paint cut paste

there is a day in my graduate training that sticks out for me – it’s the day i went to the studio of one of my most inspiring mentors, mimi farrelly-hansen. she showed me and a few of my colleagues a really relaxing art activity – using a warming tray to draw with crayons.

this process is great for relaxation and stress relief, as the crayons just move so freely and softly across the warming tray as they are melting… it is soooo addictive – (really, i’m warning you!) i recently bought a warming tray just for this purpose, but i got the cheapest one i could find and it does not have a setting for low or high heat. it’s always running on a pretty hot temperature, thus novi can’t do this activity with me just yet. i wanted to post it for those of you with children who would be able to understand safety around using a warming tray – use your judgement about your own child, and always supervise children around a warming tray.

there are a couple of ways to engage in this activity. over the years, i’ve found that finger painting paper is my favorite paper to use because of its glossy quality, though other papers work just fine. metallic crayons are fabulous for this exercise, but any old crayons will do. here i used non-metallics primarily, with some silver and gold in there.

you can lay the paper directly onto a warming tray on low heat, and draw on it right there with peeled crayons. it’s luscious.

another thing you can do is line the tray with foil (when cool, before you turn it on) and draw on the foil. then do some print-making my pressing papers onto the design you’ve created.

i dragged this paper through the image on the foil for a smeared effect

the process is highly satisfying and results are always stunning with either method.

if you use the finger painting paper, the light shines through these so beautifully…

hopefully this sparks some ideas for you suncatcher and lantern makers out there

i made a few cards from some of the prints.

these really do make great sun-catchers… i made this butterfly as a gift for novi, since she’s quite obsessed with chasing butterflies around our backyard (and has seriously almost gone through our screen door a few times in pursuit of the elusive yellow-swallowtail.)

simple butterfly made by filling a black construction paper cut-out with the pretty paper

happy earth week! i saw this sweet idea on the mackville road blog, and found it to be pretty ideal for my little gatherer and crayon lover. novi and i are no strangers to picking some leaves and flowers nor to melting some crayons between wax paper… this combined both!

once again, we spent the afternoon in the yard and novi gathered all sorts of leaves, petals, and flowers… even if that meant picking them from our flowerbed.

we collected them in the bottom tray from a flower pot. (it was handy.)

we gathered up some supplies, which include old crayons, a veggie peeler (to shave the crayons with,) some wax paper, an iron, and a towel.

after i shaved some of the crayons, novi arranged the flowers and other findings on the wax paper and sprinkled on the crayon shavings.

when we were finished arranging, it looked like this:

we put another piece of wax paper on top, then a dishtowel. i ironed it on the maximum setting, but nothing seemed to be happening. i’d recommend using a very thin towel or cloth napkin — or you can do what i did and risk ironing directly onto the top sheet of wax paper. (somehow this worked out okay…??!?) then voila — our spring collection preserved in a sun catching way!

there’s a window in novi’s playhouse outside that gets amazing afternoon light… it was begging for some prismatic suncatchers!

i found these cool crystal pieces from an old chandelier ages ago at an antique flea market for maybe a buck each, if that. they seemed like perfect little rainbow-making charms to drop from the bottom of each of our three light-catching strands. because we used nylon bead cord, i just tied a knot to the little loops at the end of the chandelier pieces, and added beads from there. (if you use bead wire, you can rig it like you would the end of a necklace.)

being a formerly avid beader, i have a stash of bead string and wire around the art room, as well as plenty of random cheesy plastic and glass sparkly beads that little girls like to play with. if you head to michael’s or check on amazon.com, you are likely to find a large pack of plastic sparkly beads for a few dollars. mirrored pieces are nice, too, but i didn’t have any for this.

one night, after dinner, novi and i made a bowl of the most colorful and reflective beads we could find. (because we did this in the evening, the photos look darker. sorry. i’m not a fan of using flash.) novi had plenty of fun just putting her hands in the bowl to feel the beads – like a tiny sensory table.

she searched for treasures to thread onto our bead cord.

we made three strands of totally random color order and all different lengths.

we tied loops in the top of them so that the next day we could hang them from nails in the wall of the shed-turned-playhouse above the window.

they’re already making rainbows all over the walls in the afternoon sunshine… love it!

just a petite post about a big butterfly. last year we made these little coffee filter butterflies, that i blogged about recently.

then an art therapist friend gave me a few of these huuuuge coffee filters. so one rainy day, we colored all over one of them with markers, like we’ve done before to make coffee filter flowers.

then we set it outside in the rain. (we kept ours out there too long -while we went to ballet class- and most of the color washed away. usually you can just remove it from the rain after about 5 minutes of getting soaked.)

once it was dry, novi wanted to wear it.

then we gathered it in the center, paperclipped it, and attached some twisted pipe cleaners to the center for the butterfly’s body. now novi’s playhouse (<– stay tuned) has a large lepidoptera friend in the window, catching the light.

you don’t have to go big to do this — regular, human-sized coffee filters will do.

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!

i’m not in love with plastics, but who can resist the magic of shrinky dinks? a couple of days ago, my mom, novi, and i potted a little plant-window herb garden for our kitchen. then we decided that the herbs needed name tags.

hello my name is: basil

sure, there are so many wonderful materials and ways to create waterproof plant ID tags out there, but i immediately thought of how much fun novi has been having with coloring and scribbling lately, so why not color on shrinky dink sheets to make tags? today we headed to michael’s to get shrinky dinks (we opted for the “frosted: ruff n’ ready” kind,) and novi got busy decorating the pages with regular colored pencils. if you get the frosted ones, directions say to color on the rough side.

novi & her best friend coloring the shrinky dink sheets

then i cut her drawings into simple oval shapes (any shape will do — it’d be fun to make tiny animals, flowers, etc.) i wrote the herb names on the shiny side of the plastic sheet with a sharpie. (how i adore sharpies.)

cut and labeled

we heated our toaster oven to 325 degrees and watched as they magically condensed into tiny, thick, hard plastic discs.

watching the shrinkage

we attached craft picks (popsicle sticks, lollipop sticks, narrow dowel rods all work, too) to them using superglue (e6000 industrial glue is what the shrinky dink company recommends for the best adhesion.) if you wanna skip this step, cut shrinky dink paper tags into a long, rectangle with a point at the bottom or cut a post shape into the bottom of your desired shape and just push the one piece into the soil.

and now our little garden friends are ready to have a little meet & greet in our window sill while we make a beautiful herbed quiche.

nice to meetcha! wanna eatcha!

p.s. i punched holes into some of the extras (before baking) and made gift tags for future use.

for charmed gift packages