Practical Tip ~ Creative Opportunities

We are a very creative family!  Right from the start, I provided art and craft materials and allowed my children much free time to create daily in our homeschooling, which I believe laid the foundation to their  their talent and enjoyment of all things creative.  May I encourage you to do the same?

Set up a craft area with supplies to provide creative opportunities for your children.  This is especially good for hands-on activities while the children listen to a read alouds, or for handicraft time in the afternoons.

Art and craft supplies need not be expensive.  I started our collection with a cheap craft purchase here and there each month, and added new, interesting items to our stash to keep my kids excited and stimulated.  I stored these items in Ziploc bags in plastic suitcases, placed in an easily accessible area on the bookshelf.   Read how I organized our art supplies here.

Here are 25 art and craft ideas gathered from around the globe on Pinterest ~

1. Watercolor set, brushes and paper
2. Wax crayons and watercolor to create wax-resist painting
3. Giant chalk to create outdoors drawings on concrete floors
4. Shoestrings and wooden beads
5. Cheap camera and nature prompt list
6. Recipes and ingredients
7. Magazine, scissors and glue to make a collage
8. Soap block or soft pine wood pieces and carving tools
9. Wool and pompom maker
10. Shaving cream, food coloring in a tray to make marbled paper
11. Lego, cardstock and felt-tipped markers to create a Lego diorama
12. Flowers and vases or flower press to create a pressed flower collection
13. Felt, scissors and a felt board
14. Pipe cleaners and tiny pompoms to create fantasy animals
15. Sunflower and bean seeds and some small garden  tools
16. Long piece of cheap fabric, pegs and poles to create a tepee or tent
17. Tinfoil, card board, glue and string to create foil art
18. Stamps and stamp pads
19. Feathers and beads to make necklaces
20. 51 ideas with shoe boxes
21. Dress up clothes
22. Music instruments or let them make their own musical instruments
23. Twisty balloons
24. Leaf rubbings with wax crayons
25. When all else fails – Bored jar with activity ideas

Tips on making art and crafts activities easier ~

• It is worth spending a while clearly and simply demonstrating to your children how to work with the materials, how to take care with specific things, how to clean up and pack away.
• Establishing foundation skills with each activity prevents the mess and chaos that most moms hate and therefore avoid doing art and crafts.
• Purchase some plastic sheeting or cheap painter’s drop cloths to cover the floor if working with messy things.
• Insist that your children wear an old over-sized T-shirt (my kids loved wearing their dad’s T-shirts) or art smocks or aprons over their clothes.  You can even make aprons out of plastic bags.
• Set a limit where the activity can take place.  Children may only work in a specific room, on specific tables or floors.  Don’t encourage them to wander around with the supplies.
• Remind your children to wash paint brushes, close glue tops, pack away when done.
• Lastly, provide a lovely gallery to display their works of art.

Check out all my art ideas, lesson plans and free downloads on my Art Page.  Have you got any creativity ideas to share with us?  Please share in the comments below.

Here’s wishing you and your family hours and days of fun and creativity!

Blessings, Nadene

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Create Together

Homeschooling moments that I love …

Silk painting a scarf with my daughter.

Blessings as you create with your children!

 

Creative Crafts ~ Morse Code Bracelets

I found this really cute idea on HonestlyWTF.  Erika uses embroidery floss and sliding beads to expand and fit her bracelets.  She explains in an excellent tutorial ~

“You’ll pick 4 colors for each bracelet. A base color, a color for the dots, a color for the dashes and a color separating the dots and dashes.”

image from HonestlyWTF

But after experimenting, I found the embroidery floss difficult to thread through my smallest seed beads.  I also struggled to find the right bead for both ends to slide through snug enough to “fit” the bracelet, and so I decided to simply use basic beading elastic.

Using this online Morse Code Translator and a Morse Code Translator app on my smart phone, I wrote out the codes for some messages I wanted to create in some gift bracelets.

Most my gift bracelets had 3 short words or one simple word.  I used the person’s favorite color for base color.   I attached the gift bracelets to some cardstock and wrote out the message with its Morse Code.  Most folk simply loved the bracelets, but they were really touched by the message when I explained how it worked.

It is a lovely way for your kids to learn and practice Morse Code.  Have fun creating!

