Playground Love

So I realized that I haven’t posted anything created by my daughter yet. I usually refer to her fondly as “A” in my posts and had originally set up this blog to catalogue the projects we’ve both been working on. I’ve been doing lots of posting about things I’m doing but nothing (until now) with her art. I’ve been so inspired lately by blogging mama’s and their crafting kiddies, that I really wanted to focus on what wonderful creations Amina has made. I really love making art with her- I have no formal training but love watching her express herself through painting, pastels, collage and whatever else we have on hand. I recently discovered that she loves glueing my left over felt pieces. I love art and crafting and want to share that with her. I also appreciate how important it is to let children express themselves creatively. I try to do projects with her a few times a week. Sometimes painting, sometimes drawing, sometimes gluing, but we always have a table set up with crayons, makers and pencils for her to draw with.

I took out a book from the library called  Artstarts For Little Hands and have been getting some inspiration from the Artful Parent blog as well in how to incorporate art into your toddler’s life. They’ve both given me lots of ideas and good jumping off places for going beyond paint and brushes.

The projects I’m going to show here are all 2 step projects (meaning they took a few days to complete)

The project below started out as  our first printmaking attempt. I wanted to get a head start on a fishy/ aquarium theme and set this print aside from the others we did when I noticed it looked an awful lot like a tree instead.

We took an old cardboard tube roll, bent it so it looked like an “eye” shape and dipped it into some tempera paint in a shallow dish. Amina mostly  had fun dipping and swirling the tube around in the paint. We did this on a few pieces of paper and I let them dry.

Several weeks went by, when I was hit by inspiration again. I took out another book she got for her birthday called One Tree by green start and started to talk about trees. We looked at trees in summer, trees in winter and trees in autumn for inspiration. I cut out some brown rectangles for the tree and it’s branches and let her glue away at them.

I must admit it’s really hard not to intervene in telling her how it’s “supposed to look.” She’ll figure out what works for her in the long run anyway and it’s a good lesson in patience for me! Yes, I’ve given her some help in gluing. Sometimes she gets things stuck to her fingers and gets frustrated when it won’t come off. When it looks like she’s about to give up, I help her by gluing and get her to point at where she wants the different pieces to go.

Next we took out some neat faux leaves and daisies. She had fun gluing them all over the tree to make it look bushy and lush. I’m particularly proud of this picture because it was really fun doing this with her. It’s now hanging proudly on our fridge!

This next one we’ve been working on all week. A few weeks ago we went on one of our many walks/running up Tween Hill/ Hell (it’s a hill where all the pre-teens in our complex and from the school across the street hang out). We collected lots of leaves and I took them inside and pressed them in between wax paper under some heavy books for a few weeks.I took them out earlier this week and taped them in different configurations onto the drawing table we always have set up.

I taped a sheet of thin sketch book paper over top and dug out all the crayons Amina had pulled the papers off of (which was all of them). I showed her how to use two hands and to place the crayon horizontal. We picked out all the “fall leaf” colours. She came back to it several times throughout the week and this is the end result.

The next idea came from the Artful Parent but instead of using watercolours (which we don’t have yet) we used watered down tempera paints. They didn’t leave the leaf prints but it sure was fun painting and sticking the leaves in to dry after!

Autumn is such a fun time. It’s been great looking at fall colours and talking about the leaves, shushing through the leaves and rolling in the leaves. I love fall. What I don’t love is when it starts to get dark. But I look forward to solstice and the return of light. Enjoy the art- hope it puts smiles on your faces!

PS- here’s some photos of our little butterfly from Halloween!

butterfly in the park

The world is a vampire….

Music geek that I am- the title of the post has been swimming around in my head for days, along with the Smashing Pumpkins’ Bullet With Butterly Wings…. In case you are in need of a girly costume idea- here’s one that kids of all ages and girls going to parties can use- with a bit of tweaking of course!

So for Halloween Amina wants to be a butterfly. To be fair, I only gave her three choices- bumblebee, butterfly or ladybug. I was relatively certain that I could get a decent looking costume out of one of these three options made in time for Halloween.

