paint cut paste

my daughter received a build your own kaleidoscope kit for her birthday a few months ago, and we just broke it out this week to create our own. oh glorious light shining through color, you get me every time!

as my regular readers know by now, i’m not a fan of pre-fab art kits, so my hope was to figure out from this kit how one could make this from materials in your recycling bin. hmm…

at first glance, it seemed like the materials provided were adaptable enough: cardboard tubes, plastic film for lenses, plastic rings, 3 reflective strips, glittery paper and beads, and decorative stickers. once we unwrapped the kit, i realized there are four different diameters of cardboard tubes that fit together precisely, and the plastic rings that allow for things to be held together fit them perfectly.

so perhaps this particular model is not as adaptable as i’d hoped — you could use a paper towel roll and then raid your gift wrapping tubes for various diameters of tubes that fit tightly inside of one another, use wax paper and clear wrap for lenses, and get plastic mirrored sheets and cut three strips of those. there are some ideas for simpler models to make with household items at the end of this entry. regardless, N had a lot of fun with this.

filling the end with sparkly treasures

we assembled the kaleidoscope according to the very easy (6 step) instructions.

there’s a part where we had to wait for glue to dry, and i have to say that’s when we had the bulk of our fun. first we taped together the three mirrored pieces they provided.

then we folded them into a triangle shape and enjoyed looking at each other, things in our home, and our cat at through them and cracking up!

(putting my iphone camera lens up to the mirror worked well for photos!) click image to view larger

N cut up the adhesive colorful sticker sheets and decorated the tubes with funky patterns.

you know you want that shirt - cafepress.com/paintcutpaste

groooovaaay!

when we put the kaleidoscope together, it was so satisfying to see it working!

we spent a lot of the afternoon twisting and shaking (the kaleidoscope, that is) to find new and beautiful patterns.

i found a few online tutorials for making your own kaleidoscope:

• simpler model with paper towel tube
• with a pringles can
• and with pvc pipe

we’re going to try one of these homegrown versions soon… ah, if only pringles were gluten free, i could snack while creating! (if nothing else, after writing this blog i will forever know how to spell kaleidoscope!)

i’m curious – have any of you made your own kaleidoscope from household items?

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 )

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 came home from preschool the other day with the cutest little fishy! all of the credit for this simple craft goes to her amazing preschool teacher for creating fun art projects around this month’s underwater theme. i just thought this easy fish was super-charming!

this is truly a painting, cutting, pasting exercise, so i had to feature it here on paint cut paste! i’m not big on purchasing or using paper plates in my home, but if you’ve got some lying around, this is a nice way to repurpose those last few into fun works of art. (and for that next birthday party, be kind to the earth and use washable plates!) all you need to do is cut a triangle out of one side of the plate (making the mouth) and then tape, glue, or staple it to the opposite side of the fish (to make the tail.)

then paint away… for these fish, N’s classmates used a dollop of silver metallic (almost pearly) non-toxic, water-based activity paint mixed with liquid watercolors. then the kids glued large sequins onto the fish (for shiny scales) and a big googly eye. voila! a school of rainbow fish at school!

i could see these hanging at different lengths from the ceiling for a sea-themed birthday party decoration. N enjoyed doing this so much at school that this little green guy won’t likely be the only fish in our sea.