Blessings

 

Creative Crafts ~ Bleach Painting

 Cheap, instant, magical … bleach painting adds a stunning creative touch to clothes!

Some bleach painting tips:

• Always test on a scrap of similar fabric or on a part of the garment where the bleach effect can be tested but not seen (like inside a seam or on a hem).  Most dyes leave a trace color after the bleach has worked.  Some fabrics are extremely color-fast and do not bleach out.
• Work on a plastic sheet and newsprint.  I bleached my skirt over a covered ironing board.  Place a plastic sheet or plastic packet inside a shirt so that the bleach doesn’t bleed through to the other side.
• You can use basic domestic liquid bleach and a waterpaint paint brush.  You can also use water brushes and even simple ear buds/ Q-tips!
• You can paint bleach on to stamps and press the stamp onto the fabric.
• Plan your design on your garment with a chalk pencil or fading fabric markers.
• I found great simple designs on Pinterest.
• Stencil designs work well too!
• Note – the bleach is invisible at first, but within a moment or two begins to fade the fabric.  If you paint over a bleached area after it has dried it may go even lighter!  I loved the magical appearance of the design a few seconds later!
• Caution – some fabrics become fragile under bleach.  Hand wash carefully.
• Caution 2 – wear protective clothing when working with bleach.
• This is an excellent activity for middle-school children and teens.  Ask them to bring an old colored T-shirt to class and provide small cups of bleach and Q-tips for them to paint and design patterns and images on their shirts.
• You can spray bleach with a fine misting bottle over a stencil or design pasted onto the material.  Some folks use freezer paper.  Lettering or a simple cut out design works well.

Bleach painting is addictive!  You may find good reasons or no reasons at all to bleach paint a huge number of your clothes!  Stop before your wardrobe looks like it fell into a bleach fountain!

Have some creative fun this festive season!

Blessings

Creative Crafts ~ French Patio Ideas

I recently created some wonderful crafty decor for our patio in French Provence style.

Bunting always creates a festive atmosphere!

Using unbleached calico I made some French Style Bunting with fabric painted details ~ use the free stencil download below for ideas).  Baste the triangle pieces edge-to-edge on wide ribbon and then fold the ribbon over and serpentine stitch the ribbon to cover the top of the bunting.  (Remember to add at least 1m of ribbon to either end of your bunting to use to knot over poles or around trees.)

My daughter and I created a Printed Table Runner.  Pop over to my Project Page for the tutorial.

I painted some patio cushion covers for my bench and wicker chairs.

Lastly I hung a few lanterns on blue ribbon over the table for some ambient light and intimacy.

A week of creative fun transformed my patio into a festive French-styled outdoor area.

For some French Provence stencil ideas here is a free download ~ Provence patio stencil ideas

Blessings

 

DIY Folded Paper Boxes

My youngest daughter wanted to sort and classify her sea shell collection.  This was a great Nature Study and Science activity, but we needed several smallish boxes to store the different shell types.  She displayed her shell collection on our Nature Study tray.

We quickly made these paper boxes.

The nifty, practical aspects of these folded paper boxes are:

• You can make them in different sizes … so they can nest in each other or form a top and a base to close your box!
• The boxes can easily be stored flat, unfolded and ready for the next occasion.
• You can use decorative craft paper or card stock for really pretty gift boxes or display boxes.

Here are the instructions and a free download ~ Folded Paper Boxes

You will need:

• square paper or card stock 28cm X 28cm
• scissors
• glue/ cellotape/ stapler

Fold your paper:

• Fold the square horizontally in half & re-open.
• Fold the square vertically in half & re-open.
• Fold the bottom left corner and the top right corner to the center of the square, forming opposite triangles.
• Fold both the newly made folds to the middle & re-open these folds.

• Cut along all 4 of the new fold lines, from the paper edge up to the edges of the triangles.
• Take the top left corner and the bottom right corner and fold the corners into the center.
• Fold again in half, so that the last fold is at the end of the cut lines.
• Fold all 4 pointed strips to form folds in line with the 2 middle double folded pieces.

Assemble your paper box:

• Fold the pointed flaps around the outside of the 2 center folds.
• Insert the corners of the center folded piece into the diagonal fold of the flap. This part is a little fiddly, so mom, you may have to help here!
• Tape/ glue or staple the outside overlapping flaps to the box.

