Painted Snow

I figured that while the snow was around we would make the most of it!  The crew love to paint so I came up with the idea of painting snow!  A little research on the web led me to this page from the excellent blog Housing a Forest. 

Here is our attempt at painting snow!

First I supplied each of the girls with a muffin tin/cases filled with red, blue and yellow water (and LOTS of food coloring). I also gave them syringes and paint brushes.  We talked about mixing colors and I let the girls decide which colors they were going to try to make.  The had great fun adding the paint to the snow and then transferring it to the paper to watch it melt.

Color mixing

Snow painting

Rainbow snow

Painted snow on paper

Final product

SNOW!!!

It snowed today!

Beautiful, I know.  It snowed all day and the kids were just desperate to get out in it.  Unfortunately, by the time we got back it was starting to get dark and very, very cold.  So... we brought the snow inside! The kids had a great time and best of all, no one got cold.

The crew at work.

 TJ inspecting the snow.

A creation by HW.

Snowman by IW.

Mini snowman by JEJ.

A cave for the whales and seals.

Some more snowy masterpieces.

Christmas Ornaments

My little elves have been busy making decorations for their trees.  Here are a few of their beautiful creations.

JEJ and Lulu hard at work. We wrapped cardboard stars with gardening twine and then covered with PVA glue and glitter... lots of glitter!

 The finished Star!

My favorite so far, these simple snowflakes were made from air drying clay.  We rolled out the clay, cut with a snowflake cookie cutter and then pressed the cut shape into pieces of lace.  To add some sparkle we painted with glitter paint.  *Top tip*  Make sure you add a hole for hanging before the clay dries!

These simple stars were made from glittery pipe cleaners and some large plastic beads.  Very simple for younger children.

A favorite one.  I remember making these as a kid!  Styrofoam balls are covered with foil and then using sewing pins, the children can attach sequins to add some color to the baubles. 

It's All Fun and Games

I love games and thankfully so do the kids.  They have all come to expect a craft activity after school and when I'm out of ideas or just not feeling crafty I always reach for the games. 

Here are some of our favorite games to play.

• Go Fish (card game) This is a great game.  It teaches colors, turn taking, memorization, the honor system and so much more.
• Old Maid (card game) An oldie but goodie.
• Cranium Hullabaloo I love this one! It gets the kids up and moving.
• Hoot Owl Hoot (board game by Peaceable Kingdom) Another favorite.  The best part is that all of the children have to work together as a team, no tears at the end = happy me. 
• Zingo A fun and fast paced version of Bingo.



Go Fish



Hoot Owl Hoot

Hulabaloo

Zingo

Blackberry Paint

Painting is a favorite in my house at the moment and so are blackberries.  Both of my kids went blackberry crazy this autumn.  We had blackberry crumble most weekends and couldn't leave the house without them both asking for a quick handful of blackberries.  You can imagine their horror when I told them that blackberry season was over.  When I moved to this country I remember someone telling me of the Old English Legend of the Devil and the Blackberries.  I never paid too  much attention to it but I have noticed that after mid October spiders to start to claim the brambles for their own.  So, when mid October came I declared blackberry season over and told the children that the spiders were using the berries to lay their eggs.  Lulu decided that she didn't mind eating spiders or spider eggs and has continued to enjoy the blackberries, everyone else is waiting for the 2013 harvest!

With so many berries left on the bushes I hated to let them all go to waste so decided to try and turn their dark juices into a paint.

I picked as many berries as I could and boiled them for about 15 minutes in just a small bit of water.

I then strained the boiled juice and added some cornflour to thicken the mixture and left it to cool.

When the children came back from school I gave them each a piece of white paper and a white crayon and asked them to draw a spooky picture.

We then used the blackberry paint to apply a thin wash to the paper and watched our spooky pictures appear like magic!

                                                         Here are the final results!

Incidentally, blackberry paint should probably be stored in the fridge if you intend to use it again. 

Marbled Paper Leaves

Sorry for the absence!  A mixture of half term, colds and a non sleeping baby have kept me away.  Poor excuses I know but I'm back now!

My last post was about marbled paper and I promised to show you what we did with the beautiful paper that we created. 

We traced and cut....














 and then we punched holes and strung up the leaves to make some very lovely and seasonal bunting.

Autumn Marbled Paper

So this is a project that I've been dying to try.  I saw it on The Imagination Tree, which is one of my favorite blogs, and knew that it would be a hit with with the kids.

Here's what we did.

First we filled some baking trays with shaving foam.  I let them explore the texture a little before adding the paint.

Squeak really enjoyed this part!

Once the paint was added it was time to swirl.

  

TJ had fun mixing in the paint.

When we were happy with the patterns we had produced we laid the paper down on top and gave it a little pat.

The girls used expired credit cards to scrape off the excess foam.

They repeated the process until we ran out of paper and drying space and then had fun painting on the trays.

Some really fantastic colors and patterns!

I will post again soon to show what we did with our beautiful marbled paper.

Flower Fairy Posters

So this is what we started with.  A bowl full of roses and the decision that JE made on the way home to design a tooth fairy poster.  Squeak and Lulu decided to go along with the fairy theme and the girls got creating!

I gave them each an A3 piece of paper and put scissors, glue, markers, the bowl of roses and some old painted paper out for them to use.



I have piles of old and forgotten paintings sitting around.  They are too pretty to throw away any always are a beautiful addition to any project.  In this case they made beautiful fairy dresses and crowns.

Here is JE adding some detail to her tooth fairy poster!  I love the beautiful rose petal wings!

Squeak's creation, two very lovely fairies!

Lulu opted for rose petal wings and shoes and a rose stem magic wand.  I love her message "to the fairies at the bottom of the garden..."