Arts and Crafts Projects – Page 8

Mod Podged Trays

A simple art project that reuses those cardboard-like compostable trays.

We inadvertently buy several of these compostable trays each week. Our local supermarket uses them in their bulk foods section, placing them under dried fruits.

I always save the trays without a set use in mind, knowing they’d be fun for a project.

We decided to paint them simply, layering and mixing red, pink and blue washable kids paint.

After they dried, we added a touch of glitter before sealing the trays with mod podge. They certainly won’t last forever. Because they’re made out of sugarcane, they’re probably already breaking down. But we can enjoy them for a few weeks or months certainly.

We love our simple, sparkly trays with a myriad of uses.

This week they’re holding felt salad greens, shells, and our over-sized decoupage eggs.

Poppy Flower Inspired Tissue Paper Art

After shaking the poppy seed pods and planting their seeds in our garden, we felt inspired to do some poppy flower inspired art. We whipped up some collages with tissue paper, glue, and dried black beans.

First we cut petals of red and orange tissue paper, then we adhered them to drawing paper with a glue stick.

We created some three-dimensional poppies made by pulling up and twisting the tissue paper petals around the end of a pencil.

We added some dried black beans with glue to serve as seeds.

A fun, simple, nature-inspired project with fantastic results.

An easy, creative activity to make with kids of all ages.

A Toddler’s Interpretation of the Very Hungry Caterpillar Book

I’ve written before about our daughter’s Very Hungry Caterpillar obsession. (Don’t all toddlers love Eric Carle books?)

Several months ago we started working on our own version of the book.

This week we finally devoted some time to finish up the project.

We cut out food items featured in the book (from Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activity Pad) and drew caterpillars on each page of our blank board book.

We added Eric Carle’s text from his original book.

We made a cover for our book.

Since completing our version, we’ve read it time and time again.

A simple, fun, literary project!

Materials:
– Blank board book from Bare Books
– Stencils and decorated tissue paper (evidently called artwork sheets) part of the Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activity Pad

Sewing Inspiration

Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts contains so many creative projects in addition to outlining the basics of various sewing techniques. Some of the projects that I’m most looking forward to tackling include:

Appliquéd sea-print tote
I love the idea of combining fabric-printing with appliqué, thereby adding another texture and dimension to a tote.

Velvet-lined jewelry boxes
What a nice way to jazz up wooden boxes and make a special keepsake box.

Ribbon embroidered flower prints
A beautifully simple project that’s eco-groovy and screams “try me!” I can’t wait to make some embroidered flowers for our bedroom.

Japanese Sashiko Embroidery
I’ve found this stunning embroidery made of small running stitches in a grid-like pattern to be more difficult than it looks, but I’m looking forward to practicing and perfecting my method. These place-mats are stunning.

Father’s Day Picture Pencil Holder

Father’s Day has been renamed Daddy’s Day in our house. Every time I talk about Father’s Day, our daughter is quick to remind me, “No, Mom! It’s Daddy’s Day and it’s in June.” In this day and age, who is this Father person anyhow?! Our daughter calls David, “Daddy,” and there’s an end to it. Now if only I could remember that.

Well, June is upon us and it’s time for us to share our Daddy’s Day present for David.

And, in case, you’re wondering, I already blew this surprise for David. Last night I left it out in plain sight drying in the living room. Evidently he didn’t notice it on his own, it took me apologizing for leaving it out for him to notice. Whoops! Mama’s bad. I’m banking on him putting on a good show for our daughter come Sunday, June 18th.

This simple project took several days to complete, because of the drying time of each layer, so please plan ahead! (i.e. start now because Father’s Day is less than two weeks away!)

We gathered favorite father-daughter photos, resized each of them using Photoshop to between 1 and 2 inches tall, copied and pasted them all into a new document, and then printed that document on a single piece of plain printer paper.

After cutting them out, we marked each photo with the year it was taken, and then adhered them to heavy card-stock cut to fit around an (empty and clean) aluminum can.

We also wrote out some loving messages for Daddy, which I then resized using our color copier-printer so that they’d fit in the remaining spaces on the card-stock.

We then mod podged the card-stock to the can and used clothespins to hold the paper to the can while it dried.

Then we mod podged over the card-stock to seal the photos and add a glossy sheen.

Happy Father’s Day, David! Your girls love you.