Materials

• Bingo chips
• Drill (to be used by an adult with safety googles, a mask and we made the holes over a carpet sample)
• Lace
• Beads

Directions

• Have an adult drill two holes into your bingo chips as shown.  We found that you want to apply a slow steady pressure so as not to crack them.

• Lace your bingo chip beads onto a lace with any other types of beads.

• Our daughter had a good idea for collaborating on this type of project- have one person lace from one end and another on the other side.

• Enjoy your necklace or give it to a friend!

Extras

• Add a bit of craft glue to the back of your chips and arrange them on a canvas board to create images.  Allow to dry overnight and decorate your space.

• A brother/ sister collaboration:

• A card for a friend:

Purpose

• Working with small objects (developing one’s fine motor skills)
• Re-using/ re-imagining

Safety Notes

• Bingo chips can be a choking hazard, therefore be sure to keep them out the reach of children 0-3 years of age or those that tend to put them in their mouths.
• We suggest that you wear a smock and use a craft tray to protect your clothing and work surfaces when working with glue.
• Yarn, lace etc. can be a strangulation hazard, therefore be sure to remove your necklace for play (e.g., on the playground)

The floral piece is for our son’s teacher at the end of the year to say, “Thank you for helping me grow!” Our daughter’s ice cream cone- “Being in your class has been a real treat!”  Personally I love her simple shape collage! (A great way to start!)

Materials

• Tissue paper
• Acrylic paint
• Paint brushes (Or any other materials to make texture)
• Scissors
• Glue
• Acrylic gloss
• Canvas boards (you could also use think paper such as cardstock)
• We also find a smock and craft tray helpful for every project:

Directions

• We went out into nature to get some inspiration for our project, taking photos of some of the neighbourhood blooms.

• We then drew sketches of various flowers we saw:

• Don your smock and carefully paint your tissue paper using brushes or various items to create the appearance of texture.  We went with something simple, but you could extend this however you like!

• Allow to dry overnight.

• Here are a few examples:

• Carefully cut blooms out of your tissue paper, gluing them to your board.  One trick we did was to draw out our bloom and then to cut inside the lines to eliminate the pencil marks.  Another tip that is also helpful for children is to do a rough cut around your shape to make it easier to manage when cutting the actual shape out in finer detail.  The stems are just simple strips.

• We allowed this to dry overnight and then gently finished off the projects with a thin layer of acrylic gloss.

• Here are our experimentations with other summer-y ideas: cacti, watermelons and ice cream cones!

Purpose

• Learning how to create the look of texture with paint
• Exploring the technique of collage, compiling various cutouts to create an overall image, which may include the process of layering

Safety Notes

• Wear a smock and use a craft tray to protect your clothing and work surfaces.

Materials

• Nature finds (rocks, leaves, sticks, pinecones etc.)

• Cardstock or construction paper
• Craft glue
• Pencil/eraser

Directions

• Go on a nature walk with an adult.  We collected only things that were no longer alive and not on someone’s property so as to be respectful.  We live by a river valley with a trail system so this is a perfect way to get your kids outside and active while you enjoy some exercise!  On the way you might discuss ideas that you may have and look for specific things to accent your concepts or you might use the pieces you find as inspiration.

• Take your items home and lay them out onto paper, sketching around them.  (See some examples below that our son thought of.)

• Finish your drawings- whether that means going over them with a thin black pen, colouring or painting portions in or by cutting some parts out of coloured paper an assembling the pieces.  Or you could leave them as sketches too! (Our son traced one of his sketch’s with the help of the light from the window- always a great trick!)

• Glue your items down with craft glue.

• Allow to dry overnight.

• Be sure to sign your sketches and you might want to indicate the year, season and where you found the item.  If you know the type of specimen, include that too!

Purpose

• Getting out into nature.
• Sketching

Safety Notes

• Be sure to go on a nature walk with an adult.
• Respect nature when you remove an item.
• Use a craft tray and smock to protect your clothing and work surfaces.

This project was featured on:

http://www.hellowonderful.co/post/10-ARTISTIC-FATHER—-S-DAY-GIFTS-KIDS-CAN-MAKE

Check them out for other artistic Father’s Day gifts you can make!

Materials

• Canvas board
• Painter’s tape
• Pencil/eraser
• Acrylic paints
• Brushes
• Thin permanent markers

• Smock
• Craft tray

Directions

• Don your smock.

• Using your painter’s tape, make a border around your canvas folding your tape so half is on the front and half is on the back (we used a bit of a thicker version).

• Add a bit more painter’s tape at the bottom to make the white portion where you would hold your polaroid as it set.

• Rub over your painter’s tape to make sure it has fully adhered at all points.

• Sketch out your portrait of you and your dad or anyone special to you in the white space.

• We then painted our backgrounds.

• Carefully paint your people.  If you paint over your pencil lines, don’t worry- you can go over them with a thin permanent marker after the paint has dried.  We decided to do work on the paintings a bit every day after school (before Dad was home from work!).  We found this to be quite helpful as we could do a few colours at a time and let them dry, preventing them from mixing.  Acrylics were quite forgiving.  We could use layers of different colours to make any corrections and trace over the lines again.  We hope you can see this process below.  (If you happen to have any bleeding when you remove your tape you can also fix it with white acrylic!)

• Once done, trace over all your lines again (ours showed though the paint, making it easy to go over) with a thin, permanent marker.

