Alcohol Ink Stamped Candle Holders

We created alcohol ink stamped candle holders for Mother's Day and end-of-the-year teacher gifts this year. These were SOOOO easy to make! And took no time at all!

Here's what you will need:
--Adirondack Alcohol Inks
--Alcohol Ink stamp handle
--felt pads to stamp with
--clear glass candle holder (I got ours at Dollar Tree and Target)
--votive candle (or LED votive candle)

We first played around with alcohol inks a couple years ago when we made all kinds of coasters. Check out this post for more in-depth information about playing around with alcohol inks.

For this project, I purchased a bunch of glass candle holders from Dollar Tree and Target (for $1.69 each). We used up to three colors of ink on the alcohol ink stamp pad (similar to this photo from our initial coaster project):

Then we simply stamped the ink around the glass. Let it dry and you have AMAZING results! It took maybe 10 minutes for the girls to each make 3 candle holders. This is definitely something you could make in bulk for party favors or gifts!

Here are the dramatic results! Forgive the multiple photos. You know how I LOVE LOVE LOVE to photograph glass art. Unfortunately, it was a really cloudy day when I took these or they could have been even more fabulous. Oh well. ;-)

 Here are the smaller versions from Target that we also gave to people:

I also bought a clear glass plate from Kohl's (for $10) and used alcohol inks on the bottom of the plate and gave it to my mom for Mother's Day. I will have to make more of these because I think they are so pretty!

I did seal the bottom of the plate with a coat of polyurethane spray so that she could wash the plate if she used it for serving desserts or anything like that. I did not seal the candles. We just let the recipients know that they shouldn't leave them outside or get them wet.

Such an amazingly easy project!

Product Review: Master Kitz Paint Kits

I came across these kits quite some time ago at the Creative Kidstuff toy store. They looked so neat!

Source

I received one for Christmas a couple years ago and one of my daughters received one for her birthday. This summer we decided it was time to break these out and give them a try. Unfortunately, I do not have a lot of in-progress photos of both kits. But here it goes:

The first kit we did was the Starry Starry Night Kit. The kits come with the instructions, paint, applicators, paper, and stickers provided. All you add is the newspaper and creativity. The instructions are easy to follow and very visual so an older kid could definitely do this on their own without much supervision. The thing I think is really neat about this is that it introduces kids to layering paint. Admittedly, I've never actually taken a painting course (just other generic art courses) so my knowledge is limited to what I've observed. But I do know that artists paint their images in layers and this is a great way to teach kids about layering color together!

The way the Starry Night kit works is that you place removable circle stickers down, then apply different shades of blue paint with the stamped roller applicator included. You remove the stickers and tape down a stencil. You roller black paint over the stencil to create the town. Then using your own creativity you layer on pastel color to create the details of the stars and town. Here is my 10 year old's version of Starry Starry Night:

I absolutely LOVED how she didn't just copy what she saw on the box. She created her own masterpiece with her own color choices. She asked to use our pastel colors so she would have a wider variety of color to pick from than what was included in the kit.

I give this kit FIVE stars and HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! Here are a couple more details:

Another thing I truly love about this kit is that there is great TEXTURE in the paint application. Just like Van Gogh's work!

I visited New York City this past spring and had to see MOMA. I can't tell you how excited I was to see Starry Starry Night in person and to be able to get up close and really "see" it!

But to be honest, I kind of like my daughter's version better. Ha! ;-)

Now onto kit #2: Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life. I have more in-progress photos for this one:

This kit was admittedly, quite a bit less involved. You placed the stencil over your paper to start. And then apply the included gold paint with the roller brush.

After that, you use a darker brown and stamp over the gold paint:

This created patterns and shapes on the gold paint.

You remove the stencil and add the included stickers wherever you like. And then you have a finished Tree of Life!

And here they are on our art wall:

All right, I'm going to be 100% honest here and say, the Tree of Life kit was kind of a disappointment TO ME. Now, my 8 year old daughter enjoyed it. But when the PROCESS of this kit is compared to the process of the Starry Starry Night kit, the Tree of Life kit was a letdown. There were more steps in the Van Gogh kit and there was more room for the child to be more creative.

I think the Tree of Life kit is perfect for ages 6 and younger. I think the Van Gogh kit is better overall for any age (with help). But especially for ages 6 and up. I'm glad I wasn't having my 10 year old do the Tree of Life kit or I think she would have been easily bored with it. The only complaint I had about the quality of the kit is that our black paint in the Van Gogh kit was unusable. It was very clumpy and you could tell just sort of old. Luckily I had some black acrylic paint here so it wasn't a problem for us. But for someone using this kit that doesn't have access to a fully stocked art room like we do, it would have really changed my perspective on the kit.

Overall, not a bad gift idea for a creative gift. But I definitely recommend the Van Gogh Kit over the Klimt kit. I would be curious to try the Water Lilies kit and the Matisse kit just to see what the process was like for those kits. Anyone out there try those?? What did you think?

