fun with dyed chanukah pasta

When I found this happy bag of Chanukah pasta at World Market I scooped it up with a whoop and imagined how pretty it would be dyed in all sorts of happy colors. So I took it home and did just that using this method.

The bag itself isn't too large so each color is only maybe two cups or so of noodles. The teal and purple were accomplished using liquid watercolor while the dark blue and the white needed a little help from some acrylic paint mixed with water. The white and blue got a bit more wet than usual in the shaking process so needed a day to dry with a manual flip in between to get both sides.

Once the noodles are all dry there are oodles of ways for your kiddos to play! Use the pasta as a stand in for gelt during dreidel play. Add it to play dough or color sort onto a sorting mat made from printed/solid paper taped or stitched together. Felt will work for a more permanent mat but happy scrapbook paper will do in a pinch!

Stack the pieces! Have a contest to see who can stack the most in a set time. Up the ante by using only your pinching fingers. Grab a pipecleaner or some yarn and string the noodles up for a pretty necklace or bracelet.

Work on math and patterning by creating various patterns with your kiddos. Set up an art table with glue, paint, and glitter and get to it! There are all sorts of ways you can play! Happy Chanukah!

it's a wrap!

In Rabbit's Gift, each animal in the story returns home with a different type of vegetable. To add to the literature, the children used various vegetables to create their own wrapping paper to take home for the holidays.

I brought in my acrylic paints and let each child choose up to three colors. To keep the paper from getting muddy, we kept each vegetable to one color with the children choosing which veggie got which color.

 

One child worked at a time at our smaller art table. I kept an eye out and rotated the paper a little to keep the stamping an all over process rather than a cluster in one place. Some children chose to stand and walk around as they stamped.

We rolled up their paper and secured it with a pipe cleaner to take home on the last day before winter break. Some of the parents in other classrooms were really dazzled by how modern the paper looked.

make faux tie-dyed paper flags

 

Here's another project that was inspired by pinterest. There are quite a few pins (and thus, blog posts and videos even) out there relating to this so I cannot attribute it to a single person. Oh and it was also at the San Mateo Maker Faire so there ya go.

 For this project you will need paper, scissors, permanent markers, rubbing alcohol, masking tape, straws or pencils, and either a small misting bottle, ear swap, or eye dropper.

 

Set up in a mess friendly area. I used a vinyl tablecloth with a large sheet of wax paper on top.  To create eight flags you will need a single sheet of white paper 11"X17". You can also use index cards or smaller sheets of paper but I wanted to use a large sheet to get your kiddos into paper folding and cutting on a line. Have your kiddo fold their paper so that they have eight squares. Hand them a pair of scissors and have them cut long the folded lines.

Gather up your permanent markers and get to creating a happy flag. The more marker lines you add, the more blended and colorful your flag will be.

 

Now it is time to add the rubbing alcohol. It goes without saying that you should not leave your child alone while working on this project. The alcohol is a bit intense in scent but so are the markers. It also looks a lot like water so make sure you use a very small container to hold it and never leave your child unattended. The more alcohol that is dripped and dribbled onto the paper, the more it will spread and fade. If you wish for a brighter result, use a cotton swap to "draw" the alcohol onto the marker lines. A fine mister bottle would work as well for older children. Set aside to dry.

 

Once dry, use tape or glue to attach a straw or pencil to the back to create a handle. Ta-da! Fun flags you can wave at your very own Fourth of July parade! Omit the pencils and straws and you cn turn this into a garland by gluing or taping to a couple yards of ribbon.

spin some fourth of july art

This nifty doohickey was made from egg carton pieces and beads. Add a bell or two and you can call it a wind chime!

Back in 2009 I shared with you my fondness for spin art. This year I discovered this awesome idea from Not So SAHM via pinterest. I thought the idea of using egg cartons in the salad spinner was brilliant and tucked it away in the noggin for a Fourth of July project. The only problem was I no longer had a salad spinner and so I kept my eyes peeled for one at the thrifts and scored this basic model for $3.25! Cutting it quite close to the wire, I managed to actualize what I visualized and now I have a diy for you!

Materials:

*salad spinner

*egg carton cups

*acrylic, tempera, or biocolor paint

*embroidery thread

*fat needle

*assorted beads

*scissors

The first thing you need to do is liberate your cups from a paper egg carton. This is not a kiddo project as the pulp from the egg carton is a bit wonky to cut. Keep this part for the grown-ups. Sharp scissors work best.

Place egg carton pieces into your salad spinner and add paint. Your kiddos can easily do this and will thoroughly love squirting the paint on top of the egg carton pieces.

Place lid on spinner and have your kiddo give it a whirl or two. There are at least three different styles of salad spinners out there. We use all three at the preschool I work at as each of them offer different challenges to children. Keep this in mind when hunting for a salad spinner. Will your child be able to turn, pump, or pull the mechanism? For toddlers we use a pump model. The pre-k children love the pull model and the threes like to crank away.

Set aside the egg cartons to dry.

While the paint is drying, have your child sort out red, white, and blue beads from your assortment.

When paint is dry, thread a needle with a longish length of embroidery thread. Double the thread and knit it. This will keep the needle from slipping off (I did not double my thread and lost my needle twice).

