Little Artist's Easel

After having two boys who never really did a lot of painting/drawing before kinder and even when they went to kinder they didn't do very much and preferred to play with building blocks or make something on the construction table. I have a little girl that would sit and paint, draw and colour all day long. So I wanted to make a free standing easel so she can paint to her hearts content.

It's very simple to make, you only need -
A lager piece of cardboard (I used and old box no longer needed)
scissors
packing tape

you can cut your cardboard any size you like but I have cut mine 30cm by 100cm the sides are both 40cm long and the base is 20cm, now all you need to do is fold the sides up and tape it altogether at the top and there you have it and quick and homemade easel. I just use pages to hold the paper on (I find this the best way as the kids can take them on and off themselves)

Weekend Painting fun

To get the kids creativity fix this weekend I set up something I've been wanting to do for a while now, shaving cream art. I wanted to make it a little easier for me and only got one child to do it and one time, that way I could help them every step of the way instead of trying to split myself in 3 and have 3 kids all calling out for me to help them. This may the whole process a lot easier and a lot less mess was made (I will make sure to do this any time we are doing something that they need a lot of help with)

So first we started with a baking tray (one bigger than an A4 piece of paper) then I covered the tray in shaving cream and spread it out so it covers it completely (the fist time I use way to much cream, you don't need a whole lot just a thin layer is enough) then it's time to add your colours. I used food colouring gels as I have a lot of different colours for cake decorating but you can use standard food dies and I've read normal paint but have not tired that.

Next hand your child a fork or tooth pick and skewer and get them to mix all the colours together and make pretty patterns, when they are happy with it take your paper and lay it on top of the cream and smooth it out making sure as much of the paper touches the cream. Lift the paper off and scrap off the excess cream, leaving your child's masterpiece on the paper. I love how these turned out and wanted to do one myself (maybe next time when I don't have to do a quick clean up and start making tea)

I do Project Life (memory keeping) and I have big plans for these works of art. I'm going to make them into Project Life cards and It's a way to keep art the kids have made themselves. The kids are so proud of these, this is a project we will be doing again. Until next time have fun.

Kepping Stocked

When I was a child I watch a TV show called Play School and they always had a useful box. It had craft supplies, boxes, pencils and sticky tape. Now that I have a board jar set up I need to make sure I have the right supplies and enough for everyone. So I have made a supply, craft and useful boxes. With the list I made for our board jar I also wrote out a shopping list of items I would need to do some of the crafts projects and activities like waterballons, wooden spoons, face paints also making sure I had master copies of colouring pages, word searches a copy of the story assgnment  that I found on pinterest and most importantly recipes for things like play dough, moon sand and things to cook in the kitchen. I find if I have all of these things in the one spot then when the kids what to do something I can get it started straight away instead of waiting for me to look up recipes, search online, check to see if I have supplies for projects and so on. Once again I'm hoping this will all make it a lot easier.

I started by spreading all the supplies out on the lounge room floor before deciding how to store them. I soon worked out that they would not fit all in the one box so I opted for four boxes.  One box for all the empty boxes and things the kids can recycle like egg cartons, drink bottles packet cake mix boxes washed out yoghurt containers and so on. 

Box two is for all our craft supplies, for some reason our craft items were spread right though-out the house and once I got them all together we had quite a lot. Items in hear include pencils, pens, textas, paints, pipecleners, splater screen and so much more.  

 Here is a small selection of some supplies for pasting, I get this out for the kids (so I don't have to get out full packets of everything and just replenish when supplies get low. the container is just a tackle box/craft box with 17 individual spaces that hold things like coloured match sticks, goggley eyes, pom poms, foam shapes, mini patty pans and mini icy pole sticks.

 I also have a take-away container to put all the stickers in, for some reason our two boys hate, hate, hate stickers but our 3yr old girl makes up for them and will stick them to anything she can get her hands on.

Box three has activities like play doh, bubble blowers and specialised books like sticker activity book and those books that only certain makers work with. Also it has kits like pet rock painting and paper airplanes and felt animals. I have found some of these kits in the post office and Target. have a look in your discount stores also, I'm always on the look out for inexpensive kits the kids would like.    

and lastly the fourth box is for all the colouring/activity books, word searches cut out masks (once again I got these from the discount store) small canvases, paper, coloured paper, cardboard. I'm wanting to get a folder for put master copies of colouring pages and activity sheets in but just haven't got around to that yet but please watch this space, it will be coming soon. I hate it when the kids ask me do you a colouring or something like that and I have to make them wait while I search to found it and then copy it, so the folder wont be to far away.

I hope you enjoy my supply boxes, until next time have fun.