paint cut paste

this weekend we took a long drive down highway 1 along the pacific coast, stopping at various beaches along the way. days like that remind me of how lucky i am to live here in northern california, and on this beautiful earth in general. nature offers some of the most amazing art inspiration!

one of the beaches we visited had amazingly colorful stones all over it. we spent hours wandering this beach, enjoying running from the chilly waves and collecting stones.

when we layed out our bounty at home, it was a rainbow of gorgeous rocks.

i can’t wait to ink some of these rocks – and i also want to learn to crochet around them like i have oogled over on one of my favorite blogs, resurrection fern. but today we opted for a simple rock craft – picture holders. easy peasy. all you need is floral wire (or any other type of wire, but i prefer this wrapped kind in dark brown) and a pair of pliers.

wrap the rock with the wire, then point the wire upwards.

now make a curlycue at the tip with the pliers – you can make a fancy spiral or just a little curl like i did.

wedge a photograph or a little piece of art in between the top spiral, and there you have a rock picture holder.

it’s sort of addictive once you start making these…

i think a collection of old fashioned hipstamatic/instagram/pictureshow images would look fabulous displayed in these. (yes, i’m obsessed with iphone photo apps.) but N’s tiny watercolor paintings make for an awesome exhibit.

my sister-in-law & brother-in-law are expecting their second baby this summer – yay! i wanted to do something special to celebrate his pending arrival. what better than a collaborative art piece where family and friends get involved?

i have done this project before for a friend a couple years ago, and it was beautiful and well-received, so i figured we’d give it a whirl for my nephew on the way. i emailed a list of people the couple provided to me and asked each one to send a brief blessing, prayer, wish, quote, or lyric for the family as they welcome their new son. i gathered the quotes and put them into a keepsake book for the family, along with the well-wishers names.

then i selected excerpts from the quotes and wrote them out on pretty goldenrod card stock (this time without everyone’s name.) after i wrote them out, i cut them into strips.

i watercolored a mandala of the family to place in the center of the art piece, which i envisioned would be a sunburst.

we recently visited our adorable nephew (1y 5m old), who is soon to be a big brother, and he (along with mommy and daddy’s help) finger painted the background image for this blessing piece of art. tip: use analogous colors of finger paint so that it doesn’t turn out brown or muddy, unless that’s the look you’re going for.

after the paint was dry, i glued the blessings and mandala to the finger painting to create a sun shape.

what a colorful collection of wishes for the new baby on the way!

this piece, which i framed for their home, holds the energy of all of their loved ones’ support as they welcome a new little boy into the world!

i’m so very excited to have a dear friend and one of the most laugh-out-loud funny mom bloggers out there guest blogging here today — the awesome ms. hannah, from to the moon and back, writes here about creating a totally inspiring, whimsical, and heartful piece of art for her son:

sleep has always been a place of hardship, terrible stress and many tears for our almost three year old, j. and quite frankly, for his mom, dad and often little sister, h. it’s just oh-so-hard when your child is struggling with something out of their control; everyone’s control. we’ve been working through and around and in this place for a long time and {hopefully} have learned a bit about how to move forward and beyond. i’ve been visualizing a dream catcher or mobile of sorts that would symbolize the love, strength, and optimism we want to fill our son’s room and his sleepy little head with. i started by explaining my vision to j – a piece of art we could make together to hang in his room that would make him feel safe, remind him how much he is loved and help him through his trying nights. he was beyond excited. it was a rainy day so we geared up and headed out to find inspiration.

we found the perfect sized stick; and with just enough bend in just the right places for the base of a wall hanging. we headed inside to create the artwork and inspiration. without any specific pre-conceived thoughts I dug through our arts and crafts closet and came up with some materials: shrink film, ribbons, watercolors, finger paint, colored pencils.

h is a watercolor girl. she could play among their liquidy goodness for hours. ok, let’s be honest, minutes. like 32 of them, maybe. while she painted, I cut two sheets of the shrink film into smaller pieces to decorate. *the instructions on the shrink film are to use permanent markers – which can be a daunting thought with a 19 m.o. and an almost 3 y.o. but hey, what’s the worst that can happen?