First: the butterfly body-

I used an old pattern for a dress that I had created a while ago and added on about 1/2 inch to the seam allowance as this would be going on over jackets, etc. I also used material that frays really easily but is lovely and irredescent. This meant that I had to cut out the pattern twice, sew the good sides together, stitch and flip right side out and begin sewing them together. This saved time finishing the seams once the garment was sewn and I’m happy with how it turned out. If you don’t have an old bodice pattern laying around, you could trace a tank top and cut the back panel down the middle from top to bottom. These are the three pieces I ended up with: front panel and two smaller back panels. The dress will fasten up the back with velcro- this will get it over A’s head.

I sewed each of the shoulders and the underarms and created this:

Next came the skirt part of the dress. I went for bubble look as I wanted this to be bug-like.I took about 2 metres of fabric, about 2 feet wide and halved it so that it was 2 metres by 12 inches.

I basted the long seam together and then basted 1/2 inch from the bottom of the fold so that I could threat an elastic through. Next I pinned the unfinished end to the bottome of the bodice. I left 1/4 inch on each side of the skirt so that the back could be sewn up. I began pucker pinching the skirt to the bodice so that the skirt would have a tonne of volume. After sewing this- I took about 14 inches of elastic and threaded it through the bottom seam and sewed the elastic shut. I finished up the back by sewing from the bottom of the skirt to the bottom of the bodice.

I attached some felt pieces to the insides of the back of the bodice so that it would fasten properly but still give lots of room to get over A’s head.

Pinned them in, attaching them to the inside of the bodice so that they wouldn’t be seen when being worn… and sewed them.

I attached a sequined elastic down the front of the bodice and then into the skirt, where it bunches up really nicely and gives a really nice bubble effect.

A practicing her butter-fly moves. Har har

Next: the mask:

I used some sunglasses for inspiration and cut out a pattern with the left over felt I had. I glued some feathers to the inside of the front pieceo of the mask and I sewed elastic in between the two pieces of felt. I also tried them on a few times to make sure she could see out of them am still stay on her head.

I embelled with sequins and fabric paint and hopefully, A will wear this out and about!

Finally- the wings. I used two white coat hangers for the wire frame and unbent the hooks to start. The white ones work really well because they seem less strong and more bendy. Next I turned them into butterfly shapes. I laid them ontop of material that was doubled and used chalk to trace a pattern, leaving about 1/4 inch sewing allowance.

After cutting out the wing, I pinned both sides together and sewed about 3/4′s of the wing all the way around, starting from one of the pionts near the hook. I flipped the wing right side outwards, and slotted the bent hanger inside. I folded down the frayed edge and pinned and then hand sewed all the way around the wing to give it a nice finished look. I did this for each wing.

Next, I cut out different felt shapes and glued them on with crazy glue- I did four copies of each shape- for each wing there would be a mirror image on the other wing + front and back. I decorated with glitter glue, fabric glue and sequins.

Tomorrow’s project is getting the wings attached together and getting the elastic for the arms sewn and attached. I’m planning on attaching the wings together by trimming the hooks off and wrapping duct tape around the remainder. Next I will wrap some felt to make it comfy. In the meantime, I will sew some elastic arm bands for A’s arms’ to go through that will hold the wings to her back- I will probably use a method like the one in the felt crowns post, but will ajdust accordingly.

I can only hope that A will actually wear this on Saturday. It’s been really fun conceiviing the idea and seeing it through till the end.

I’m a bit torn, well actually a lot torn about trick ‘r’ treating with her as we are not a candy crazy family. I went to Costco and tried to find some healthy alternatives to hand out- I picked some fruit leathers and some Annie’s bunny snacks. I’m also considering leaving a bowl of mandarin oranges out front for anyone to take as they please but am worried the candy police will be called to my house and all oranges will be confiscated and replaced with a bag of Hersheys. And that a news crew will show up in front of our home and declare me a crazy razor blade injecting wacko. Am I crazy for wanting to hand out something slightly healthy and not endorsed by Big Candy? Am I depriving A of all her rightfully earned candy goodness that every child dreams of? Am very torn. It’s not like M and I will raid her goody bag for treats for ourselves as we both don’t like candy and are big chocolate snobs. Hmph. Perhaps we can use the collected candies as more potty incentives. Yes! Potty incentives. Great idea!

Well, A is spending the night with her grandparents and I am going to stay up to the wee hours reading my latest library acquisition- Girls of Riyadh- and enjoy my sleep in with an uninterupted cup of very strong coffee before going to work. Ah- a night off. Well deserved and much needed. Good night!