Salad Spinner Art ~ 3D Spring Flowers

After the cold and snowy winter we have had here we are all so excited for the First Day of SPRING today.  To celebrate we had fun making this colorful 3 Dimensional Spring Flowers Project to brighten up the house.  The girls and I always love doing Salad Spinner projects.  It is so much fun to see the globs of paint spread out all over the paper.  When I was trying to think up a fun and different way to make flowers the salad spinner was the first thing that came to mind.  I absolutely LOVE how this project came out and the girls had so much fun working on it today!

For this project we used Water Color Paper, Blue Liquid Watercolors (these are my favorite paints!), Green Striped Plastic Drinking Straws, Cardstock and Washable Kids Paint.  You can use a Spin Art Set if you have one but we chose to use our Salad Spinner today.  I got mine at Ikea for $2.99 and it is amazing!

First, I put a piece of watercolor paper on a backing tray, sprayed it with water to moisten it and then had the girls paint the whole piece with their blue liquid watercolors.

Next, they took turns (since we only have one salad spinner) dropping slightly watered down paint onto a piece of paper at the bottom of the salad spinner.

Once they were happy with how much paint they dropped onto the paper we put the top on and the girls spun away!

I loved watching them help each other with this part.  They took turns holding the salad spinner down while the other spun it.

Juliette checking to make sure it us just the way she wants it.

After they made their spin art, I used a hair dryer to quickly dry the paint (the most amazing tip thanks to Jackie @ Happy Hooligans).  Then I traced around these flower cookie cutters we have and cut them out.

I had the girls trim the bottom off of one of the straw then I glued the flower onto the top part of a bendy straw, this way it could be moved all around and kind of sticks up from the paper to give it a more 3 dimensional effect.  Then we glued the whole straw onto the blue water colored paper.  (I did the gluing for this part since we were using a hot glue gun)

The girls cut fringe on a strip of green construction paper to add some grass and leaves to their flowers.

We had so much fun working on this project, doesn't it get you so excited for SPRING!!

For another cute flower craft be sure to check out our Cupcake Liner Flowers.

This week I'm  linking up to:

 The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn,  Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase,  Tuesday Tots, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.

 

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Exploring Alternate Canvases ~ Sticker Balloons

I love giving the girls alternate canvases to work on.  It is a great way to have them think out of the box and use materials in different ways.

Balloons and Stickers are two things that almost every child loves so for this open ended art project I put the two together and the girls had so much fun with it.

The little kids (21 months – 2.5 years) placed the stickers all over the balloons. The older girls (5 years old) turned them into people.  They made eyes, hair, a mouth, teeth, a nose and even a bow to go in the hair all with the different shaped stickers.

After they finished their creations it was fun to use the decorated balloons to play keep it up.  They tap the balloon trying to keep it from touching the ground.  It was interesting to feel the difference between a plain balloon and one that is covered in stickers!

Rubber Band Splatter Painting

I originally saw the idea for this Splatter Painting project on Pinterest, from Teach Preschool and knew  that I had to try  it out  with our Art Group. 

To set up this project I put a piece of paper inside each baking tray and put three rubber bands around each tray.  I started by painting the rubber bands with the paint then the girls  snapped them to make the paint splatter all over the paper, but very quickly the girls wanted to add the paint on their own to do it again and again and again. 

Emily loved snapping the rubber bands and even used both hands to do two at a time.  They experimented with moving the rubber bands around on the tray and even sliding the paper out and around the other way to mix the colors.

Emily’s finished painting.

All the kids from 21 months to 5 years old  loved this activity, except Juliette who was in a mood!  Oh well maybe next time :)

stART ~ Lucky Tucker

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

This week we read Lucky Tucker, by Leslie McGuirk.  This is a cute book about a dog named Tucker who is not having a very good day, until he rolls around in a four-leaf clover patch that belongs to a leprechaun!

To go along with this book the girls made shamrock collages.  I gave them a piece of card stock in the shape of a shamrock and then set out markers, do a dot markers and all sorts of green collage materials like  pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, feathers, stickers straws, velcro, ribbon, pom poms for them to get creative with. 

Coloring with the green markers

Emily decided to use the green wiggly eyes to turn it into a Shamrock Person

Juliette took a picture of her Shamrock collage when she was all finished.

 

The girl’s Shamrock Collages, I love how different they are and how they each used the same materials in their own unique way!

Emily’s Shamrock

(5 years old)

Juliette’s Shamrock

(2.5 years old)

stART ~ Not A Box

Welcome to stART!  I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures somewhere in your post by either adding my button or a text link, so that others can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.  Be sure to stop by and visit the different links…every week there are so many different and fun book and craft ideas!

Check out the  stART tab in my navigation bar where you can find our past stART projects.  All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.  I have also included a list of all the blogs that participate in stART. 

