Magazine/Wrapping Paper Beads

 

Before the days of plastic, foamy, pre-cut, pre-designed craft projects, there were the 70s, when I was a kid.  We made paper-maché piñatas, twine macramé plant-holders and did lots of art projects using objects from nature or things that we had around the house. They weren’t always beautiful, but it was lots of fun making them.

I love the idea of recycling things into art, for both environmental and financial reasons. Who hasn’t walked into a craft store and spent a ridiculous amount of money on a bunch of things that will never break down in a landfill?

If you haven’t already, you should create a “junk box” for your child to fill with things that have potential to become great art projects. Find a container that you already have around the house and you and your child can fill it with colorful magazines, old buttons and crayons, corks, bottle caps, ribbons, Popsicle sticks, wrapping paper and cloth scraps, cardboard jewelry boxes or pretty bottles-anything that you or your child see potential in. Try to see the possibilities in the things you normally throw away.

One childhood project that I remember, and re-created with my kids (4, 7 and 9years old), is making magazine beads. My older children loved it and my four year old had a great time just squeezing glue onto the newspaper we were working on.  All you’ll need are scissors, cardboard (optional), magazines, glue and pencils, straws or wooden skewers.

First, cut out a cardboard template in the shape of a long triangle about one inch wide at the bottom and about 8 to 11 inches long. Use the template to trace triangles on colorful magazine pages or old wrapping paper. Have your child cut the triangles out, or help them do it.  (You can also just guess and free-hand the triangles, which is what I did.) Use a glue stick to put glue on the back of the triangle, but try to leave the bottom inch or so of the wide base of the triangle glue-free. Then, have your child wrap the paper tightly, starting with the base, around some sort of stick (we used pens, straws, pencils and wooden skewers with the sharp ends broken off.) You may have to glue the tip of the triangle down when you’re done. Finally, just slide the “bead” off of the stick and you are done!

 

Older children will do fine with skewers, but younger ones may be more successful with pens or pencils. Your child can use the beads to make garlands, necklaces, bracelets, or ever glue them tightly side-by-side to an old picture frame to make it new!

Just remember, it’s the process that’s important, not perfection. Remind your child that imperfect things much more interesting than perfect ones!

New spring projects on the way soon!  Keep posted!

Cranberry garlands

Before I had children, I would buy wire frames and painstakingly weave lovely evergreens to them to create Martha Stewart-like wreaths.  I also designed and hand-made our Christmas Cards every year.  Now, I struggle to get my photo cards in the mail and I buy my wreaths at Costco.  I sometimes mourn the loss of my lovely adult arts and crafts.  However, I’m comforted by the fact that I’m blessed with three children who fill our holidays with more joy and beauty than any decoration could ever bring.  I’d trade anything for a handprint turkey made by my two year old!

This year, I decided that we would make cranberry garlands.  They’re pretty, environmentally friendly, and will look nice for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, assuming they age well.  (I’m not sure that they will, but I’ll take the risk.) 

You will need fresh cranberries, fishing line and a yarn needle.  Yarn needles are plastic, not too sharp and can be purchased at craft and fabric stores.  I bought 7cm needles. (Susan Bates brand to be exact.) Make sure the eye isn’t too big, or it will ruin the cranberries.

I simply pulled a yard or so of fishing line out from the spool and taped it to the spool so that no more could unwind.  Then, I knotted the free end of the fishing line to the needle so it wouldn’t pull off and had my kids start stringing.  It was a little challenging for our two-year old, but she could do it with help!

You can make the garlands as long as you like.  Just tie them off when they are the length you want.  I’m going to string them on the chandelier in our dining room for Thanksgiving.  We may make a few strings for our Christmas tree too.  It would be a great project for people sitting around watching football, assuming they’re not on a white couch!  When the cranberries are ready to be tossed, I’ll just cut the string and slide them into my compost!

Happy Thanksgiving!  Enjoy the people you love!

Halloween Lanterns

 

“Where are my zizzors?” is a common refrain at my house.  My two (almost three) year old loves few things more than cutting any piece of paper she can find into a million little pieces.

With a little help, she was able to do this project and put her cutting talents to use.  It’s geared toward older kids, but she had a great time cutting and gluing and is very proud of what she made.  All you need is construction paper, tape, glue and “zizzors.”

