paint cut paste

novi 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.

novi 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. (novi 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, novi 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:

somehow novi acquired too many white shirts this season, and we’re big fans of color over here. i saw this cute and easy idea for tie-dying on make & takes, and decided to try it out with novi. first we chose a white tank top that could use some color. we wet the shirt with water and wrung it out in the sink. then we put it on a plastic surface.

pre-dyed

novi chose three colors of tissue paper that she wanted on the shirt, and we began to apply tissue paper to the front of the shirt. some people make designs out of the tissue paper, but novi and i just applied it at random.

novi applies the tissue paper by herself

after the dry tissue is applied, i used a squirt bottle full of water to wet the tissue very well. the tissue dye bleeds into the cotton shirt to stain it (it also stains hands – wear gloves!)

all wet

i then transferred the wet shirt onto a baking sheet that has edges. i used the advice on make & takes and kept the tissue on the shirt while pouring white vinegar over the entire thing. it looked like this:

pouring on the vinegar

then i put the whole tray and shirt outside in our shed to dry. it took a little over a day, but i live in a really humid place (for now…:) after i removed the tissue, the dye had transferred in a really cool way!

a now-colorful shirt

i put the shirt between two pieces of fabric and ironed it on high to set the dye. (you can also flip it in the dryer on hot.) i laundered the shirt and now it’s ready to wear!