Friday, July 23, 2010

Grandpa's Masterpieces


So ya'll remember the fun art project we did last week at the park right? I can't believe I linked to it and if you scroll down it's just a couple posts before... anyways. So Grandpa had a Birthday this week. And what do you get a guy who has everything? Well you give him original artwork from his Masterpieces!

I found the abc stickers in the dollar bin at Target, woot! I used the same technique spelling out the word and framed it off with masking tape. I started off trying to get the kids to paint the wording but it wasn't working. Turns out I had to sponge it on quickly so as not to shift the letters. I had some cardboard underneath for protection and to keep it level of course. I only managed to get the baby's footprints, because 2 month olds curl their hands up + paint = MESS!

After that dried I sectioned off the back with more masking tape and let the kids paint more original artwork on the back. If you try this make be sure you put the older kid the direction the shirt will be worn, he started painting roly poly stick people upside down! You can see if you look close at his part. Then he added an ant parade. You can see that the younger one had streaks of design very "Jackson Pollock"! So if I'd placed her at the top it wouldn't have mattered that she was painting upside down because it would look good from any direction.

We finished off with a custom decorated designer shirt box for our unique Birthday gift. I think Grandpa will be one stylin Dude with a priceless gift. In fact I think I want one of my own! Happy Friday and have a lovely weekend friends.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Using old crayons

Our crayon tubs have gotten full of broken and worn down crayons. So I started sorting by color so we can try this project. Off to the left are some cheaper ones which don't melt and if made in China could be questionable for product safety. I'll be more careful to inspect when we get crayons from dining out... I just always bring them home and throw them in the coloring supplies. From now on those will go in the trash!

The kids had fun helping me grate these up. Be forewarned it is really messy!

Next we piled our shavings on a rock we found at the park. And then we let the Texas sun do it's thing. The kids had fun checking on the progress throughout the day.

Our finished handiwork. These will make a nice paperweight gift for a loved one. In fact Master gifted me with his right on the spot and announced the other was for Aunt Kathy.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

En plein air


Today we did art outside, which the French refer to as "en plein air".
And while it was nice to be outside it was nicer to contain the mess factor. I absolutely adore how this project turned out and bonus the kids had a blast.


The proud artists displaying their work!


I think it would be fun to do your name, holidays phrases, fun words... shapes.... you get the idea right? I see us making some of these as Christmas presents this year. For the how to instructions I discovered them here at explanation required . I discovered her delightful blog after looking at another project she did that was featured on One Pretty Thing another favorite blog of mine. I heart you, internet!

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Oh Canada

Happy Canada Day!

We had pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast, yummmm. Kraft dinner for lunch followed by donuts as a special treat. Now if only we had some smoked meat sandwiches and poutine to round out the day, eh?