Enjoy this craft project!

Blessings,

Painted Heart Rocks

Here’s a fun rainy-day project!

I have collected loads of heart-shaped rocks on my walks on the farm.

During a cold, raining afternoon the girls and some visiting friends and I sat and painted rocks.

I wanted mine to match my outdoor color scheme and used mostly blues and browns.

The girls were much more creative and came up with lovely decorations, pictures and messages.

Whether they are for mere decoration, paper-weights, gifts, or table decor, have fun painting rocks and pebbles.

We used craft paint and coated the painted rocks with a layer or two of Modge Podge.

Look at some more Pinterest inspiration.  Pop over to my project pages for more practical, creative ideas!

Blessings,

Decorated Frames

Friends visited us for a week during our winter school break.

While we sat through a rainy spell, the older girls asked to do a craft.

We decided to use a few old frames lying in a box.

I wanted them to make this a special frame,

decorated with things found on the farm.

It could be made into something useful;

with hooks or wire or mesh to hang jewelery on,

or simply a pretty memento of the time together.

Miss. T made a jewelry frame as a gift.

First she painted the wooden frame in a lovely light teal green, left it to dry and then scraped off some paint to create a distressed look.

She covered the back of her frame with some lace and fabric off-cuts that she sewed together and ironed flat.

Then she pulled the material over the hard board back and taped it down.

She used a piece of rusty old chicken mesh to cover half of the material.

Now she secured the frame to the back.

She glue-gunned some dried rose buds she had in her stash to one side of the frame,

added some interesting pieces of lichen she found on an old tree,

and completed her frame with 3 brass hooks which she embellished with some buttons and ribbon.

Lovely!

Her friend, Miss. C, found a lovely picture of a heart and a crown in a Christian magazine as her inspiration.

We made a colour-copy of the original.

She spent some time embellishing the picture with pen, glitter and then glued some crumpled brown paper edging.

As she felt that her frame was a little narrow, she wrapped her rusty mesh over the sides of the frame.

She found some rusty tin which we carefully snipped to form a heart.

Her mom had crocheted a cotton heart and Miss. C attached the hearts to her mesh with the same thread.

Beautiful!

Both frames were so unique.

What a lovely rainy-day craft.

Pop over to my project pages for more crafty inspiration!

Blessings,

Serviette Modge Podge Project

My daughter and I used some paint, a serviette and Modge Podge to decorate some new wooden items for in my kitchen.

It was simple and quick ~ she completed the whole project in an afternoon.

Pop over to my Project page or click here for the tutorial!

Blessings,

Fun Ideas for Creative Homeschooling

Welcome to our 3rd SACH Carnival of 2012!

Join South African homeschool moms

as we share our

inspiring

creative

fun activities

in our homeschooling.

Taryn of Hayes Happenings shares a whole host of creative homeschooling activities, many of these shared with their homeschool group called the “Lunch Bunch”.  They have so much fun, don’t you wish you could join them too?

• crafting Egyptian style
• Egypt Day @ Lunch Bunch
• Passover @ Lunch Bunch
• Easter / Passover 2011
• Tutorial: Hobby Horses
• Craft: Lunch Bunch’s rain sticks
• Afrikaans fun

Here at Practical Pages I have written several posts of our fun and creative lessons!  Here are a few of my kid’s favorites:

• Tunnel books made our narration 3 dimensional
• Learning Geography with “Simon Says“
• 3D Model of Seurat’s “Bathers at Asnieres”
• Lego hole-punched pictures for narrations

Trixi from Trixi’s HomeEd Academy has found lapbooks have brought the joy of learning to her homeschooling days.  She shares some her creative posts:

• Kitchen Maths with some videos of their creative learning
• Misha’s first attempt at lapbooking
• Big Box Little Box Lapbook
• South Africa Lapbook
• Solar System Lapbook

Donette of The Journey wrote her post specially for the carnival and shared the fun and creative ideas for her children who are all under 6.

Thanks to all who shared in this carnival!

I’m sure you all have creative, fun activities that stand out as your homeschooling highlights.

Would you care to share them too?  Write a comment and leave a link to your post.

Blessings,