Of snowmen, snowglobes and other holiday figures at WBCL

After all the fun at school today with the snow globes, I expanded the make a snowman project to include them. Some of the older kids decided that the cards had just the right art work on them to use as scenes in their globes. Others used odd bits of ornament making supplies or drew and colored scenes. Some of the group created snowman bookmarks. One dad went his own way and made a santa instead.

The snowglobes are a 9 oz clear beverage glass mounted on an old CD/DVD. We added "snow" before gluing the project together. A few decided that gluing the scene to the inside of the glass worked better and did that.

This group meets every Wednesday at the Wells Branch Community Library creating arts & crafts projects from a wide variety of items on hand. Next week we'll paint cookies and learn to make stained glass cookies.

Gingerbread people & hearts @ WBCL

What a fun and smelly ( in a nice way) program this was. I used homemade cinnamon clay dough * and baked 2 dozen gingerbread girls & boys and 2 dozen hearts the night before. I got the dough a little wet so they spent the night in the dehydrator to be nice and dry for class. We used pony beads, fabric and glitter glue to personalize each one before threading a ribbon through for hanging. The library even supplied small boxes from our recycling program to carry them home in.

*recipe for cinnamon clay dough
4 c flour 1 c salt
1 c water 1/2 c cinnamon
2T nutmeg 2 T ground gloves
Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl with a spoon. Add water then mix and kneed until clay-like consistancey is reached. Add more flour if too wet. Roll out between parchment paper or wax paper to about 1/4"-3/8"
thickness and cut using cookie cutters. Bake at 300 degrees for 30-45 minutes. You can bake them at a lower temp for a lot longer if your oven will do this--mine will not. I used my dehydrator at 145 degrees overnight to finish drying them.

Family Ornament making @ WBCL

Before it was even time to open the doors, there was a line of excited participants. Although I made examples, most found their imagination guided them as they selected shiny balls and stars to make one-of-a-kind ornaments emellished by all kinds of fuzzy and shiny add-ons.
Our shell angel table, candy train, birdhouses, and cork reindeer were popular as was the hot glue and glitter station to finish off many of the creations. Thanks to the many volunteers (12+) that helped the session went pretty smoothly.

Kids of all ages strung popcorn for hanging in the tree or on themselves. A few people turned floral picks into trees and decorated them too.

Suddenly it was after 4 and time to turn off the music and put the little bit of remainder into boxes for later. This 5th annual event at the Wells Branch Community Library may be a keeper.

Making and decorating photo cubes at WBCL

In one of our wonderful donations I found a sack if unassembled photo cubes. They sat for many months until making it to our class tonight. What fun! First we had to assemble these tabbed boxes--no small thing but everyone got them together and ready to personalize. Getting all the tabs in the right places is kind of tricky. Once you see what you are supposed to do, it is much easier. We borrowed all the tape containers the library had to put them together.
We used another great donation--scrapbook papers--to cut and paste all over the boxes. Everyone was able to find the right colors and patterns to make their box just perfect. We were able to use the paper cutters we got for the scrapbook supplies and glue sticks to make the project neat. I did have to get out the hot glue for adding buttons as the weight is just too much for the other glues on verticle surfaces. As you can see, several people demonstrated putting their face in the picture spot.
This family class lets us put lots of donations and left over materials to great use at the Wells Branch Community Library on Wednesday nights.

Fall Banner Making at WBCL

To finish off the fall season we created banners from a variety of silk leaves, pinecones, scrapbook papers and a few other items pulled from the supplies. We pulled out our stencils and the ABC group's letters to use as templates for the lettering--a few of the kids decided that they wanted to hand letter the signs and use the papers for other design features. Some even incorportated the leaves from today's wacky science and feathers to create a rainbow or embelish the turkey she drew.
This group regularly has parents and kids working together on projects--leaving the mess to us and taking home something to show off. Thanks to the Wells Branch Community Library for offering the class.
Next week no class --we'll return in December for a full slate of early winter and pre-Christmas projects.

Reverse collage dishes for cookies and more at Wells Branch

The room at the Wells Branch Library was packed and everyone was interested in learning what on earth we were going to do. This really simple project had parents and kids fingering glue and table confetti, sequins, silk leaves, packing foil shred and tissue paper into a great plate for cookies or other dry foods. We even used the gold permanent markers to give them a bit of an edge.
Understanding how to assembel the project in reverse was a bit hard for some and projects had to be checked regularly and reassembled a couple of time to get them perfect but everyone was able to complete this one. It can be done on glass or plastic but we chose plastic due to the age of our participants. The final layer can be done with fabric but we use tissue for its lightness and color. This can be done with any table confetti so is perfect for other holidays or birthdays or special days.
If the humidity stays down for a couple of days these will be ready to use by the weekend.