before baking our shrink film I punched a hole in the top of each piece so they would be hang-able later.

watching shrink film bake and contort and form in the oven is just oh so cool. and voila!

h’s water color was just so vivid and great that we decided it should be our focal point. to add some texture I cut the paper into four pieces, punched holes in each and threaded with ribbon. (the ribbons re-used from a friend’s baby shower last weekend.)

j decided he’d like to hang h’s watercolor from the center of the stick and from there we choose ribbons to tie and hang in random order along both sides. (these iridescent ribbons, symbolizing the love and bond our family shares, are from our wedding in 2006 where they were hung all over an apple tree to shimmer and blow in the breeze.)

next we hung our shrink film creations. for this I opted to use fishing line to keep things airy and light. from the baby shower gift I re-used  two leaf shaped pieces of paper; punched holes in them and cut a few more to add.

we simply threaded the large ribbons through the holes in the leaves  to add a “feather” dream catcher effect – but in keeping with our nature theme, of course.

and there you have it. our whimsical, colorful, bad dream squashing, peaceful night evoking, sweet dream mobile.

and so far, so good. j went to sleep with a smile on his face and excitement in his eyes. the journey through parenthood and childhood is so challenging.  in so many ways. acknowledging j’s fears and angst around his sleep and showing him, in this way, that we are here for him and love him and will help him through this {I hope} will be just the boost his little body needs. and a little help from the best sweet dream mobile ever has got to sweeten the pot, no?

thanks for the opportunity to share with you, paintcutpaste fans!

-hannah

thank YOU, hannah, for sharing such a beautiful and meaningful project with all of us! hop on over to hannah’s honest and hilarious blog on motherhood, to the moon and back, to read more from her and “like” her blog on facebook, too!

yes, i’ve posted this one before… and it’s because we’ve just realized that this is becoming one of our springtime rituals in our house. sure dying easter eggs is fun, but watercoloring wooden ones leaves a lasting impression.

a package was delivered to us last week from casey’s wood products. when i opened it and N saw a bunch of wooden eggs of all sizes, she started jumping up and down… “we’re painting wooden eggs again!?!? yay!!!”

because we were having a few families over for dinner, N wanted me to woodburn the names (blurred out below) of the kids onto a few of the eggs (and one for her, of course) with my trusty woodburning tool.

then she was totally absorbed in watercoloring the eggs with colors that remind her of those people.

after polishing the eggs with our homemade wood creme, we presented them in a nest to the kids at the dinner. the artiste was very proud.

i think we’ll do this every year… as gifts, and as decor for our own nature tables and baskets. what springtime rituals do you have in your home?

sharing the joy

you, dear readers, may recall the huge frame that N and i painted as a prop for her rainbow-themed fourth birthday party.

well, this lovely rainbow ikea frame was just calling to us for some original artwork to fill it. N was up for the task! we started by painting a lavender (N’s choice) watercolor wash onto a heavy weight piece of drawing paper. N wanted to background of her mixed media picture to be purple like her bedroom.

after the paint was dry, N wanted to draw a picture with pencil onto the page. she had an idea that she wanted to draw a porcupine wedding taking place under a decorated tree, with some animal guests.

after N drafted most of the picture in pencil, she got out our crayons and got to work coloring in this huuuge coloring page.

some of the areas were so large (like the tree trunk and some of the tree top.) that her hand got tired and she asked me to help out coloring “in the lines, mommy!” as it was progressing, the look on her excited face was priceless!

the details are fabulous, and i wanted to share a few…

dancing groom & bride

fox, mice, bunny wedding guests

mama bird, nest with eggs, and squirrel

N was pleased with the finished piece.

but even more psyched when it was framed in her bedroom!

love is in the air! and at our house, hearts are EVERYWHERE! so we wanted to share… N has been having fun cutting her own hearts out of all sorts of paper.

the other day she decorated several of them using creamy crayons, glitter glue, and markers.

they’re on the fridge now, along with a cute one she cut out and glued to another piece of paper to make it into a “heart-person holding heart balloons.”

on one of our all-time favorite blogs, the artful parent, we saw the idea of cutting and watercoloring hearts out of coffee filters. just like we made coffee filter snowflakes earlier this winter, we did the same with hearts. coffee filters are awesome – not only are they easy for kids to cut, but watercolors bleed across them and blend beautifully when painted.

