Play date, Craft Time, Sleep Over

Today Ethylwolfe is having a sleepover!

Sleepovers are The.Best.

I practically lived at my friends houses when I was a kid.

Boy (that's what his mom calls him on her blog, so I'm keeping with the theme), came over at noon today with his mom and little sister.  We ate lunch, played, and crafted.

To find people that enjoy making stuff as much as I do is well... happiness.

As you can assume I use up a lot of felt when making my flowers.

But what do I do with the extra scraps?

I save them.

For who knows what, but I save them nonetheless.

A month or two ago, I came up with one solution

And today we finally got to make them, with friends on top of it!

  

I'll assume that you got what we did from the pictures above. :)

I love how they turned out!

So Biscuit and Mommy went home this afternoon, and Boy remains.

So far they have been having a blast.

At one point my son told him "You are really nice...  I like you a lot...  You're my best friend."

I don't know why hearing things like that melt my heart but they do!

Now back to the sleepover...

Have a great evening!

Oh and I finally listed more flowers in the shop...

http://www.etsy.com/listing/89220962/light-blue-dahlia-flower-pin-or-hair

http://www.etsy.com/listing/89220221/orchid-purple-100-percent-wool-felt

9 sales so far!  Woohoo!!!

Paint Your Pot

Two weeks ago, we ventured out with D and her double dose of cuties to a pottery painting studio.  I may or may not have given my friend the guilt trip for not seeing her or her girls since AUGUST.  So she kindly invited us to tag along and enjoy a bit of pottery painting.

The kids had a lot of fun {I did too}.  For the first time since the kids were born, I was able to drive our group around.

{I love having a car that seats 8 people!}

The wait was long to get in, I guess we weren't the only people who decided to spend the day off of school actually doing something.  But we put our names on the waiting list and went to lunch.  The kids didn't mind playing around while we waited.

I gave the camera to the kids and let them go at it with photographing our day.

Enjoy!

Our friend LoLo joined us too!

I loved the wall of colorful tiles!

I think C-Bear and I are two peas in a pod, we could have spent the whole day there painting to our hearts content!

To say he's obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog is an understatement

The finished results!

Sorry girly, chocolate milk and doritos mouth, guess I should have timed this shot better :)

I didn't get to see everyone elses pieces, but I'm sure they were way cute as well!

I made the kids paint bowls because their cereal bowls were broken and they needed new ones.

They made me promise that the next time they go, I will let them pick out their own pieces :)

{But I'll have you know that they LOVE using their own special bowls}

So there was our day, it was fun, can't wait to do it again.  

And D, another 3 months better not pass before we see you and the girls again :)

*The kids took over 100 photos, so this was just a sampling of the many photos*

Batik Printing

I've fallen in love with an art blog that I stumbled across the other month.

She's an art teacher in an elementary school and shares all her cool ideas on her blog, 

PLUS explains how to make them. 

Batik printing is something that I've been wanting to try for a while, this teacher explained how to do it with acrylic paint and gel glue.  We had to try it, and it was a lot of fun for myself and the kids.

This is what we did...

We purchased the Elmers Washable blue gel glue.

Scrounged around for white fabrics that we had on hand.

{I found two old pillowcases for the kids and a hand towel for myself}

So, to start, place cardboard directly underneath the fabric that you will be working on 

{In the kids case, I placed it inside the pillow case...more on that later}

Cover your work area with plastic or something to keep messes to a minimum.

Glue away to your hearts content.

Ethylwolfe and I had just read a book about the planets, so he chose to do the solar system.

I put KennaKat's name on hers and she covered the pillowcase with polka dots.

I did randomness and a dragonfly.

SO, put glue everywhere you want to keep white.

Let the glue dry overnight.

Once glue is completely dry you can start painting.

Water down acrylic paints in the colors of your choice and get to work.

This is Ethylwolfe's solar system freshly painted.

He didn't want his black dark so we watered the paint down...a Lot.

KennaKat got bored painting, and the pillowcase was huge, so we ended up just pouring out the paints onto the case, it worked fine.

My towel.

After paint is completely dry, place items in warm water for 20 minutes or so, or until glue is dissolved.

{I used the bathtub, and worked it with my hands to get the extra glue out...like you're working out a stain}

Once rinsed out you can hang dry, throw them in the dryer, or do what I did and throw them in the washing machine, wash them, forget about them, wash them again, then dry in the dryer :)

Ours faded a little bit because I washed them twice in a row, but I'm sure they wouldn't fade so much if I had done it properly :)

The finished results...

My towel was hung up and used immediately, so it's in the washing machine right now, sorry, no current pictures of that.

