12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 3 | Toilet Paper Roll Reindeer and Tree

HI!

Today we are using up some toilet paper rolls I had saved for a Thanksgiving craft we never got to!!
For the first one, we made a cute little reindeer!
Here are the supplies we used: (I didn't get them all in the photo!)
A tp roll
fuzzy pompoms (red)
two small black buttons from my stash
textured brown cardstock
Kyle's hand
scissors
pencil
tape
double sided sticky dots
black marker

 I first traced both of K's hands onto the cardstock and cut them out.

Then we taped them to the back side of the roll.

K picked a red pompom for the reindeer nose. He wanted it to be like Rudolph. I used a double sided sticky dot to add the nose and eyes. I didn't feel like being patient enough for glue to dry!

To finish it off, K drew a mouth on Rudolph. He said he wanted it to look like he was saying hi! I think he accomplished that! Haha

The second one we made was a Christmas tree. I used a piece of green cardstock, and cut out a (not perfect) triangle shape. Then I fringed the edges.

The button stash!

After that. I let K go to town with 'decorating' the tree. He decided to add all the buttons in a straight line. I used the double sided sticky dots again to adhere the buttons to the paper. L even tried to get in on the action!

All done!! He topped it off with a yellow pompom 'star'.

I used some more sticky dots to stick it to the tp roll, and because I cut the tree little tall, I had to use a popsicle stick to secure it in the back so it wouldn't fall over!

Tomorrow we will be making snowflake ornaments with popsicle sticks!!

12 Days of Christmas Crafts | Day 1 | Painted Wine Bottles

Hey, hey! Welcome to December!

In an effort to get back into my crafting, I have decided to do a 12 days of Christmas crafts! They may not all be specifically Christmas related, but at least winter-y. Most will even be kid-friendly since I will be doing them with at least one of my boys. :)

I have been pondering painting wine bottles for a while now, but I never had a good idea of what I wanted for our home. I saw some really great ones on Pinterest, but A. I wanted ours a little more original, and B. They just didn't "fit" with what I wanted. This morning, I was rummaging through my craft box, and came across some Martha Stewart tinsel glitter and Pearl Ex powder pigments that I have had for a while and have never used! I thought they would be perfect! 

I gathered all the supplies I wanted...

    Then got to work removing wine bottle labels, and painting them all white. 

For the first bottle, I poured a little of the pigment powder into the lid so I didn't have a load dump onto my bottle! Then I sprinkled it all around. I really loved how it fell onto the bottle. I sed these two colors, and layered them until I was satisfied. I ended up doing two bottles this way.
These are the two colors I chose...

For the next bottle, I painted it white, and just sprinkled the tinsel glitter all over, heavier at the bottom, and lighter at the top. I originally had a different idea for this one, but I was happy with the simplicity of it. I may add  a glitter snowflake once we open our ornament box. I'll add an updated photo if I do. :) 

 

Here they are drying on my sink, out of the reach of the littles! I will be finishing the tinsel glitter one by adding a layer of mod podge for protection. For the powdered ones I will spray them with a clear sealant. We don't want glitter or powder all over the house, do we??

once that was all done, I added some leftover clippings from our tree and put them on the ledge at our entry way. I will be adding more to the entry way in the next few days! I can't wait to share my post on how we decorate our house this year!

 

There you have it. A super easy craft. I didn't have my son help with this one, but you could definitely have a little one pour on some glitter or help with the painting if you are brave enough! All three bottles took me less than an hour (during nap time!) to complete! I would love to see your versions if you decide to paint any bottles this season!

Stay tuned! Tomorrow I will be sharing a kid-friendly snowflake craft! :)

Scratch Art!

      Do you remember getting the little scratch art kits as a kid? The ones that look black and come with the little stick so you can scratch your way to an awesome picture? I loved those!
      I am an assistant in an art class, and this was one of the recent assignments for the kids. I made one myself in high school, and I forgot how easy it was to do, and how much fun it could be. I am so glad I was reminded. Of course, I had to share it with my own kiddos, and now with you!
     First, I had them color a blank piece of paper out of the art pad. A heavy piece of cardstock will work, too! Just draw any pattern or design. Any colors. I reminded J to color pretty dark. He had no idea what we were doing, so he just thought I was being crazy asking him to draw a random pattern and push hard! For mine, I chose to do different shades of green since I was going to use it as part of my St. Patrick's Day decor. Jacob chose to use different bright colors. I also made one for K to do, and chose different colors. I made a diagonal line pattern. Jacob did big blocks.
     Then, I pulled out my bottle of *black* acrylic paint and painted over it all! Again- J thought I was crazy for destroying his art work!! I did two coats to make sure it was all covered nicely.
      We let it dry overnight and the next day I gave J a skewer (just one for shishkebobs, nothing fancy!) and it was then that he realized what the heck we were doing! He was pretty excited! He got right to work making his masterpiece!

