go after the 26th and get them on discount for a lot less then save for future projects) I also picked up some $1.00 stamp pads.

 

Pop up cards. Use basic construction paper and fold into four equal sections. On the inside fold cut two small slits about one inch apart. Use another color of construction paper and cut out small trees, stars or other shapes then "pop up" or pull the cut section up and away from the top layer and glue the shape onto the fold of that section.

Happy veterans day

This is another paper plate wreath using my bingo markers some construction paper and the Martha Stuart circle punch I let two girls use their imagination and create a poppy wreath for veterans day.

Pumpkin collages

This a quick one day project you can finish it in under a half hour.Prep time goes quick with use of a paper cutter. I cut orange construction paper into strips 1 to 2 inches wide and smaller strips of green paper. Students had a choice of stacking strips horizontally or vertically and rounding off the edges to create the shape of their pumpkin. some choose to let the black background paper show through and others did not. I let the students choose if their pumpkins would have a face or not.

Halloween pin'ata's

I made some paper mache pinata with my after school kids. We used an air filled balloons for the molds.We created a mummy putting the large part upward for the head and then we put the large put facing down to create a pumpkin. The mummy is two layers of white torn paper. The jack o lantern is torn paper with fringe cut orange tissue paper.The faces are made with construction paper.

Ceramic jack o lantern

This is a simple fairly simple clay project that you could probably do with older elementary students say in 4th or 5th grade. I made it is part of a hand building clay class I am taking. This was made with two pinch pots one stacked on top of the other. A coil was rolled and put over the seam then smoothed out. I made the lines on the pumpkin with a oval shaped chopstick but the rounded edge of a Popsicle stick would probably do. After the bisque firing I just used a orange acrylic paint on it and let parts of the stoneware color of the clay show through on the lines and the stem.A hole was cut in the bottom and on Halloween I am going to out a battery powered tea light in it. You could also vary this to be a pumpkin and skip the Halloween holiday edge then it could be a table topper for thanksgiving or other fall occasions as well.Just be sure if making the pumpkin variation that you cut a hole in the top or bottom to let the air out before firing.

I just love fall! I get so much inspiration from this season. The sights, the sounds the colors. I love picking pumpkins and painting/ carving them. I love hayrides, long walks to see the changing leaves and warm apple cider. So I have been working on a series of different fall themed drawings with students. For my Saturday classes for 7-10 year olds we have been creating fall scenes using markers. We talked about how to get different values out of the marker color be varying the pressure you apply on the marker. We also have a small how to draw a pumpkin tutorial and a discussion on horizon line and foreground, background and middle ground. We discussed how items in the front are larger then items in the back.

I created another variation of a marker drawing. The one below was draw with water based markers then a used a brush and brushed water back into it for a more water color effect.

leaf wreaths

This project is a great green project and uses not that many materials. You will need paper plates, scissors, brown paper bag/craft or construction paper, markers, glue stick. Step 1 use a common every day paper plate

Step 2 fold cut the ring off the outside of the plate fold it in half and cut out the inside.

Step 3 fold construction paper in half twice or use a still folded brown paper bag and cut leaf shapes.

Step 4 draw veins on leaves with a variety of colored markers

Step 5 Use a glue stick or bottle of white glue. Glue larger leaves onto ring so that they stick out past the end of the ring.

Step 6 Continue gluing leaves so that they overlap. Fill the entire ring.