Fall Tree Art Project

I had something else planned for this week's art project, but the last minute, a friend posted this project on Pinterest & I fell in love with it.  Fall tree art. 

 The kids paint the blue sky using water color.  Then add fall colors on the bottom.

 

  

(This was the last week of class before Halloween, so it was hat/mask day in art. Notice Faith's princess crown.) 

Then, the kids get watery brown tempera paint & drop a little puddle on the bottom of the page.  They aim a straw at an angle & blow, causing the paint to move into lines creating the tree.

After they have the branches, they take Q-Tips dipped into (fall colors) paint and add the leaves.

 This project turned out great.

   

(Not sure why pictures turned out side ways.)

What Do Painting & Harry Connick, Jr. Have in Common?

Probably nothing, but when you get a crafty girl that hasn't painted in a long time, a fun project to be tested out and great jazz music, then they have something in common.

I saw this really cute project of a whimsical tree and wanted to paint it to use for part of our fall decorations.

I found a great deal at AC Moore & bought 6 for $0.40 each.  I had the rest at home. 

I used the Vanilla acrylic paint to paint the white canvas.  Will walked in & told me that it was crazy for me to paint a white canvas white. :) The Vanilla had just enough color to take the stark white out.

I used the round sponge brushes, and pencil erasers to make the dots.  The Sharpie was used to make the tree.

It was a lot of fun painting along Harry Connick, Jr. playing in the back ground.  Very good "jazz" music to go with this fun painting.

Solar Systems

For Science, our Co-op has been studying space.  We will be out of town when the solar system projects are due, so we did them early.

Collin loves Legos & wanted to make his solar system using of them.  How in the world we were going to make something round out of square objects.  Let's just say that I'm so thankful for the internet.  We found a site that created a ball using Legos. They have a great chart showing  you how to make it.  After trying the 1st & 2nd level, I knew that this was going to be hard for an 8 year old to make on his own.  So we decided to just do flat circles ~ using the chart for making different sizes.

The colors don't match the planets exactly, but that's okay.

We couldn't leave off Pluto.  We know that it is considered a dwarf planet (after it was a planet for 76 years),  but we had to add it.

Collin with his buddies looking at his project.

 

 Will made his out of paper mache.  He added pictures to the planets for a funny spoof.
(For Mercury - a picture of liquid mercury & AG on it,  Venus- the goddess of love, Earth - land, Jupiter- a Jupiter Saxophone, Saturn - Saturn car, Uranus - couldn't find anything, Neptune- the god of the sea, Pluto - you guessed it, Disney's Pluto.)

Will sharing with the class.

This cutie, Hanna, will be out of town on the due date too.  So she did hers early also.  Hannah did a great job.

Tall Painting ~ What's Happening Today

Cakes for Twins

I had the privilege of making cakes for some special 10 year olds.  At first, I was going to make one big cake, but then I started wondering, how many cakes they had to share as twins.  So I decided to make each one their own cake.  It has been a long time since I made a decorated cake for someone outside the family.  But it was a lot of fun.  Seeing their excitement was such a blessing.

Wood Carving

A few months back, Tony took the boys to a gun & knife show.  There, the boys purchased a few knives.   I am a little nervous about my 7 & 10 year old having knives, but I am also a country girl that knows this is natural & healthy for boys & men alike.  I  had to pray about it & let God do the protecting & guiding while they use them.  

Will & Collin have been whittling a little bit.  Turning sticks into spears. :Another prayer goes up: 

Collin found this book at the library.  As soon as we got home, he wanted to start making something.  

We didn't  have a lot of tools for wood carving, so we started with something that we had....

 soap!  

There was a "how to" make a boat out of soap.  Let the whittling begin.

Using a knife, small screw driver & soap, Collin dug in.

I reminded them that "woodworking" was a long process & not a "hurry up & finish" project.

 

Will carving soap.  

Hopefully, we'll have finished pictures to show soon.

Side Note: This is probably not a good idea to do inside like we did.  There was soap dust flying everywhere.  At least it is clean.

Art Camp

The boys have gone to a wonderful art camp for the last few years.  Faith has waited to go for the last 3 years.  Finally, she got to go.  She had so much fun. 

Our friend, Jacob & Faith getting ready to paint.

:Faith's Froggy:

:Faith's Flowers:

:Faith's Fishy: 

Collin preparing his picture that he's going to paint.

:Collin's Dogs:

:Collin's Cat:

 

:Collin's Beach Scene:

Will studying his picture before he starts to paint.

:Will's Flowers:

:Will's Hummingbird:

:Will's Picture of Leia, our dog:

Painting on Water

If You Can't Find It, Make It

I found this really cute skirt for $1 at a thrift store.  It has bird cages all over.  I wanted to find a blue shirt with a bird on it.  Let me just say, that is almost impossible to find when you are specifically looking for it.

So when you can't find what you want, make it.  I found this shirt for $3 from Old Navy & I embroidered a bird.

Valentine Crafts

God always meets our needs.  At times, He meets our wants as well.  We didn't have to make our teachers Valentine gifts, but we wanted to.  He provided an idea as well as the resources.  Money is tight & we didn't have a lot of money to spend.

We used Snapple bottles that we already had, printed off these labels & filled them with Smartie candies.

The teachers loved them.

For the men AWANA teachers:

My in-laws stock up on Dasani water.  Faith decided (on her own

to call Papa and ask if he could bring us a case.) We used card stock 

paper that we already had from Faith's B-Day party, found a fish template on the internet

for the tags & used some Kool-Aid packets that we had.  We printed off labels 

that said Fish Bait, attached it to the packets & tied it along with a straw onto

the bottles with ribbon.

 For the lady AWANA teacher:

We did the same as above, but found some Valentine wrapping paper at

Target in the dollar aisle.  We used some diet pink lemonade drink mix that we had.  Printed off

labels with Love Juice on them.

These were ideas that I found on the internet.  I apologize to the 2 blogs where I got these two ideas from.  I did not save the site so that I could give them credit.  

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Quilling

 

My friend, Melinda introduced us to Quilling.
We were blessed thatshe gave us some supplies to get started.
It's an old craft dating back to the 1600's.

My sister-in-law had a heart attack on Valentine's Day last year.  I wanted to make her

a card to celebrate her year since the attack.  This card started our love for quilling.

(For some reason, I can't get this picture to turn like it should) 

Here is one that I made for a friend for Valentine's Day.

 Another card.

The kids have picked up on this craft as well.  It is 

inexpensive, fast & fun.

Easy Silhouette Project

Take a picture of you subject facing sideways.

   Then print out the picture on card stock.  I printed it out black and white.

  Then cut each picture out using cuticle scissors.  It makes it a lot to get around those little curves.

Then I painted it with poster paint (because that is all the black that I had).

After the paint dried, the silhouette curled up.  They can be flattened by adding weight on top of it for a few hours.

I found scrapbooking  paper that I really liked & then found matching paint.  I couldn't find an exact match, so I got one that was lighter & one that was darker & mixed the two colors.

Collin painted a few coats of sealer over the painted wooden pieces. 

The final project (still drying)

I just used Elmer's glue mixed in with a little water to glue the scrapbook paper to the wood & then to glue the silhouettes to the scrapbook paper.  Then put a few coats of the sealer over the paper & silhouettes.  (I used J.W. etc's Right-Step water base clear varnish satin finish)

  Gorilla Glue was used to hold the wood pieces together & let dry over night.

I was able to find every thing at AC Moore. Including the already painted letters.