This is the beginning of mine for St. Pat's

 

And the end result!

Can you find the four-leafed clover?

 

Kyle had fun scribbling his to reveal the color!

 

 

 

 

 J was hard at work in his pjs, so he wouldn't let me get a full photo of him! :)

Can you tell what it is??

 

Come back tomorrow to see the finished piece!!


We had a lot of dun doing this craft! We always enjoy craft days!
What are you making this week??
I would love to see your photos and ideas! You can share them over at the LCS Facebook page!



See you soon!

St. Paddy's Day Crafts

       Since it is almost Easter, and since I missed almost the whole month of March, I think it is only fair that I share our crafts we made for St. Patrick's Day! This way, you can be {WAY} ahead for next year!
       It seems odd to me that St. Pat's and Easter are in the same month. Isn't Easter supposed to be in April? I am  not complaining- I love Easter, but it just seems strange.
       Anyways...we made St. Pat's crafts at the beginning of the month, and waited until after to start on the Easter ones ( I will be sharing those soon!)
One of the first crafts we did were these shamrocks:

 To make these, I cut one sheet each of dark green, light green, and yellow tissue paper into squares. They do not have to be perfect little squares. Just small enough to have room for lots of colors.

Then, I got a piece of green cardstock and cut out the outline of a shamrock. I got a piece of clear contact paper and placed the outline on to it. I let the boys go to town "decorating" their clovers. Jacob chose to place carefully, while Kyle wanted to dump the whole bucket and be done! :)

 

When they were all done, I put another piece of contact paper on top to hold it all toether and cut out the shape. It is now hanging on our awesome hanging thing from IKEA.

We also made another painting like the one we made for Valentine's Day. This time, I let Jacob do the painting, and gave Kyle a little canvas of his own to do what he wanted with. I am seriously in love with what J decided to do. It looks awesome! Before I share, here is what that project looked like!

Lots of green paint!

 

 

 

 

We only made a *little* mess!! :)

 

J hard at work!

Here is the end result! I can't stop looking at it! I think he did a great job!

One final thing we ( I ) did was a scratch art picture. I will be sharing the whole project next week, but for now, this is what it looked like to start

 

 I can't wait to finish sharing the rest of our month with you! See you soon!

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day

Well, almost!
Last week, for our Art time, we decided to make Valentines crafts. Kyle even got to join in the fun. He finger-painted a canvas that I taped the word "LOVE" on. Would you believe he had 6 different colors to choose from? Once he realized how much fun he could have getting his hands in the paint, he went all out! All the colors got to be best friends! At least they blended together nicely!
Jacob helped me choose papers and cut out letters and shapes on the Cricut. We also made a flower pot thing that we found on Pinterest. I can't seem to find the link now. If I ever find it again, I will be sure to link back to the original poster! If you happen to come across it, let me know so I can add it!! :) Jacob had a lot of fun being creative and painting the papers for the heart flowers. Since we only made one to fit on an 8x10 paper, we had some painted paper left over. We did not want to waste it, so we framed it! I especially love the striped one Jacob did! We added a little white heart to give it some contrast. It is sitting on the entertainment center now. I love looking at it every day!
I have to get to the store and get more canvases so we can make more crafts for the month of March!! I love being able to craft with my kids! I am so glad they enjoy it, too!! :)

Kyle getting his finger paint on!

Welcome!

Christmas Art

I love Christmas!
This year, we will not be travelling, and I think this has left me with a need to decorate EVERYTHING! We usually put out decorations, but we are never here to enjoy them. Then we come home after Christmas, and have to take them down. This is no fun!
I have been finding some great ideas on Pinterest, and we made some this week. First, I found a canvas painting of a quote from The Grinch. It is pinned on my Christmas board.  I have a bunch of 8x10 canvases, so I thought I would make my own. I am pretty impressed with how it turned out. It is on a shelf in my kitchen :) Kyle wanted to help while I was painting, so I gave him his own canvas and paintbrush, and let him go to town!  His is hanging in his room! Every time he goes in there now he points at it and gets so excited!
The next project we did was hand print Christmas tree and Santa. Also onthe 8x10 canvas! :)  Jacob did the Santa since his hands are a little bigger!
This was Jacob's art project for the week! Today we will be making a special family ornament. I am doing the project with my photography class this Friday, so I thought it would be nice to show them a finished product! I will be adding those photos soon!
Here are our photos of this week's projects!