Polar Vortex: Playing Catch-Up

Well, if there is any advantage to living in the Polar Vortex in Minnesota, it's that I have a little time to try and get caught up on 6 months of blog posts. Or at least attempt getting started writing posts. This first post is just a catch-up post of a couple projects to ease my way in. ;-)

First, here's a duct tape notebook my 8 year old made all on her own last summer. She didn't look at anything on Pinterest or online. Just had the picture in her head (my little right-brained learner!) and created this!

Look at that ear detail! It's 3-dimensional!

We had a wonderful nanny last summer and we made these fun little gifts for her as thank you gifts:

She was heading to Virginia Tech for school so we attempted to make her a rainbow loom bracelet in the right colors (really the school color is a little more maroon, but I digress). I just gave the girls some 5 x 7 canvas boards and asked them to make a fun picture, but that I wanted them to use different lines and patterns so here's what they came up with. They used permanent markers to color these.

The bright colors and happy drawings make me think of summer and warmth! :-)

My girls school has an art class once a week after school. Each girl will be artist of the week once during the term. Here are the girls' artist of the week creations for the fall:

These paper sculptures were really cool! I love the 3-dimensional quality of them!

(Sorry the quality of the photos isn't the best, I took them on my iPhone). ;-)

The Rainbow Loom Phenomenon

We had never heard of Rainbow Loom before the middle of August. Then, all of sudden within two days, we had heard about it AND received one as a gift. And now, my girls are somewhat obsessed (and admittedly, so am I!).

Just in case you don't happen to have a tween girl or boy living with you and have missed the news stories about this latest friendship bracelet craze, Rainbow Loom is a plastic loom with three rows of spokes. You place small rubber bands (that are non-latex--in case your child has a latex allergy) in a certain pattern on the loom and then flip them in half to "knit" the pattern together. Pull it off, add a plastic clip, and voila, you have bracelet!

There is a TERRIFIC post over at the Teach Mama blog discussing all the reasons that Rainbow Loom is amazing aside from the sheer entertainment factor. It is math-skill building, reading skill-building, fine-motor skill building, relationship-building, and confidence building all in one fun activity!

There are a ton of patterns you can create and a million you tube videos made by girls your daughters' age demonstrating how to do each pattern. You can start off super simple and do increasingly harder patterns as you get more acclimated to using the hook.

These can be purchased at Michael's, Amazon, and many independent small toy stores. I also LOVE that this was created by a family who run their business out of their house. And when they made the deal to have their loom in Michael's they stipulated that no coupons could be used so that Michael's wouldn't be competing with the small mom and pop stores that got the Rainbow Loom craze started in the first place. Awesome!

I REALLY like this activity for my kids for all the reasons stated in the Teach Mama blog, but especially like it for my older daughter who has a tough time with sequencing and motor planning. It is a great exercise for her to have to think through and execute all the steps. I could see this being a great tool for speech or occupational therapy!

We spent our morning together working on these fun bracelets:

My younger daughter created the "triple single" bracelet on the top and we added a cute plastic button in the middle. You can get these fun buttons at Micheal's in a variety of themes. There are several in a pack for less than $2.

My older daughter decided to tackle the more advanced "starburst" bracelet today. She tried this on her own last night, but just couldn't pull them through in the right order. Because I know she struggles with motor planning, I told her it might be a good idea to use a different color band around the starburst for her first bracelet in this style. That way she would always know what color she had to pull through, and not have to worry about the order so much. This tip helped her tremendously and she was able to complete the bracelet all on her own!

I predict this will be one of the most popular gifts for Christmas this year! Correct me if I'm wrong. ;-)

Art & Science Collide: Watercolor Salt Paintings

We actually created this project months ago. The girls had a no school day back in February and I kept them busy with art projects that day. One of them was watercolor salt paintings! This is a relatively easy project to do and the girls really seemed to enjoy it! It would be a short quick-drying project to do as a birthday craft as well.

What you need:
--watercolors (I like liquid watercolors, I think they are much more vibrant)
--table salt
--watercolor paper
--blue painters tape (optional)
 
Start by having the kids block off a design on the watercolor paper with the blue tape.

Here are their taped off designs:

Then just fill in a section with watercolor paint. We found being liberal with the paint/liquid worked best. After doing a small section, sprinkle a little salt on the paint and move on repeating the process in the next area.

And here are the finished wet paintings with the tape still on:

My nine year old's:

 My seven year old's:

 Here is the one I made. :-)

 And here they are with the tape removed:

 And just for fun, here's a close-up:

This was a really fun project because not only is it artistic, but scientific too! I explained to them about how salt is a dessicant and sucks up the water/liquid. They thought this was such a neat thing to see! You can see the speckling happen as it dries.

Once the projects are dry, just remove the tape, brush the salt away and enjoy your beautiful artwork!