N spent an entire afternoon making TONS of watercolored hearts.

we hung some up on our backdoor so that the light could filter through the colors.

we mod podged some of these hearts to blank cards to make valentines for our family members.

some of our favorite heART activities from years past are:

• cutting paper hearts (age 3)
• watercolor doily hearts (age 3)
• crayon hearts (age 3)
• clay heart garland (age 3)
• stamping with heart cookie cutters (age 3)
• painting valentines for mom to cut (age 2)

happy upcoming heart day!  what are your favorite heART projects?

today is N’s 4th birthday – happy birthday to my sweet little artist! last weekend, per her request, we had a rainbow art birthday party. i was THRILLED at her choice of party themes, as i, myself, had a rainbow birthday party for my fifth birthday – the same year i coerced my parents into painting a rainbow on my bedroom wall and getting me rainbow sheets, while blasting “the rainbow connection” 24/7. anyway, i thought i’d share a few (well, quite a few) images from our party preparations and the party itself.

we created waldorf kite paper rainbow stars for window decorations for the party, using garden mama’s tutorial. N loved doing this, and now has them in her bedroom windows. (if these composite images seem too small to see details, click on them to open the larger version.)

another item we made for the party is a rainbow striped picture frame. i got a large, inexpensive, lightweight wooden frame at ikea, and we painted it so that it could be a prop in a “photo booth” area at the party, where i hung rainbow fabric as a backdrop and let the kids hold up the frame. a huge hit!

N and i also created shrinky dink nametag pendents for the guest’s gift bags. N had a great time decorating each kid’s nametag with colors or a theme that she knew they’d love. the nametags are necklaces that each child can wear on rainbow yarn.

the gift bags were filled with rainbowy fun toys and art materials, including some homemade snowflake (winter bday) rainbow crayons that we made like the heart ones from last valentine’s day. (you can see them in the post just before this one.)

for the party, we provided light snacks and cake, as it was between lunch and dinner, and we had 20 kids (plus parents) there! as a surprise to N, i created two different rainbow cakes. the first was a 7 layer ode-to-ROY.G.BIV cake, ordered properly according to the chakras, of course. i saw the idea on one charming party.

it turned out to be so awesome inside!

i made a second rainbow cake, which was a psychedelic swirly rainbow cake, just two layers. i saw this idea on omnomicon, but i did *not* make her sprite/weight watchers version. i just followed the cake box recipe.

on both, i kept the icing simple and just made cream cheese icing (1 8oz package of cream cheese, 1 stick of butter, and 1 lb powdered sugar, a little vanilla.) i had to triple that recipe for these 2 cakes. my talented baker friend over at bliss bakery created a dozen gluten-free, vegan rainbow cupcakes for our guests with dietary restrictions.

in addition to some good ol’ pirate booty, i made a rainbow layered fruit salad. i left out the candy – cake offers enough sugar!

since it was a rainbow ART party, of course we had a few art stations. one was a place where kids could create watercolor initial paintings, like N did when she was two years old in this post.

we also had a model magic table, with the primary colors of model magic, along with white. the kids had fun with this modeling medium, and it’s not at all messy!

we also had a table where i rolled out a large doodle roll sheet of paper and offered a couple buckets of crayons so the kids could work on a mural together.

we found that playsilks make for beautiful window decor…

and helped to warm up the entry area. (p.s. – this isn’t our home. it’s my friend’s condo’s clubhouse room.)

the kids had a ton of fun… and let’s be real. there was more running than art-making at the art party.

the birthday girl had the most fun of all!