• Carefully remove your tape, revealing your polaroid-esque image!

• Write a special note on the back of your painting, (including the date) for Dad to keep!

Purpose

• Experimenting with sketching
• Using tape to create negative spaces

Safety Notes

• Wear a smock and use a craft tray to protect your clothing and work surfaces.

Materials

• Wooden matchsticks (without the match heads, these are purchased at craft stores)
• Paint
• Brushes
• Craft glue
• Cardstock (we used black, but any colour can work, just a thicker style of paper)
• Any other items you would like to add (for instance, our daughter wanted to use reinforcements)

• Craft tray
• Smock

Directions

• Don your smock.

• Lay your matchsticks on your craft tray and paint them.

• Allow to dry overnight.

• Remove them from the craft tray (we found a metal flipper made this process speedy) and carefully separate them. (To easily clean your craft tray, depending on the type of paint you used- soak it and scrub it with a S.O.S. pad made of steel wool, discarding the pad after.)

• Glue your sticks down to your cardstock, using your craft glue.  For younger children, you could glue your sticks into the glue you put on the paper.  For older children, putting the glue onto the stick itself works well in minimizing any glue marks.  If you are comfortable with it, you could also use a glue gun with supervision, based on your age and abilities.

• Our daughter wanted to make a “pattern”- this style of design would be great for learning about symmetry.  As seen as the end of the post, you could do realistic images or more abstract arrangements.

• Allow to dry overnight and display your work!  (This would be a perfect way to re-use a frame where the glass has been chipped, broken etc. and therefore removed.)

Purpose

• Using different materials to create images

Safety Notes

• Small items such as matchsticks could be a choking hazard, therefore be sure to keep them out the reach of children ages 0-3 years or those that tend to put things in their mouths.
• Wear a smock and use a craft tray to protect your clothing and work surfaces.

Check out our kite project and all sorts of other goodies on:

http://www.hellowonderful.co/post/KID-MADE-DECORATIVE-DRIFTWOOD-KITE

This is an easy, accessible, mess-free, fun activity for a wide age range.  We went with a multitude of bookmarks and a few necklaces, but you could use it for all sorts of things!

Materials

Bookmarks

• Bookmark template book_marks
• Paint (we used bottles that squeezed, but you could use a small spoon if need be)
• Zippered plastic bag
• Scissors
• Hole punch
• Cord
• Laminating supplies (*Optional)

Necklace

• Wooden pendents or this printout flags
• Zippered bag
• Cord
• Beads

Directions

Bookmark

• Put your bookmark template into your zippered bag and turn it upside down.  (You are going to paint on the part that doesn’t have the bookmark outlines and text.)

• Carefully insert your bottles of paint into your bag and squeeze out little dots of paint.

• Zipper your bag closed and move your paint around with your fingers.

• Have an adult open and remove the painting from the bag or if need be, cut the bag open to remove the painting yourself.

• Discard your bag.

• Allow your work to dry overnight.

• Flip your painting over and cut out your bookmarks along the lines.  Punch a hole in the spot where indicated.  Please excuse our gardening hands!  (No amount of scrubbing will get rid of all the spring dirt!)

• Write a message on the blank side of the bookmark if you are giving it to a friend, teacher, your dad etc.

• We then laminated our bookmarks for longevity, cut them out with a little border surrounding and then re-punched the hole.

• Cut a piece of cord, make a loop on the front (as shown) and then pull the two ends from the back of the bookmark, through the hole and through your loop, pulling taut.

• Enjoy your bookmark or give it to a fellow book lover!

Necklace

• We had a few pendents left from the garland that we made below, so we decided to paint them as well with the same process, making simple necklaces.

http://make-it-your-own.com/elastic-painting-birthday-garland/

• Once you have painted your pendents using the method described above in the bookmark session and allowed them to dry, lace your pendent onto the middle of the cord and then add beads on each side to form a necklace.

Purpose

• Encouraging reading.
• Exploring various painting techniques.

Safety Notes

• Use scissors with care & supervision.
• Yarn, cord etc. can be a strangulation hazard therefore it should be used with adult supervision and for the intended purpose.
• Be sure to wear a smock and use a craft tray to protect your clothing and surfaces, even though the paint is contained in this case- be prepared for the occasional leak!
• Beads can be a choking hazard and therefore should be kept out of the reach of children 0-3 years of age or those that tend to put things in their mouths.
• Be sure to remove your necklace for play (eg., on a playground) as they can be a strangulation hazard.

Materials

• Office supplies (paper clips, stickers, elastics etc.)
• Glue
• Pre-made artwork OR paper and paints
• Smock
• Craft Tray

Directions

Approach 1

• Glue or stick office supplies to a blank piece of paper.  This serves as a starting or inspiration point for creating around the supplies.  Don your smock and paint away!

• Our daughter decided to go with reinforcements, painting circular sponges and acrylics, followed by a watercolour wash on her pieces.  Go with whatever materials excite you- markers, watercolours etc.

• Another finished piece:

• You could also experiment with removing the office supplies to create negative space images on your piece:

OR 

Approach 2

• Add office supplies to already existing piece as a bit of embellishment.

• We suggest arranging them before you glue them on, so that way you can experiment (as our daughter says!) with the placement.

Purpose

• Exploring different materials

Safety Notes

• Items such as elastic bands, paper clips etc. can be coking hazards, therefore be sure to keep them out of the reach of children ages 0-3 or those that tend to put things in their mouths.