Begin adding beads. You can ask your child to count out and thread a specific number of beads to practice counting or let them create patterns as they thread away. After they have threaded a series of beads it is time to poke the needle through an egg carton piece. Poke the needle up through the inside of the cup so that the cup faces down over the beads. Add more beads, then another egg carton cup, then more beads, repeating until your child has their desired number of cups and beads on their thread.  Tie of thread into a loop and use scissors to cut off any excess.

 

 

Hang in a happy place and watch it blow around in the breeze. Add bells to the bottom before beading to create a wind chime of sorts.

Happy-almost-fourth!

make a paper napkin garland

 

To create a fun, festive garland all you need to do is glue your napkins to a a few yards of ribbon in an ABAB pattern, allow to dry, then hang! To conserve napkin use, cut your napkins in half before gluing. Have fun!

last minute july 4th decor your kiddos can make!

All you need to create a fun garland and these medallions is a couple of packs of holiday festive paper napkins!

materials:

*three paper napkins

*scissors

*glue stick

*yarn

*ribbon

*white glue

I found my napkins at Target on sale. I had been eyeballing them for a while and was pleased to find them discounted. Party stores may also be a good source for holiday themed napkins. Open napkin so that it is a rectangle shape, cut in half. Kiddos can practice their cutting skills while doing this.

Next, accordion fold each rectangle up from the bottom, about four folds. Fold in half to create a fan shape. Draw a line of glue with a gluestick on one end of your folded napkin and adhere to the other.

You will need three napkins per medallion (that's six small fan shapes) so repeat the cut and fold process three times. Use glue stick to glue all edges together to create a circle.

Give your finished medallion a small snip with your scissors (a hole punch will not work) and thread with a length of yarn that can be doubled and knotted for easier hanging.

That's it! You can also use paper for this project easy peasy.

make a popcorn bag garland

This is a fun project I posted at scrumdillydilly. Switch out the sewing machine and add some glue, washi tape, and/or staples and your kiddos can create one just as nifty!

father's day diy: wooden key chain/gift tag

So you've arted up some gift wrap for Dad's favorite candy bars now all you need is a nifty gift tag. Why not make the gift tag a part of the gift by turning it into a keychain?

Small packs of wooden discs can be found at your local craft store for very little. You can use a hammer and nail to create the hole or get all power tool happy and use a drill with a small bit. Grab a handful of discs and add a hole to each one.

Attaching the keyring can be tricky if your discs are compromised. One of our discs cracked but the rest were good. You can also use a short length of ball chain instead of a classic key ring.

Your children can paint up the discs are get a bit happy with markers.

Aren't they nifty? Happy Almost-Father's Day!

father's day diy: scrape art candy bar bands

This simple gift idea is another small one that packs punch. Why not repurpose your child's artwork into candy bar sleeves? If Dad loves chocolate but always has to share, why not pick up a trio of his favorite bars, just for him?

These candy bands were created using good old fashioned splatter and scrape art. We used one large sheet (11.5"X17") and painted up both sides. After it all dried, we cut it up into three pieces and wrapped each band around a bar. Our first cut was a bit smaller than we wanted but that was easy to fix with a long piece of tape.

 

The beauty of scrape art is that a few colors go a long way. Drip, drop, drizzle and scrape. That's all you need to do. If the first try comes out too dark or inky, allow the paint to dry a bit and blob on another layer of lighter paint and let your kiddo scrape and push the paint around.

You can use sturdy cardboard to scrape but an expired plastic giftcard has a bit more power behind it, is washable, and reusable. Those fake credit cards that come in the mail will also work. As will a wooden or metal spatula.

So simple. Paint, scrape, dry, cut and gift! You can also top it with a keychain...that post will be up later today. Happy painting!

father's day diy: friendship bracelets

This father's day why not up Dad's coolness factor by knotting up a handful of bracelets for him? Children 7 and up can easily create these small pieces in little time. Change up your cording and create a trio for all the guys in your family...gals too!

The twist on this set of bracelets is to use thicker cord, not yarn or embroidery floss. Parachute cord is nice and sturdy and now comes in all sorts of colors. Hemp cord can be found in the jewelery aisle of most craft stores and shoelaces can be found jsut about anywhere!

Because we are using these thicker cords, you only need two strands (perfect for a pair of shoelaces) or three for the hemp. You can knot your cords at the start though that black starter on the right there really needed a bit more at the top for tying off. If using hemp cord, give it a loop before knotting, this will create a clasp of sorts so Dad can take it off when he needs to. The shoelaces were super thick so I did a loop and ran it through the sewing machine two or three times to anchor them all together.

There are many tutorials out there using embroidery floss. Here is my diy post for using chunky yarn and here is a link to a video that might help as well. I have also found that younger children around 4 and 5 really like to knot things up so you can also set them up with a starter bracelet and let them get to twisting and knotting. I still use the safety pin trick and anchor it to my pants. Some children will get a kick out of it if you anchor it to a table leg or other stationary object.

To finish off your bracelets, you can simply wait until Dad opens them and tie them to his wrist or you can add a fat knot to the opposite end so that it will fit through the loop you created without slipping out. If Dad is not a bracelet wearer, you can also make a shorter "bracelet" and loop it into a key fob. Have fun and Happy Father's Day!