Creating Earth Day sculptures from recyclable materials @WBCL

Earth day sculptures from recyclable materials

Earth day creativity was amazing. I took a couple of boxes of caps and rings and assorted plastic and cardboard shapes, set them out on the table and let the group go wild. Amazing diversity. Some had moving elements, some had special significance to the maker. Great way for parents and kids to create together.

Bottle caps and other findings make really fun art @WBCL

We have done projects before with a variety of bottle capsAnd they are always interesting to work on and see what the kids come up with. This time was no different except that I had a number of other small plastic objects to put into the mix for them. We started with an 8 x 8 piece of cardboard as it is rigid enough to use for the project. They selected the caps, Beads, and bits of plastic that they wanted to use on their project. At some point one of the moms asked about glitter and several of the girls chimed in "oh yes." It is interesting to see how differently every project turned out.

bottle cap bugs @ WBCL

This is truly a recycled art project! The. body of the bug is a colored plastic bottle top and the wings are cut from gallon milk jugs and colored. Paint did not stick reliably to all the lids but crayon did and did well on the wings too so we used plain old fashioned crayon colors. We had some little odds and ends of chenille stems left from other projects which we cut into antenna and used small google eyes to complete the bug. 
Some of the bottle tops were hinged and resulted in movable bees. Interestingly the bugs flew threw the library for about 15 minutes before settling down and going home with their creators. 

Mixed Media art camp=glass mosaics, weaving, collages, and more

 We started the week with Altoids tins and CD cases to decorate using beads, felt, sequins and gems. Some of the campers had done tins before but each one is unique and given the option of 2 surfaces some just like the tins. I just like what they do.

 Glass floral beads are fun to look at and fun to use.We had tubs of the glass beads and bottle caps both metal and plastic to use.  Each camper was instructed to take the caps and beads and create a picture with them on the foam board squares. We used E6000 which works well but smells really bad as our adhesive. It is always better when the project pieces do not fall off due to the glue. Everyone did well spreading the adhesive with sticks.

 Weaving provided a bit of a challenge for many of the campers. I had a giant pile of embroidery hoops to use for this project and lengths of floss and ribbon to serve as the base. We taught the kids how to secure their threads to a center ring and bring them around the hoop but lots of the kids cannot tie knots. With lots of help from the JCs we got them ready to weave fabric strips and yarns then add a feather or two for smashing dream catchers.

 Painting and decorating on jeans pockets was one of the favorite projects this week. The kids had a choice of front, back, full or leg cuts to use and create their designs. we had buttons, gems, cording and other trims to add once the designs were painted. At the end we glued the ends closed on the leg ends and full jeans to make carry bags and added cords. One of the campers decided to construct his own  adding a couple of denim squares to make his project larger.

 For this collage I made  the pressed paper seahorses and starfish in advance. the campers used shades of blue paper to create the impression of water then added charms and the seahorse and starfish. Some added a few confetti for bubbles. The paper pressings were easy to paint with watercolor paints.

Our last project of the week was a doozy. I thought it would be fun to do a mixed media collage and use painted areas combined with decoupaged papers and napkins. We drew geometric designs on our canvas boards then painted parts of the boards. the campers next got to shop for their papers and trims and the group really got into this. Teaching decoupage was interesting as everyone seems afraid to use enough glue and not on top of the project. Once we got going though things really worked. At the end I got out very fine glitter and we added that to the other trims. What a fabulous way to end the week!

Bottle cap art @WBCL

What to do with all those bottle caps that are not recyclable and too nice to throw into the trash? I found a great book and quite a few websites on making art projects from them so we did. We used styrofoam blocks from one of the neighbors as a base and glued on caps into any design the kids and thier parents could come up with. It was fun and everyone was able to figure out a great design.