paint cut paste

if you’re a regular of this blog, you know that my daughter, novi, is an avid magna-doodler. for real – she spends 45-120 minutes a day on that thing. she wears them out (really, the pen tips get scratchy.) we’re on our 5th or 6th (?) one in 2 years.

the time she spends magna-doodling is no joke… so we are turning these little masterpieces into gifts! for example, you may have seen the cool custom mug we made for father’s day from a magna-doodle image:

well, my mom and stepdad are celebrating their 20 year anniversary tomorrow (whoo hoo!) novi calls my mom “gwee” and my stepdad “big daddy.” for their 20 year, we made them little anniversary hats. (and, of course, a handmade card.)

it’s easy to do this — i just took a digital photo of a magna-doodle image she drew a while back of “gwee and big daddy dancing.” i always take pics of these, for posterity’s sake. they’re so temporary and i’m not a good buddhist about such things.

the original

then i traced over her lines in pixelmator (my free version of a photoshoppy product) in order to make them less grainy. the magna-doodle has those weird cells in it that don’t translate well, so this would be better done with an actual paper and marker drawing, but i had to use what we had.

i saved that image and put it on a product of choice on cafepress.com — hats. they are boaters and tennis players, so albeit cheesy, i know they will actually wear these.

happily, novi is doing a lot more doodling on actual paper, so the drawings aren’t as temporary as they were on the magna-doodle. in the future, i can skip the tracing step – yay!  happy 20 years, gwee & big daddy!

and seriously, if this keeps up, everyone we know will likely get a doodled tshirt or pair of boxers for the holidays this year.

little worker elf

oh, and while you’re making cool artsy gifts on their site (no, i don’t get paid for this endorsement of cafepress or for anything else) hop over to the paintcutpaste shop on cafepress and show us some love… spread the word: you know you want a paintcutpaste.com smock, tote, or sigg bottle!

when i saw the rainbowy goodness emanating from these doily hearts on 4 crazy kings, i knew novi would love to make some to proudly display in our window for valentine’s day!

i found some doilies in the shape of hearts at michael’s – a pack of 12 for $2.50. after i finished asking myself, “who am i??? am i seriously buying doilies!!?!” novi and i headed to the register with my 40% off coupon. cheap. i got over it.

after naptime, novi got right to work watercoloring the doily paper. we taped it down to her art board with one little roll of scotch tape in the center, so as not to move the doilies around too much while painting. i advise using a very soft-bristled brush for these for the same reason.

after we saw the pretty, lacy patterns the paint was making on the art board when we peeled the heart away, we thought it’d be fun to tape the doilies to paper to savor those lace prints.

and those papers turned out super-cool and will make nice valentines on their own.

once the hearts were finished, we put them in our front window. even though painted only on one side, they make pretty suncatchers. (the pic below is actually the back of them – the unpainted side – with dusk light showing through.) if we had used watered-down acrylic or tempera paints, the paint might have bled through to the other side even more for a double-sided look, and might have been more vibrant like the one i saw on the blog that inspired this art task. i feel like if we found smaller doilies at the store, they would make beautiful garland when strung together.

what a cheery way to say “happy valentine’s day!” to our neighbors passing by… (and a way to publicly admit that i bought doilies…??)

even a lovely pink flowering tree for valentine's day!

one year ago, novi and i made a bunch of cool valentines to send to all of our friends and family. it was super easy and very cute. thought i’d share this idea with you in time to get yours in the mailbox… (and take a stroll through memory lane with these old photos.)

first (a very tiny!) novi had fun painting in reds and purples and pinks all over several sheets of heavy card stock.

then i cut them into heart shapes while she napped (scissors were outta the question. she was just turning 2 then.)

i glued them onto papers that would complement the paint in each one, and cut the backing into heart shapes, too. i wrote little messages on the back of each heart.

we displayed them in our house (awww, our old house) for a few days before stuffing envelopes to send love into the mailboxes and hearts of our friends and family far and wide.

when i was a little girl, i used to love melting down my old crayons into new and improved crayon shapes, so i thought this would be fun to do with novi this year. (for some reason, my childhood memories of melted wax involve styrofoam meat trays…??) we have a heart mini-muffin pan, which is fitting for the season. my ubercrafty friend over at pink and green mama did this with her daughter last year, as well, so i checked out her blog to learn about the oven settings.

all year, novi and i have saved up broken crayons and crayons from restaurants.

novi helped me to peel off the paper and break them into small chunks. (fyi: peeling cheap restaurant crayons is not the most fun task.)

we divvied the chunks up into the heart pan.

then we baked them at 250 degrees for about 15 minutes. i CAREFULLY had to carry the tray across the kitchen (minimal wax drippage onto new kitchen sisal rug. ick.) to the fridge where i set them to cool for about 15 minutes. to my surprise, they popped out of the tray very easily.

we put each one into a little valentine bag with a nametag on it and a note in it saying “i heART you” for all of novi’s friends. (hey, puns are okay for toddlers.)

though some of the baby siblings of novi’s friends, who are not yet in the crayon stage, got some felt hearts that i sewed for them instead.

put a little ART in your heART, valentine!

one day last month, novi and i were playing with salt dough and cookie cutters. she ended up cutting out lots of heart shapes.

when she was finished playing, i baked the hearts she had made, in anticipation of valentine’s day.

heart warming

i wasn’t sure if we’d send them out as valentine ornaments for her friends or make a mobile or garland. regardless, i knew they’d be fun to decorate with paint, so she painted away.

once the backgrounds were dry, novi decorated them with polka dots and other designs.

then we strung them together on a red ribbon, knotting each one along the strand.

they ended up making a really cute valentine garland for our house! a shorter strand would be cute on the hearth.

happy heart season!

for one of our holiday gifts for family members this year, novi and i created very personal stationery. (inspired by a friend – thanks, amy!) it’s such an easy projects and the results so pretty!

first, we had a ton of fun making large watercolor paintings on heavy watercolor paper.

then i cut the paintings into small squares (after photographing them for posterity, of course.) i glued them to some blank stationery cards that i found on clearance at michael’s (they’re always good for packs of blank cards)

we stamped the backs of them (with our cute paintcutpaste.com stamp) so our family would know that they were hand painted by novi.

then i sorted them by color schemes for each household of novi’s grandparents, great-grandmother, aunts, and uncles and tied them in packs of 8 with pretty ribbons and a gift tag.

i must say that our family members said they are only going to send them back and forth to each other so that they can keep them around… reluctant to send these pretty paintings away.

this would also make for a great birthday gift, wedding gift, baby shower gift, or valentines!