Painting kids and snowmen

This week in recognition of the cold and the snow in the news we painted a snow scene with a couple of kids building a snowman. The instructions were to leave the snowman white but paint his scarf, arms and hat. It is not always my preference to do "coloring book" painting but this still leaves a lot of room for creativity and some skill in filling in pattern lines. The younger attendees did not think the snowman should be left blank and gave it a generous brush of paint too.


When the painting was completed everyone painted the snowman with elmer's glue and a dose of sparkling glitter to top it off. Nice and easy painting project and a good lead in for the Snowman book project next week.

Painting cookie ornaments

With a selection of lots of little cookie shapes the group painted their hearts out making an array of cookie ornaments to take home and use. Sugar cookies are an easy pallette for the artist armed with gels and stiff brushes. We put stripes on candy canes, decorated little trees and just let our imaginations run wild. This is such a fun way for the family to do something together.


The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler. The program lets us turn donated or recyclable materials and imagination into great projects.
You may also want to take a look at the new Art &crafts database the library recently subscribed to for the patrons. Check the library website for details.

Making jewelry & gift boxes @WBCL

Just in time for some kind of a holiday we got out all the gift boxes we had and many trays of beads and wood shapes to create jewelry for the participants or friends and family. Members of the HOTT painting group and community members have given me so many beads and wood shapes that this class was just waiting to happen!


The boxes were also donated, just needing the right decoration and a bow or ribbon to give them out. We decided that painting the wood with markers and then using it would best. One of the boys learned to thread beads on elastic to make a bracelet for his little sister. Older kids made gifts for school friends.
There were bracelets, necklaces and clips created. No one went home with less than 2 gifts--some were able to create a few more. The tree boxes and bows were a big hit as you can see.
Last class of 2010 will be painted cookie ornaments/decorations complete with ribbons on December 22nd.

The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler. The program lets us turn donated or recyclable materials and imagination into great projects.

You may also want to take a look at the new Art & crafts database the library recently subscribed to for the patrons. Check  the library website for details.

Snowglobe sceenes @WBCL

This was a great recycling project with shiney CDs and old plastic snow! started with 1/4 sheets of white cardstock and folded it in 4 sections and folded the bottom up about 1/3" to give a base. Everyone then drew and colored scenes on all of the sections and cut around the tops of each scene. There were snowmen and buildings and people and trees. Lots of great drawings. We then glued the paper together and onto the CD with tacky glue. Lastly we added a 9 oz cup over the whole thing to act as our globe.


My idea was to limit the mess and put the snow through a paper cone into the hole in the CD. Most of the class decided it was easier to put the snow into the cup and put it back onto the CD.
It was fun and did not break like the baby food jar ones. Definately had more creativity with the drawings.
The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler. The program lets us turn donated or recyclable materials and imagination into great projects.

You may also want to take a look at the new Art & crafts database the library recently subscribed to for the patrons. Check  the library website for details. 

Thanksgiving figures @ WBCL

Thanks to my painting friends at HOTT  for the wooden cut-outs this week. We were given a box of wood cut-outs of pilgrims, turkeys, and "indians" all ready for painting and using to decorate at Thanksgiving. Lots of the adults got into the act this week with nearly as many grown-ups painting as kids. Some decided the lines were not for them and did their own thing. Others added details until they were well pleased with the figure. My favorite was the pilgrim girl with Happy Thanksgiving written on her apron.
We will be doing quite a bit of holiday oriented painting and crafting in the next few weeks and will apparently have a full house every week. This class is for families to do these projects together--keeping the mess at the library and letting them socialize with others.
The Family Arts & Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler. The program lets us turn donated or recyclable materials and imagination into great projects.

You may also want to take a look at the new Art & crafts database the library recently subscribed to for the patrons. Check  the library website for details. 

Pinecone turkeys roost @ WBCL

What is more fun than using clay and feathers? This group would be hard pressed to find something they like better other than painting. We used 3 colors of home-made clay for the head and added a blob of clay to the back end to mount the feathers for the tail. I had lots of left- over bright colored feathers in addition to the fall pack of brown and orange. As you can see, many turkeys got brightly colored tails. We used little plastic beads for eyes--some had extra detail around them provided by yellow or clay. Some even added feet with the yellow clay--mostly to stabilize the pine cone so it would not flip over.

The Family Arts &; Crafts group meets at the Wells Branch Community Library every Wednesday night at 6 pm taught by Dianne Koehler. The program lets us turn donated or recyclable materials and imagination into great projects.

You may also want to take a look at the new Art & crafts database the library recently subscribed to for the patrons. Check  the library website for details.