paint cut paste

you may recall that last summer novi and i had so much fun marbling paper with shaving cream, and we got beauoootiful results! after recently hearing from a friend that her daughter marbled paper in preschool with oil and water, i decided we should give this method a try.

science: oil and water don't mix

i looked online to figure out how to go about this project, and found this little ditty. so we tried it their way, by mixing one color of paint with water and the other color with oil. however, they used tempera paints and we used liquid watercolors (as i believe my friend’s teacher had.) we got unsuccessful results at first using the instructions because, well, oil and water(colors) don’t mix. see? one of the colors so wasn’t happening.

so then we tried another way. we laid the paper on cookie sheets (the kind with edges) and drizzled oil onto the paper haphazardly. then we poured on pink liquid watercolors (diluted in water) and rolled it around. then some more oil. then blue liquid watercolors (diluted) and rolled the tray around. sometimes we used the eyedropper to drop blotches of undiluted color onto the paper for a vibrant effect, too.

and then we got marbling…

it was fun to see the effects on different colors of papers. the swirls weren’t as defined as the shaving cream method, but random and lovely nonetheless. we hung the sheets to drip dry in the garage overnight.

the next morning, novi was pleased with her results…

as was i… the paper made for cute stationery for a little note to a friend.

ah, the luck of the irish! my daughter is 1/8th irish, as my husband is 1/4th… (no irish in me, but i did enjoy a brief trek through ireland back in college.) i figured that we should celebrate st. patrick’s day with some sort of craft, in honor of novi’s bloodline…

who couldn’t use more luck? thus, blarney stones! in ireland, the famous blarney stone resides at the top of blarney castle in the southwest part of the country, where tourists climb winding stairs just to kiss the stone. this is said to give them “blarney” which means luck, but more specifically eloquence. (um, the gift to gab isn’t really something my daughter needs more luck with!) in the craft world, it seems that blarney stones are traditionally rocks painted green, with little faces on them (kissing faces usually) or they could have shamrocks on them, instead.

we figured it’d be fun to make our own blarney stones for our seasonal altar at home. we collected a few smooth stones with a flat bottom from our backyard flowerbed and washed them. then we gathered up our crafty materials and green acrylic paint (well, we mixed our dark green with some yellow to make more of a kelly green color.)

we painted each of them (except one*) green and let them dry. to speed that along, i used a hairdryer on low heat.

after they were dry, we glued on googly eyes, felt mouths, embroidery floss hair, and even a hat made of felt and a flower sequins adornment.

after making three blarneys to kiss all month long, novi had enough, so i painted a shamrock onto the fourth stone with glitter glue (which might make a cute good luck charm to give to someone someday?)

* novi was adamant about “keeping the last stone natural!!!” so we did, and she gave it to her “good luck care bear” as his st. patrick’s day gift.

this is an easy and seasonal variation on pet rocks…  it can be fun any time of year to make a face on a rock, but if you want the luck of the irish on your side, be sure to kiss these green cuties every day!

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!