I love the book Not a Box, by Antoinette Portis!  I love how it inspires children be able to use their imaginations and creativity to do or be anything that they want.  The simple line drawings are perfect for the suspense of the story.  We love guessing what his box is and what he will do next.  One thing is for sure, this is NOT a box!

To go along with Not a Box we got creative with two large boxes that I had.  Pushed the table out of the way and put down a table cloth.  Then I gave them paint, stamps , foam rollers and paint brushes and let them create to their hearts content.

This was one of the best projects we have ever done, I think they would have painted all day if we had more boxes. 

Clean up was CRAZY but totally worth it, here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what the house looked like afterwards :)

Exploring Alternate Canvases ~ Rock Painting

I love the idea of exploring alternate canvases.  The girls have had a great time painting with every possible item under the sun like yarn, spaghetti, forks, bubble wrap, duplos, the list could really go on and on.  But, we always seem to paint on the same thing…plain old paper!

So when I noticed that my sister had a pile of really big rocks sitting in her backyard I had to take a few I knew they would be perfect for the girls to paint on!  I planned on putting them throughout the garden and having the girls paint on them outside, but the mosquitoes are so bad this year that we have not been able to spend much time in our back yard.  Even bug spray does not seem to keep them away.  So we brought the big rocks inside!

First, I scrubbed all of the dirt off of the rocks.  We did this with our art group and each child was able to pick the rock that they wanted to paint on.  Then I gave them a paint palette and set out a bunch of different brushes and they got to work creating.

Emily decided to paint a rainbow on one side and make a lady bug on the other.

Juliette was happy to swirl all of the different colors around on her rock.

I am still hoping to try this again outside, I think it will be fun to use washable paints and let them keep painting new pictures on the rocks throughout the yard.  Maybe we will be able to get a really big rock/boulder as a canvas too!

What alternate canvases have you  tried having your children paint on?

Open Ended Art ~ Initial Collages

During Art Group the girls made Initial Collages.  We had kids from 14 months to 4 1/2 working on this project.  They were all able to participate in it, some were just more into it than others.

I cut pieces of poster board into the initials of the girls first names.  Then they used markers to color all over them.  Finally, they were able to glue on all the different materials.  I had different types of fabric, ribbons, felt, tin foil, sandpaper, tulle and tissue paper.

E for Emily

Emily did hers all by herself, she even cut the pieces to the size she needed, asking for help only to cut the pieces of fabric that needed the sharp scissors to cut it.

J for Juliette

   Juliette worked on hers for a little bit and then decided we needed to work on it together.  She sat on my lap and we each glued pieces on to her initial.  I showed her how to overlap pieces and had just as much fun as she did working on it!

Emily and Juliette had fun working on these collages!

I am thinking of mounting them on colored paper and framing them in their rooms. 

Happy National Doughnut Day

Did you know that today was National Doughnut Day???  Well after seeing an add for a free doughnut (with the purchase of a drink) from Dunkin Donuts I thought I would check it out and yes today is National Doughnut Day!  According to Wikipedia  National Donut Day began as a fundraiser for the Salvation Army in 1938.  It’s held every year on the first Friday of June, in honor of the female volunteers of World War I who served donuts to soldiers behind the front lines.

(Emily’s Doughnut)

To celebrate we made our own Construction Paper Strawberry Glazed Doughnuts with Sprinkles during Art Group.

I cut out a brown doughnut shape for each of the girls and then the older girls cut out their own strawberry icing to glue on top of the doughnut. 

First they glued the pink construction paper to the brown construction paper.

   Then they added their sprinkles!!

They had lots of different types of sprinkles to choose from.  They could draw them on with marker, or glue on cut of straws, pipe cleaners or hole punched circles.

Here is Juliette’s Finished Doughnut.  Both the older girls (4) and younger girls (18 – 22 months) had a great time working on this project.

Paper Plate Turkey Wreath

I had the girls make these Paper Plate Turkey Wreaths during art group last week.  I cut out the center of a paper plate to make the base for the paper loops to go on.  Then I cut out a bunch of strips of paper (mine were 1x6 inches)  I taped them into loops and had them all ready for the girls to glue them on to the wreath.  I am sure an older child would be able to do this part themselves.

Emily glued the paper loops onto the paper plate

Next she folded two thin strips like an accordion.  These will be used for the legs

I cut out feet shapes for Emily to glue onto the legs

Then she glued  beak,  snood and legs to the body.  I traced Emily’s food onto a piece of brown construction paper for the body.

      

I gave the girls the choice of gluing on wiggly eyes or using a marker.  Emily chose the marker :0)

Finally she glued the body to the loops on the plate.

 

Check out other great ideas for Tots and Preschoolers: