paint cut paste

what a perfect thing to do on these sunny summer days – make your own nature photos with sun art paper!

on saturday, novi had a friend over to play. i tasked them with finding interesting looking natural objects in our backyard. they mostly gathered leaves and flowers.

then we went into the shade and pulled out a couple sheets of our sun art paper. (i bought three sizes of it from amazon over the winter, when i was daydreaming of sunny days ahead. this time we used the 5″x7″ paper.) we arranged the leaves and flowers on the paper before going into the sun.

next we put a clear acrylic sheet (comes with the paper) over the objects. this holds down your things so they don’t blow away in the wind or move around while exposure is happening. each sun art paper kit comes with just one, but if you want to do more than one at a time, raid your picture frame stash (especially the cheap plastic ones) and borrow some more from those. we left the paper in the sun for just 3-5 minutes (until it turns a very light blue.)

next we put the papers into a tub of water for one minute. because we wanted out images to turn out a deeper shade of blue, i added a few drops of lemon juice to the water (like it said to on the package.)

we repeated the process with more leaves and flowers… and some bubble wands, too!

after the prints have soaked for a minute, let them dry on a towel. (once completely dry, you can press them in a book for a day or so to make sure they are flat.)

the girls had fun watching how their pictures turned out, but mostly they were psyched just to run around with their popsicles. (perhaps the reason the package of sun art paper says for ages 6+)

these beautiful natural prints would make lovely cards, but i think i will frame this batch in a series to display in our home.

she's quite proud.

one of our favorite summertime rituals is making homemade popsicles.

july 2008: i'll never forget novi's first popsicle - totally messy homemade with fresh-picked blueberries

this week we made our first of the season – kid-friendly piña colada style! i saw the recipe on babble.com’s family kitchen and they had me at “coconut milk.” i also loved that no cooking was involved in these whatsoever (while some fruity popsicles require cooking the fruit and sugar to make syrup first.) so i gathered up some ingredients – all organic, of course.

you’ll need:

• 1/2 fresh pineapple
• 6 tablespoons 100% white grape juice concentrate (i used regular white grape juice & it was fine)
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup plain yogurt

then i threw it all into a blender and pureed.

poured it into one of our many popsicle mold sets… (or you could use ice cube trays and toothpicks or paper cups and popsicle sticks.)

we let them freeze for 6 hours (or overnight) and then we totally enjoyed them on an afternoon playdate.

mommy and daddy even got to have a summery little treat by adding malibu rum to the leftover blended popsicle liquid…mmmmm!

here’s to summer, and many more homemade popsicles to come – check out this link for over 50 of them!

we haven’t done a whole lot of printmaking and stamping lately, but when i saw this post on make. believe., i was re-inspired!

novi and i collected hard, round surfaces from the kitchen on which to paint with acrylic paints. we came up with a few options. this is one of those activities for which i’m sure you already have all of the materials laying around your house. if not, improvise! (you can use pie pans, shoebox lids, paper plates for surfaces, and fingers or pencil erasers instead of q-tips.)

then we had fun mixing colors and covering the bottom of pie pans with a thick layer of acrylic paint using 1″ wide, flat paintbrushes. (sure, a brayer would have been nice, but somehow we don’t have one.)

"mommy, did you know that when you mix purple and magenta, you get beautifulness?"

next, we drew our designs onto the bottom of the pans, carving away the paint with cotton swabs (yes, q-tips. how well-marketed is that brand that their brand name is the common name we most often use? wow.)

"i'm making paint pie!" novi said, as she drew a fish with bubbles in the paint

then we pressed the bottoms onto different sizes of white paper.

(yep, she's writing her name with the paint-soaked q-tip on the print)

next we tried using a paper plate (leftover from her january birthday party) to do the same.

we got similar results with the paper plate as the ones we got with pie pans. (my tip any of these surfaces is just to spread the paint on very thick, and make sure the q-tip really carves away the paint when drawing your design.)

"this one is a person with a bird flying above"

lastly, we got out a cupcake tin that we only use for art, and decided to paint each one a different color.

then novi drew designs on each cupcake bottom. she picked simple things to draw like hearts, suns, moons, flowers, leaves, waves, spirals, etc.

we pressed the cupcake pan twice onto a large sheet of paper, and voila!

the designs came out looking abstract and charmingly weathered. i love how these prints turned out as beautiful mandalas!

hanging outside in the playhouse to dry

this post is basically an ode to a material i have come to love – the crayola true to life series of dry media. no, they don’t pay me for this (but they totally should! right?! come on, someone send us some art materials to review…)

seriously, their crayons and colored pencils make the art look so cool! novi came home from preschool one day with the fish below and asked, “can we get some swirly crayons for home?” um, yeah!

so we did and she went to town in her coloring books making all sorts of rainbowy creatures.

novi says, "the bottom butterfly is sad because she's just purple."

wait, what you do mean it's not a sno-cone fight?

then she got her hands on some the true to life colored pencils, and after a trip to the local yeti museum (yep, she’s a fan) she got to work coloring a tree-hugging yeti.

the yeti is coming to life…

i mean, does this bigfoot look real or what? someone call the tabloids!

summer officially begins today, the summer solstice. what better way to ring in the season than to brainstorm with your little one(s) about all of the fun things you can do together in these beautiful, expansive months ahead?

when i saw this idea for summer fun cards on teach mama, i knew that novi would be really into it. she used index cards, but i thought i’d check our stash of scrap papers to make these. then i realized i had a pack of blank index cards in our stash already, so it was kismet. white cardstock is good for illustrating, though you could do this with any papers you have around (think: brown paper grocery bags, used gift wrap, etc.)

novi and i thought of all of the fun summery things we’d like to do together when the weather is warm and the days are long and there’s no preschool in session. i wrote these things on the cards in marker. then i passed them to novi to illustrate any way she’d like, with some dry media: markers, crayons, and colored pencils.

here are a few of the finished ones that novi drew. i drew on a few of the cards (not pictured below), as well… we had TONS! novi loved learning about what illustration means by doing this project.

then i used a hole punch to make holes in the cards, and we strung our cards on colorful yarn. we hung them in novi’s playroom….

…where we can be reminded of all of the potential…

that these long summer days hold.

happy summer! have a blessed solstice!

we’ve been having fun preparing for father’s day over here…

novi made some papa portrait cards for her dad and grandfathers.

here are her portraits. (yep, she essentially has 4 grandfathers. modern families.)

we also turned a really cool magnadoodle image of hers…

into a great travel coffee mug for her dad on cafepress.com! (i love this idea of using your child’s art on everyday products. sure beats logos and advertising for other companies!)

novi painted a wooden picture frame for her dad at preschool a couple of weeks ago, complete with a photo taken by her teacher.

we added the frame and the mug to a gift basket with lots of his favorite goodies.

one of novi’s traditions is to make mom’s day and dad’s day signs… last year in 2009, her sign looked like this:

mom's writing, novi's scribbles

but this year, she was able to write and illustrate her own sign – hooray!

happy father’s day to all the dads, granddads, godfathers, uncles, and all of the amazing men who love & support our children!