Kids project – Water-color painting

I’ve been thinking about the idea of introducing V to water-color painting and wondering when the right time would be. Thus far she’s had some good practice with a paintbrush and paint, making her much more confident in handling a brush. Since she has gotten better at coloring within the lines in regular coloring books, I thought she might do okay with watercolors. Today was our first attempt, and she did just great.

She listened when I explained how to dip the brush into the water and mix it with the paint. She cleaned the brush in a small cup of water before going to the next color. And she wiped the brush on tissue paper when there was too much water. I think she kind of enjoyed being meticulous with the paints.

We used a basic set of Crayola watercolors in 8 colors. I was very happy with the vibrancy of the colors and how well they went on to the watercolor paper. I traced an illustration onto a piece of the watercolor paper from a great coloring book. We’ll be using lots of these illustrations.

Here’s her final product.

Kids project – Tissue-paper flowers

Here’s a super easy project to do with a toddler: cut up a bunch of pieces of tissue paper and then have them glue on the papers onto a construction paper cut out.

This was way too easy for V. Even with doing all the gluing herself — yes, I have decided to just trust her with the Elmer’s glue bottle — it took her three and a half minutes to complete this first flower.

I quickly came up with the idea to do a second but with the tissue pieces scrunched into tiny balls.

This was much more fun and she loved placing each ball into the glued paper. Many times she commented that the flower was “beautiful”. The texture is much more interesting on this second flower.

Still a favorite past time

At 2 years and 9 months, V still loves to take utensils out of my baking drawer and play with them. Mostly she takes them into the diningroom or living room, but sometimes she just plops down on the kitchen floor and gets going. Here she’s got the egg beater, egg slicer, a silicon baking mat, and a small rolling pin.

The egg beater is still her favorite. She pretends to be mixing dough to make cookies or kolach. And she’s very good about making it spin. She’s not so good at putting everything back when she’s done.

Kids project: Melted-crayon hearts

V and I have decided that we like to have the window in the dining room decorated with something on it all the time. We started with hanging some Christmas ornaments on the window and since we took those down, we needed to put something else in its place.

I’ve been waiting to do this crayon project for a long time and decided this was the right time. It’s a bit messy and time consuming, but well worth it.

I have a very vivid memory of doing this project when I was in the first grade. I remember that the eighth graders had to pair up with us to help us make our “stain-glass” pictures, and remember totally loving my creation. I knew I had to do this with V and that she would like it.

The concept is ironing multi-colored crayon shavings between pieces of wax paper. The crayon melts and spreads, mixing the colors nicely. Place the ironing between a frame of some sort and you’ve got a piece of art.

Hearts are always fun and an easy shape to work with. I cut out some black construction paper into various sizes of hearts and then had V take the glitter glue and make an outline around each heart. She chose silver, gold, and red glitters. I think this was the best part for her. What little girl doesn’t love glitter. Glitter that comes out as glue is really great. It takes a long time to dry but once done, it looks really striking on the paper, especially on a black background.

Here’s the glitter pens we use. I’m totally happy with these.

I did the shaving of all the crayon colors. V helped me pour and place them between sheets of wax paper, and then I did the ironing, of course. The heat has to be on a very low setting or it will get ruined. It needs just enough heat to melt.

The red one came out best but it was hard to take a picture with the red glitter showing. It really is pretty.

Then V helped me attach the heart frames around the wax paper. She loved the result and couldn’t wait to show her daddy.

Pink

We got some new watercolors and are ready to experiment with selective painting. V took a look at the color palatte and said, “Where’s pink?”

It’s interesting how she gravitates to that color more than any other.

Sewing project: Holidays tablecloth

Here’s another tablecloth I made – sort of. I made the runner that goes down the middle, and then sewed it into an existing tablecloth.

I love the Target brand tablecloths. The material is thick and sturdy, and when it comes out of the dryer it’s not too wrinkly. I have a green tablecloth from this material already and I wanted to have one in blue for Christmas dinner and New Year.

I found a pattern and material at a sewing expo I went to a couple months ago and though it would be perfect between a royal-blue tablecloth.

It does look really nice together.

I had some extra pieces and made a strip assembling the same collection of material. I used it to make another iPad cover, which I gave to my mom. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it came out nicely. And my mom like it. Yay!

Another Dresden

I took a picture of the dresden table runner I made for my mother-in-law before I gave it away at Christmas time.

I wanted to do something with orange and yellows because she has a set of plates that are orange and I thought this might go along with that.

It was enjoyable to make this one. I used ordinary bias tape around the edges. I just didn’t have the desire to make my own. And I like how skinny the bias tape is in comparison to bias tape that I usually make.