paint cut paste

i think this is one of the cutest ways i’ve seen to upcycle those random buttons you might have around… make button christmas trees! (wow, i’m on a tree kick this holiday season, huh? most of our holiday artventures have been tree-oriented.)

i first saw this idea on modern minerals, via pinterest (pinned it this summer for later use.) we modified her tutorial a bit to make it more kid friendly, and let me say that it was a total hit! in lieu of using string to bind the buttons together, we used pipe cleaners – so easy for small hands to maneuver. N and i gathered up various buttons we had around (including a lot of white and green ones,) some pipe cleaners, and a few shank buttons (the kind with a loop on the back of them) we had around to use as “tree toppers.” (you can see the shank buttons on the left in the pic below.)

(yes, as you can see we've also been painting more wooden ornaments - we do this each year)

we started by bending the pipe cleaner in half, and putting the shank button on first.

then we put the two ends of the pipe cleaner through two opposing holes in each button, working from small button to large button.

it was fun to experiment with various color schemes. N was really into making pink and purple trees!

here are some of our trees before we cut the pipe cleaners off of the bottom. (they’re kinda cute like trees on sticks – i bet they could be used so many ways like this, too!)

then we twirled one side of the pipe cleaner around the other side to create a “trunk” look at the bottom. [you can also use small brown (or other color) buttons for a trunk.] i cut the extra length off of the pipe cleaners.

we tied a bit of baker’s twine through the hole of the top shank bead and hung them on the tree. (and tied a few to some lucky gift recipients, as well.)

(some of these remind me of wedding cakes – with the right color scheme and topper, this could be modified for weddings or bridal showers in some way, too!)

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:

we wanted to share a little follow up post about our adventures in painting the gluten free salt dough ornaments we made the other day. (see previous entry for recipe.)

after taking inventory, we ended up with more ornaments than we realized… wow, that batch of dough didn’t seem like it’d make this many!

we got out some materials for decorating these cute canvases. we had a palette of acrylics left over from another project that we had to use up, and we also got out our acrylic metallic paints (love the sparkle!) and some stamps and stamp pads.

N was interested in the paints, and had a great time applying every color of the rainbow on the ornaments.

i stamped some of the ornaments to attach them to holiday gifts. (N only wanted to paint.) the ink took a while to dry, but they turned out pretty cute.

stamps + baker's twine = sweet

N’s painted beauties were a colorful delight!

we were intending to give these to her friends, but at this point, i’m honestly not sure that she’ll part with any of these. (do your kids hoard the stuff they initially make as gifts? maybe this is a phase…?)

we have a lot more ornament ideas up our sleeves, so stay tuned for those… and we’ll see how the gifting of these turns out, but our friends may have to come visit our overly-accessorized tree to see these in person unless N gets into the christmas spirit sometime soon.

what types of ornaments are you making this year?

the paint cut paste history of salt dough ornaments goes something like this: i used to be able to eat gluten, and when i did, the homemade play dough squished all over our kitchen. when N was almost 2.5 years old (2009,) we made these (yummy smelling!) cinnamon dough ornaments (yep in the summer; we like to plan ahead) and when she was almost 3 years old, (near christmastime, like normal people) we made salt dough ornaments. close to valentines’s day 2010, we made these salt dough hearts into garland.

last christmas (2010) we skipped the dough ornament part of our christmas tradition altogether because our kitchen became gluten free a few months prior, and i found it daunting enough to cook with weird and expensive flours. at the time, gluten free crafting seemed like way too much. i guess i’ve adjusted because i now know it’s not. we created the simplest of gluten free salt dough ornaments yesterday.