Simply fold your construction paper in half and draw parallel lines from the fold to within a few inches of the edge.  Have your child cut along these lines.  Unfold the paper and make it into a long “roll” with the fold bulging out, so it looks like a lantern.  Tape either end.  Then have your child cut out eyes, a nose and a mouth for their lanterns and glue them on.  It is also fun to cut a strip of paper to tape on as a handle for the lantern. 

 

You can make jack-o-lanterns, green witches, ghosts, goblins or anything else your kids dream up.  They look cute sitting on a table or hanging from the ceiling.  You can throw them in the recycling after Halloween or save them for next year’s decorations!

Fall leaf hunt/leaf rubbings

I’ve read several articles recently on how important it is for children to spend time outdoors and connect with nature.  It seems obvious, but it is easy to get so wrapped up in activities that you spend your days in the car rather than out in the fresh air.  Playing outside is not only invaluable for your children’s physical and mental health, it’s absolutely free. 

This afternoon, we took a “leaf walk”.  We just walked around the block, but it would be a great excuse to take your kids to the arboretum, to a nature reserve, or just out in the country.  A paper bag was a perfect receptacle for the leaves we found.  I asked the kids to find as many different kinds of leaves as they could.  We picked up the ones that were not too dried out, so they’d be pliable for rubbing or pressing.  I was amazed how many types of trees we found in a small area.

Tracing paper works the best for doing leaf rubbings.  I found some at Walgreens that was not expensive.  We peeled the paper off of some crayons and went to work.  Place the leaves under the paper, one at a time, and rub the flat side of a crayon against the paper that covers the leaf.  It helps to hold the stem through the paper and rub in one direction.  My two-year old had a hard time with it, so I helped her.  She loved picking up leaves!

You can also have your children dry beautiful leaves by putting them between sheets of waxed paper in a heavy book.  If you don’t care about the book, you can skip the waxed paper.  They’ll be dry in a week or two.

Leaf rubbings and dried leaves are a great addition to any science notebook.  There are several websites that will help your children identify what kind of tree each leaf comes from, if they are interested.  One I found was www.oplin.org/tree.  Your child might enjoy checking out a book on trees from the library too.  As my wise Grandma would always say, “Get those kids outside!”

Watercolor leaves

In my opinion, you should hang your children’s favorite creations up, at least for a while.  It will show them that you love what they’ve done!  There are plenty of years to have a pristine house, but only a few to have your kitchen “cluttered” with their beautiful work.  Picasso once said “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”

Using only white cone coffee filters and children’s watercolor paints, your kids can have fun creating beautiful leaves to hang on your windows this October!  My mother-in-law, an early childhood educator, gave me this great idea. 

We simply put a little water in the bottom of some small cups and made our fall colors: red, yellow, orange and green.  Brown would look great too!  The kids got their watercolor brushes wet, rubbed lots of paint into them and added it to the appropriate cup.  The more paint you add, the more intense the color will be!  Then, they simply splattered or painted the watercolors onto the filters.  We used a different brush for each color, so the lighter colors wouldn’t get muddy.  For really beautiful, intense splatters, have your kids just use the paint directly from the palette, adding just enough water to work with. 

Let the filters dry and cut, or let your children cut, leaf shapes from the filters.  You might want to draw the leaf shape for younger kids so they don’t get too frustrated.  Then they can simply cut on the lines.

I think the leaves look beautiful hanging on my kitchen windows!

Creepy Compost Creatures

 

Uneaten, brown bananas are a source of guilt for me.  I always plan to make banana bread, but rarely do and the spotty bananas go straight into my organic recycling bin. 

A few weeks ago, I pulled out some toothpicks, raisins, mini-marshmallows, cloves and bay leaves and let my kids create creatures using bananas and apples as bodies.  They loved the project and I loved seeing the results.

Your creatures will not last long before you have to throw them in the compost, but this is a project that is all about the creative process!  Grapes would be fun to use as well and there are lots of interesting, spiky, funky fruits available at the grocery store these days.  To prolong their “creatures'” existence, have your kids draw them or take a picture of what they created!

This would be a great Halloween project!  Friends of mine have even done it on a larger scale, decorating pumpkins with greens and other vegetables, anchoring them with toothpicks and wooden skewers.  It’s a great excuse to visit your local farmer’s market!

Mad Scientist’s Green Slime

With Halloween just around the corner, what could be more fun than creating your own green slime to play with?  You can synthesize your own slime using only Elmer’s glue (the non-washable kind), Borax (found in the laundry detergent section of most stores), green food coloring and water.  It would be a great activity for a Halloween party!

It’s fun to find an old white, button up shirt for your child to use as his or her “lab coat”.  Not only will it make them feel like a scientist, but it will protect their clothes.  You could try to find some old goggles in your garage for your child to wear for fun too!  In a bowl, have your child mix together about 1/3 cup glue and 1/3 cup water with a spoon or Popsicle stick.  These measurements don’t have to be exact.  Add a few drops of green food coloring and mix well. 

To make the Borax solution, add around a cup of water to a jar.  To the water, add about a Tablespoon of Borax.  Have your child shake the jar to dissolve as much of the Borax as possible.  You are making what is called a saturated solution, so it may not all dissolve!  Don’t worry, it will work just fine.

Have your child add about a teaspoon at a time of the Borax solution to the glue/water mix.  After each addition, have them stir the mixture together.  You should see long strings begin to form and stick together.  Keep adding Borax until the mixture doesn’t feel gluey any more.  It will form sort of a shiny playdough-like substance.  If you add too much Borax solution, it will feel wet.  You should be able to just knead it a little to absorb the extra water!  The slime is not toxic, but Borax is soap, so don’t let your kids eat it!

I am a biologist and not a chemist, but here is the science, as I understand it. 

Mixing Elmer’s glue with water forms a substance called a polymer, which is a long chain of molecules.  (A molecule is the smallest amount of a specific chemical substance that can exist alone, like H2O, a single water molecule).  The polymer formed by water and glue is called polyvinyl acetate. 

The Borax solution (sodium tetraborate) is a cross-linking substance that makes the polymer chains stick together.  As more and more chains stick together, they can’t move around and the goo gets thicker and thicker.  Eventually, all the chains are bound together and no more Borax solution can be incorporated.

You can store the slime in plastic bags.  If you want to make a larger batch, just remember to mix equal amounts of glue and water and add as much Borax solution as needed.  Have fun!

Magazine Beads

Before the days of plastic, foamy, pre-cut, pre-designed craft projects, there were the 70s, when I was a kid.  We made paper-maché piñatas, twine macramé plant-holders and did lots of art projects using objects from nature or things that we had around the house. They weren’t always beautiful, but we had lots of fun making them.

I love the idea of recycling things that your kids could make into art, for both environmental and financial reasons. Who hasn’t walked into a craft store and spent a ridiculous amount of money on a bunch of things that will never break down in a landfill?

A useful thing to do is to create a box for your child to fill with things that have potential to become great art projects. Find a container that you already have around the house and you and your child can fill it with colorful magazines, old buttons and crayons, corks, bottle caps, ribbons, Popsicle sticks, wrapping paper and cloth scraps, cardboard jewelry boxes or pretty bottles-anything that you or your child see potential in. Try to see the possibilities in the things you may normally throw away.

One childhood project that I remember, and recently re-created with my kids (2, 6 and 8 years old), is making magazine beads. My older children loved it and my two year old had a great time just squeezing glue onto the newspaper we were working on.  All you’ll need are scissors, cardboard (optional), magazines, glue and pencils, straws or wooden skewers.

First, cut out a cardboard template in the shape of a long triangle about one inch wide at the bottom and about 8 to 11 inches long. Use the template to trace triangles on colorful magazine pages or old wrapping paper. Have your child cut the triangles out, or help them do it.  (You can also just guess and free-hand the triangles, which is what I did.) Use a glue stick to put glue on the back of the triangle, but try to leave the bottom inch or so of the wide base of the triangle glue-free. Then, have your child wrap the paper tightly, starting with the base, around some sort of stick (we used pens, straws, pencils and wooden skewers with the sharp ends broken off.) You may have to glue the tip of the triangle down when you’re done. Finally, just slide the “bead” off of the stick and you are done!

 Older children will do fine with skewers, but younger ones may be more successful with pens or pencils. You can let your children use the beads to make pretty garlands, necklaces, bracelets, or ever glue them tightly side-by-side to an old picture frame to make it new!

Just remember, it’s the process that’s important, not perfection. Remind your child that imperfect things are often much more interesting than perfect ones!