What I learned and would do differently:

I definitely enjoyed doing this project, loved it rather.  I learned a few things...I don't think I'll water my paints down as much as I did this time...they got watered down a LOT, but as you can tell, the colors are still good. If I use a terry towel again, I will put my glue on much thicker than I did for this.  On the spots where I didn't get the glue all the way past the fuzz, you can't see much white.  So, live and learn.

Also, things that are 2 layers {like the pillowcases}, I wouldn't bother putting a board between, then the glue could double work and put white on the other side.  I used cardboard and then removed it for the painting process.

I think my next project with this might be to make beach towels for the kids....I'd have them lay down on a white towel, draw their outline, and then let them "draw" themselves and decorate the towel, I think that would be fun.

For the 3 pieces, we almost went through a regular bottle of blue glue.

Tree Decor

Another project the kids and I made is this:

Painted CD tree hangs

We took old CD's and DVD's and painted pictures on them {But left the shiny side alone}

The best idea would be to use outdoor paint, 

I didn't have any, so we painted with regular acrylic paint,

then sealed them with outdoor modpodge.

I hung them from a tree in our front yard.

Every time I come home, I see sparkley bright twirly things that make me happy.

Hot Rocks

Each day, I'm trying to spend time with the kids making art.  

So far, so good.

Yesterday, we painted hot rocks with crayons.

KennaKat got a hold of them and scraped some of the wax off :/

It's so simple, the kids loved it, and begged to do it again.

You heat rocks at 350 in the oven for 15 minutes.

During that time, have the kids tear paper off of crayons

Prepare a heat safe spot for your rocks.

{I put foil on top of a pot holder for easy cleanup}

Also explain to the kids that they will get burned if they touch the rock.

{Have a cup of ice water near by just in case}

Once rocks are hot, start your art.

The crayons melt away as they are placed on the rocks.

The finished product is beautiful, colorful, pieces of art :)

Crayon Meltdown

Ethylwolfe's last day of Kindergarten was last Wednesday.  It was a sad and joyful day.  Sad that my little guy has already finished his first year of school.  But glad to have him all to myself for 6 weeks.  Happy that he learned so much and happy that he has a love for school!

I wanted his classmates to have a nice parting gift because I've come to know them so well and we had such a great year together.  Monday, we threw a pizza party and then Wednesday, Ethylwolfe brought in these awesome gifts.

These are simple and fun to make.

If you would like to make them with your kids, here's how:

Items needed:

Old pieces of broken crayons

Oven safe mold (like a cupcake pan)

**Be warned, after using your molds for this, you can't use them for cooking again**

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 250
• Remove paper from all pieces of crayons
• Break crayons into 1in pieces
• Fill molds with crayons {You can do coordinating colors or random, whatever the kids want.}
• Melt crayons in the oven, approximately 15 minutes depending on number of pieces in each mold.
• Remove mold from Oven and place on a cooling rack.
• Once wax has started to solidify, place in the fridge for 30 min and voila! you have colorful crayon rubs!

We cut up squares from cereal boxes, wrote "have a great summer" and Ethylwolfe handed them out on his own.  The kids LOVED their gifts, and we made extras to have at home.  We used cheap-O crayons and they worked fine.  I hear crayola works better, so maybe we'll try them next time to compare {there will definitely be a next time}.  My kids LOVE using them and they are very proud that they made them themselves.  They are awesome for rubs of plants and large coloring projects.  Have fun!

My Little Painter

The other week Buddy discovered a blank canvas that I had been saving for something wonderful.  He asked if he could paint on it and I said "Of course!"  I was especially thrilled when he decided to paint a picture of the 2 of us hugging while working in the garden.  He has been working on it for over a week now, just a little here and there to let the picture unfold.  Even though he's still not finished (he wants to add clouds and flowers) I love it just the way it is.  I can't wait to hang this new piece of artwork.  I love my buddy :)

If you are looking for a new material to inspire your kids, I would suggest buying a canvas for them to try.  They are cheap at Michaels and ACMoore and if you use a 50% off coupon they are even cheaper.  Watercolor, acrylics, modpodge, etc, everything goes.  I can't wait to try this project in my head involving family photos and canvas medium.  I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful spring day!

Friday again

A little bit of what has been going on this week...

A Paper Mache piggy bank still in the works...

Shakespeare getting a bath

He's trying to kill me with his glare

KennaKats's Watercolor painting

Buddy's watercolor painting

Out to eat after the meeting on Sunday

KennaKat's first Dentist Experience

She did GREAT!!

Bailey destroyed 2 of the little pigs' houses that we made while I took Buddy to school this morning :(

Why do we still have her?!