Making furry groundhogs @ WBCL

Not your usual groundhog project! 

Using 1/4 page of construction paper we drew a fat little groundhog and then glued the 2 sides together with a stick in the middle. 
The kids were told they could cut him out or not--the real project was in making him furry. I had thin doll hair that most cut up then glued down to the groundhog. I also had some fur coat lining that others used. We added google eyes and a bead nose to finish them off. Pretty cute!!

Creating pots @WBCL

OK so you get a pot and it has a sticky tag on it--no big deal...you get 20 of them and it is a pain so planning an alternate project turned out better than the original and involved a lot more design work on the part of the participants. I took some fabric from my stash that had small squares of sunflowers, trees, lambs, chickens, cows, beehives, apples, and more and cut them into the squares. We decoupaged them onto the pots with Aleene's glue learning the "glue goes under then over" process. The kids then added buttons and did a bit of finish with outdoor scribble paint. Anyone would love to use these distinctive pots!

Making a Texas Star quilt square @WBCL

Quilting is all but a lost art for kids but a great way to discuss history for Texas's birthday and be creative too. I precut triangles before class and brought extra fabric for filler and examples of Texas Star quilts. This one is kind of a spinning star. I had the kids position the triangles first then glue them to a paper backing. They then selected other fabric in squares or triangles to fill the page. Some did borders too. Fun and easy way to get into this and I got tips from a mom who quilts when I flipped one of my triangles and got all tangled. We will try on sewing a square this summer I think.

Fabric collage for black history month @WBCL

 This is a challenging project to do with the group that comes to this class. We pulled out two of the posters from the picturing America collection to use as a basis. I talk to the group about some of the history of the civil rights movement over the last 50-100 years. We also talked about elements of the Dr. Martin Luther King speech "I have a dream." Lastly we looked at examples of crazy quilting and talked about the reuse of fabrics. We then set about creating our design.
I encourage them to draw a person on large paper and then fill the clothing area with scraps of cloth from a selection that we laid out on the table. They were also given a pile of multicolored hands in order to compliment one of the phrases from the dream speech about children of all colors joining hands. The designs were great and everyone seemed to get a little bit of the message.

Customizing cuzzies with artistic touches @WBCL

 A few years ago someone left a box of cuzzies behind after a program. I figured it was about time to use the box up and clear the space with a project that would give them a useful life. For the uninformed cuzzies are those foam things you put cold cans or bottles into so that you can drink your beverage and they stay cool longer. 
We first brushed the outside of them with Aleene's tacky glue then applies a patchwork of bright colored tissue pieces (leftovers from classes and donations). We then wrapped the result in a length of lace and glued it down using more of the tacky glue or hot glue on the seam. Lastly the kids picked out foam letters from another donation bag to put onto the outside of the cups--their initials or other. Cute and useful project. 
We are into full swing of summer and ran out of tickets early. Most projects only have enough supplies for the number of tickets issued. Hope your family has fun doing arts & crafts with me this summer.

Art mini-camp showing off our work @ WBCL

It was a busy and fun filled week for the 20 kids that painted their way from paper to fabric to tile to mirrors and canvas. I really wanted them to be able to use surfaces and paints that they might not get to use otherwise. We did a parrot watercolor and were able to view an array of tropical colored parrots, painted on non-glazed tiles and did our rendition of a French grapevine scene with a cottage, learned about Russian enamels and embellished tin to paint on it, came up with designs to place on large round mirrors and used glossy enamels on them, and finished the week painting a small canvas with a sun and flowers with personality. We were even able to go back and fix little things on our aprons with rubber stamps and paint.


The Arts mini-camp is held at the Wells Branch Community Library and taught by Dianne Koehler.

Art Mini-camp Painting Aprons

Seemed like a good idea to do something a little different with the kids this week. Everyone paints t-shirts and I had gotten feedback from the kids that they were enjoying their Home Depot aprons. I drew the design on the aprons and set them loose painting theirs with the colors they wanted to use. I really love using the SoSoft paints as they spread easily for everyone and don't have to be heat set. We used the scribbles and a variety of other 3D paints for writting names.
There were a few mishaps that we decided we would clean up by stamping over them later in the week. We just put them out on the grass to dry while we painted our tiles then used them the rest of the week.
This was a pretty intense painting week with 9 projects including lots of drawing too. We used the mural on the walls to give us some ideas for designs and the tour of art at the beginning of the sessions for others.


The Art mini-camps are held at the Wells Branch Community Library taught by Dianne Koehler.

Celebrating Texas with quilt sqares @ WBCL

March 3,2010
Family arts & crafts tackled an old skill as a group with lots of inter-generational participation. Using some of the giant stash of donated fabric and a great kids book Quilting for Fun we were able to create a unique quilt square on a paper background. This group is not always old enough to attempt stitching so we used glue.
For safety parents and older siblings manned the sewing scissors and did the cutting. This did generate a few grumbles but the process of fabric selection and fitting soon won out. Everyone enjoyed the stories of quilts made of old clothes and old flour sacks.
Crafts class meets every week at the Wells Branch Community Library.

Art camp day 3 Basket weaving & fabric art

Wow! were we busy the last day of this camp. After looking at a number of basket examples we got out the fabric bins and began a 3D seascape picture. The instructions were to include a cliff, a boat, the sky and use a variety of materials on the table including shells, mosaic tiles, wood sticks, sandpaper, and fabric. Most of the campers drew a design then added their elements for some pretty great results.
Our last project proved difficult for some in the beginning but soon we had 16 woven baskets using plastic containers as a frame. I kept hearing "over and under" chanted by the kids as they mastered the technique. We found that the fluffy yarns we most wanted to use hung on everything and were the most difficult to use. The boys didn't want pink yarn on their baskets and opted for another shade of blue. At the end some of the kids embellished their baskets with a few feathers like one of the baskets we studied earlier.
I even got a group shot of some of the T-shirts we painted yesterday. The 1/2 day art camps are at the Wells Branch Community Library.