Feeling A Teensy Bit.....

... Famous!!

 

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the blogger who writes and manages All Free Kids Crafts. She wanted to know if she could feature some of my recycle crafts.

Of course, I said "Of Course!" 

Today I was scrolling through FB and there was a picture of my bottle cap rainbow project on her post!!

 

 

She has a bazillion followers so it was exciting to see my project on her page!

 

And a few weeks ago I was contacted by the owner of the  Kipling House , which is the cutest little art studio/crafting cottage ever.

 

 

See. Yellow front door love.

 They invited me to teach some classes for adults and we are starting off with an owl painting project and I ended up on their FB page yesterday, too.

 

This is pretty exciting for someone who usually just hangs out in paint spattered clothes!!

Check out both sites... they are fun!

 

So, "famous" being relative ... I was feeling a teensy bit famous

 in my little world today!

 

PS. I have been verrrry busy pulling together a few things for College Girl's new place so it can be finished before classes start in a few weeks.

 I've put some pics on mollie's mom FB page and Instagram.

I love Instagram. I check it more than FB. More pictures. Less opinions. Ha!

 

 

 

 

 

Me too!

I'm referring to these cute little chalkboard signs we made in Color Me Happy Art Camp!
 I love Art Camp, too - we didn't even pay them to write this :)  !!
 
I had huge paint buckets full of broken crayons, peeled crayons and a few whole ones as well! We used those to decorate our chalkboards... and guess what? The chalkboard center is peel and stick chalkboard contact paper, not paint!  Easy peasy! We read "The Crayon Box That Talked"  along with this project. It's a great little story about getting along. Perfect for the beginning of the school year or camp week - anytime a group is getting started together for any length of time.

Remember this project??? Well, everyone wanted one of their own so we scaled things back a little and everyone had a great time sorting and choosing the perfect bottle caps!

 
Love the puffy clouds!

And then remember the Rainbow Flower ?? We had a whole bouquet of very unique Rainbow Flowers!

 

We had a grreat time at CMH Art camp last week and wanted to show off some of the masterpieces we created.
PS - the Rainbow Flowers in the picture above were created by 3 and 4 year olds! Wow, huh??

ROY G BIV, a very cool guy...

Summer is Art Camp time - a whole week of messy fun, not just an afternoon like we have when school is in session! Our little Art Campers learned all about color - starting with the order of the colors in the rainbow (spectrum.) We created a Roy G Biv puppet to help us remember what comes after red...and that blue and indigo are different in the spectrum, etc.  Roy is a very cool, fun and colorful guy!! I have made Roy G Biv projects in a variety of ways through the years but turning him into a puppet was a lot of fun  (this was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest but didn't pin .) Love the black and white polka dotted ties!

 

All of these "Roy's" were made by four year olds. They are drying overnight and then the finishing touch will go on before they go home - we have a "Hello My Name Is Roy G Biv" nametag just like you see at meetings.

This next batch of "Roy" puppets was created by our 3's class ands I told my staff that these are how Picasso would have represented Roy G Biv!!  They are fun and creative!

Don't miss the one with one yellow strip of hair and the bow tie as the nose!! Very Picasso :)

Now that we understand color we can get on with more colorful projects! Stay tuned!!



Another Man's Treasure...

 I've been a little MIA from the blog but I've been super busy... what I said is true. I have been running around getting ready for Summer at work. Literally hundreds of children will be involved in our programs in the next few weeks ( School is out here!!) so I am getting everything organized.
The stacks of Dick Blick canvases are waiting for little artists.

And then my favorite art materials - recycled items. (One Man's trash is another man's treasure or at least art supply!) Oh, the art it will become - sounds like a Dr. Seuss story on found art!

I have been sorting and organizing all the items that parents have brought in to me. You can learn a lot from people's trash.I feel like an anthropologist or something. I have found that overall we eat healthy cereals - only one sugary cereal box in the stack ( or maybe people are embarrassed by the amount of sugary cereal they eat and are recycling those at home?) Paper towel tubes are easy to organize but toilet paper tubes are all over the place (at least when you are collecting hundreds - yep, like 500.) And all toilet paper tubes are not the same length or diameter - who knew? AND, toilet paper tubes being used in art projects cause children to howl with laughter if there is one speck of toilet paper left on the roll. True story. And no, I do not know why!

And then my all time favorite recycled art supply ..... lots and lots of bottle caps!!! I have used them in project after project after project.  ( BTW, we drink a lot of Gatorade and OJ - for those of you interested in my anthropological findings.)

College Girl came home for a few days and spent a whole day in my office turning big boxes of lids in to this awesome color co-ordinated spot. She did this last week and the cardboard box of mixed lids on the end have come in since!!! When I send out the "all call" for lids my people take me seriously!!! But we use them just as fast!

In appreciation of all her sorting, we did have a nice lunch at a delicious pizza place on the Marietta Square. It was hot and sunny and we ate outside. After lunch, we strolled to the cupcakery across the square and polished off another trillion calories!! It was a delicious day!

 

I'm looking forward to posting pics of all the great projects we create from "one man's trash" in the next couple weeks !!

Trash to Treasure..

There was a Hobby Day at church and the organizer asked me to do a little "trash to treasure" project with the ladies who attended. It was so well organized - the ladies rotated to 6 different tables (one of our Seniors called it "speed crafting"!! I wanted to ask if she had been speed dating before?? Haha!) and we had a delicious lunch during our break. There was a quilter, knitter, jewelry maker, stamping and scrapbooking and "trashy" me :) We only had 30 minutes per rotation so it had to be a simple project. I brought along some examples of my trash to treasure projects to provide inspiration.

 

The "ladies" aged from 6th graders to over 65 years young. I'm used to teaching children but thoroughly enjoyed this table of Youth - of course, I taught them when they were children so it was great to reconnect.

This was our project - a small wooden sign with a bottle cap and paintstick flower. A simple, Spring-y project with two of my favorite recycle/repurpose materials. I chose the word "bloom" and replaced one of the "O's" with my flower.

It was a scaled down version of this inspiration sign* (remember 30 minute time allowance!):

Everyone got creative and made some great looking signs!

* I saw "Scatter Joy" on something on Pinterest and decided to paint it on a Spring-y sign for my newly painted tangerine door!!!  It is not getting rave reviews from the fam but I wanted something fun... I have a traditional home, I live in Atlanta - land of the brick traditional 5/4 and a door and am surrounded by black and red front doors!! Nothing wrong with either one but just not me. But I can't choose just any color because my brick is not my favorite brick ever. But as I tell the kiddos, "You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit!!" I would say that ugly brick would be a deal breaker on my next house hunt but if you know me then you know that if said house was on an island or in close proximity to any salt water of any kind I would move in it if the brick were purple!!! :)

Linking Up:

Snowman Puppet

You need 3 white, recycled bottle caps in varying sizes.

(Great sorting lesson, big to little, etc.)

Draw dots for the eyes and mouth.
Add a little tiny sliver of peel and stick fun foam for the carrot nose.

Give the other two bottle caps some dots for buttons.

Then glue them to a jumbo craft stick or a strip of stiff cardboard to make a stick puppet.

Add a scrap of fabric for a cozy scarf and you are ready for a show!

Our favorite? Make 10 of these and the class can take turns getting behind a table and singing," one little, two little, three little snowmen"... all the way to 10!! Parents love this :)

** If you use bigger lids off of  jars or cans instead of  bottle caps then the puppet can be glued to a paintstick and you can have a "really big show!"