i was (p)inspired by a lot of pretty salt dough ornaments i saw around the web this year, like these and these, and the lovely ones tinkerlab posted yesterday. so yesterday afternoon, i figured we’d give a gluten free version a shot, and i searched for recipes. the one we ended up using is from the spunky coconut. they made cute pretend fruit with their dough, so it took a while for them to bake their thick pieces, but even our thin ornaments were not quick at all! here’s what we did:

my husband and i are in the process of creating teeny handmade tokens to serve as prizes in the game room at N’s waldorf school holiday faire in a couple of weeks.

creating handmade treats for little ones is right up my alley. because i have a bunch of random materials overflowing out of our art cabinet, i decided to donate not only our time, but also the materials to create some prizes.

mostly, we created pom pom/felted wool acorns, painted and wax-sealed wooden toys of all shapes, and some mini-pinecone fairies. we had a great time this weekend, as a family, making all sorts of fun little things together from the mish-mash of stuff that was bursting (avalanche style) out of our art stash.

i wasn’t sure if these little tokens would be “big enough” prizes until N confirmed that she’d LOVE to win a wooden heart and a wooden apple if she played a game. and she LOVED these weird looking gnomes i designed from the wooden shape that’s supposed to be a carrot. whew! kids are easy to please…

N even helped to paint a few gnomes

one of my favorite adaptations of the weekend was how we morphed our pinecone fairies from 2009 — this time instead of garlic peel wings (one of my fav art materials!) we used these wooden mustache shapes from our collection of odd wooden doodads for more durable wings. they turned out to be pretty cute with their acorn hats.

i love how each of us got in on the action and created these teeny treats for the kids at school. i spent much of the weekend creating holiday gifts for friends and family, too. i’m launching into total handmade holiday elf mode over here, and it’s not even thanksgiving!

autumn is upon us next week… tis the season of harvesting the fruits of our labor. when we’re lucky, summer “labor” looks like a long walk on the beach. if you’ve got a lot of beach booty laying around, this could be a simple fun one for you and your littles.

our summer vacation to carova, north carolina, left us with plenty of beautiful shells with natural holes in them. perfect for jewelry, garland, and ornaments!

we set a few larger shells and some ribbon scraps aside with the intention of creating keepsakes for 12 of our family members (5 households) who shared this trip together.

first, i wrote “carova 2011″ on the inside of each shell with a sharpie.

then N got to work painting the shells with one of my favorite glimmery paint additives called “make it shimmer.”

this paint gives such a lovely mostly-silver, somewhat-pearly glisten to anything it touches. N applied it directly to our shells, but as a paint additive, it is meant to be mixed into plain paint to heighten it to shimmery loveliness.

once the shells were dry, we added colorful ribbon scraps from our stash.

while this project has roots in summer, it extends through the winter holidays. we are excited to give these to our family to display on their christmas trees or in their homes whenever they’d like.

it’s a fun memento from a sweet summer vacation. (surprise family – these will be coming your way before the holiday season! )

how i just love those cheap, clear glass ornaments you can get at michael’s (or practically anywhere!) there are so many fun things you can do with them. last year we swirled metallic paint inside of them. this year, we decided to do it up fancy-style by stuffing them with all sorts of fun things!

N and i got our ornaments ready by labeling each one with one of her classmate’s names on the tray where it sits, so we could tell them apart since they were soon to be personalized.

then we got out a bunch of stuff from our art cabinet, such as feathers, seed beads, sequins, glitter, foam letters, tinsel, and fuzzy pom-poms. (tiny toys, figurines, shredded paper, leaves, dried flowers, etc could be great in here, too — let your imagination run wild!)

N found the first letter of the name of each of her classmates and we put the foam letter in the ornaments first.

then she carefully considered the colors and things that each of her friends would like, and we went through the materials type by type until each person’s ornament was full of fancy holiday cheer!

a tip for adding glitter, seed beads, or other tiny items – use a small funnel.

i tied ribbons to each one so they can be hung on a tree (or in a bedroom windown year-round, perhaps.) we will package them up safely and give them out at preschool when winter break nears. (hope this didn’t spoil it for any of you parents in her class. sorry )