paint cut paste

we are delighted to have been invited to be a part of tinkerlab’s creative challenge this month! our tinkerfriend has asked us to upcycle magazines to create a project that is child-directed. given all of the junk mail and catalogs inundating our mail box this season, i was more than happy to accept this challenge so we could upcycle some of this unnecessary paper! (why all the catalogs from stores who have web sites?!)

the other night, while sorting through the stacks of catalogs, i said to my daughter, “i wonder what we could make out of all of these extra magazines…” with christmas undoubtedly on the brain, she immediately responded, “ornaments!” but of course! she said she wanted to rip them up and glue them to balls. sounds like a plan to me — so she got right to work on the ripping that evening (thus the dark photo. my apologies: it’s a casualty of wintertime blogging.)

the next day we took a trip to michaels and scored these brown paper ornament shapes for 60 cents each (which turned out to be even cheaper with a coupon – love it.)

later (and again after a mad-early sunset,) N got to work mod podging her “magazine confetti” (as she termed it) onto the ornaments.

once they were covered (and she was kind of bummed by the white look of wet mod podge initially) she said she wanted them to sparkle more, and asked for glitter. [artsy-mom guilt-producing confession: i so HATE loose glitter.] while i knew glitter would be a lovely and festive addition to something for our tree, i shuddered when N asked for it. then sighed a bit of relief when i realized quickly that we didn’t have to sprinkle it onto the ornament. i suggested stirring the glitter into the mod podge and painting another coat of glittery mod podge onto the ornaments. she was sold - phew!

we hung the ornaments to dry (which only took about an hour actually – not bad in terms of fairly instant gratification.)

and they are super cool, colorful, and sparkly on our christmas tree!

thank you, rachelle, for including us in this challenge!

check out all of the other amazing bloggers below who gave their junk mail a second life:

• tinkerlab (our lovely hostess!)
• kids in the studio
• teach mama
• the imagination tree
• childhood 101
• teach preschool
• hands on as we grow
• the artful parent
• a mom with a lesson plan
• toddler approved
• kiwi crate
• art 4 little hands
• red ted art
• the chocolate muffin tree
• imagination soup
• michelle’s charm world
• messy preschoolers
• mommy labs
• putti prapancha
• sun hats & wellie boots

visit each of their amazing projects on the linky below – so many fun ideas! there’s a second linky at the bottom where you can join in the fun and add your own upcycled magazine ideas, too!

add your own ideas here:

i recently realized that we recycle so many plastic juice (and otherwise) bottle caps, so i figured i should start saving some to see what art comes from them. the first (of likely more projects to come) are bottle cap magnets.

yep, this has traditionally been done wit metal bottle caps from glass bottles, but we honestly don’t buy anything like this in our house, so i’m using the plastic and large metal ones we’ve got.  first i used some elmer’s household cement to glue little round magnets to the backs of the caps.

i let them dry overnight.

the next day, i used 1.5″ and 1″ hole punches to crop selected pieces out of some of N’s art work to “frame” in the caps.

i mod podged both sides of the art so that it wouldn’t get soaked when it was coated in the next step. from this i learned that next time i’ll “laminate” the art with contact paper or clear packaging tape on both sides.

(who knew that cats like to lick mod podge?!? place up high to dry!)

next i glued the art down to the bottom of a few of the caps. i coated the top of it with this great stuff called dimensional magic, which is like a thick resin or clear casting medium. you can find it on amazon, though i couldn’t find it in my local craft or hardware stores. i found some helpful tips for using dimensional magic on this web site.

after each was coated, N helped me drop some seed beads and sequins onto the wet medium to give the bottle caps some bling.

looking foggy through the wet dimensional magic

we let it dry overnight… and then some, as the thicker ones were still tacky after 12 hours. i learned that the art that she had painted with acrylics and watercolors got smeared by the dimensional magic, despite the mod podge coating, which is why next time i’ll laminate.

unfortunate blurry painted dragon & bunny

the pencil and crayon drawings came out really great.

now we have art holding up the art on our fridge!

N and i just enrolled in a local parent-child art class (is this redundant for us? perhaps, but we love to make art together.) the theme for today’s class was musical instruments. the art teacher had some fun ideas, so i wanted to share hers and one of ours, too.

N really enjoyed watercoloring on wooden castanets, so she can make plenty more noise at home. (watercolors on wood is one of my personal favs… check back near the holidays for more on this medium!)

painting castanets

let's flamenco!

we also made shakers out of household objects like paper plates and beans. just fold the plate in half, staple around 3/4 of it, and let your little one put dried beans inside. (we used pinto beans.) then your kiddo can decorate the shaker with any sort of paints, crayons, markers, glued objects you have around. (N opted to make painted dots and then play “connect the dots” with a crayon on hers.)

polka dotted pinto bean shaker

once we got home, N wanted to continue making musical instruments. she said she really wanted a drum. i noticed that our raisins were pretty low, so we turned a cardboard raisin box into a tissue paper mod podge drum…

thinking on my toes to find drum supplies

so we can still see paul newman through the tissue... oh well

maybe later this afternoon we’ll put on an artsy concert for daddy. if you don’t wanna make art, but you want to make music, melissa and doug always got your back: