paint cut paste

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!

the winter solstice is upon us, where the days will begin to get longer from there. in celebration of bringing the light and due to its being the darkest day of the year, lanterns are often made in honor of the solstice. two years ago, we made a lovely lantern at the waldorf school where we were in a parent-child class with N before she turned 2. they made quite an impression on her, so i thought we’d make them the same way again for this winter solstice.

when seeking a how-to memory refresher online, i found the most lovely tutorial on the garden mama blog. seriously, her beautiful entry about these lanterns deems this one totally unnecessary, as she wrote the most poetic and wonderfully photographed tutorial on these i could imagine. but i’m going to (b)log our experience here, nonetheless.

admiring the finished product on a dark winter morning

we started by beginning the wet-on-wet watercolor process. we soaked three sheets of watercolor paper.

then we opted to dilute my tubes of professional grade watercolors in little jars of water, though you could just use regular watercolors for this. we also chose to only use primary colors, so as to make this an experiment in color-mixing.

N painted and painted, watching the colors run together and create new hues – magic!

when we were finished painting, she wanted a little more vibrance, so i pulled out the watersoluble crayons (one of my favorite media on earth!) and she added some red, yellow, and blue lines into the wet paint. when wet, these crayons behave like concentrated paint.

we hung the masterpieces to dry overnight.

the next day we rubbed them with canola oil on a cloth, so as to make the paper more translucent when lit from within.

after the oil was dry (about a day) we cut fringe along the long side of the paper. we made two like the garden mama blog suggested (ever 2.5 inches, 2.5 inches long) and the third we only did at 1.5 x 1.5 inches.

we used a pillar candle to evenly roll the paintings around, and secured the edge with school glue, and clothespinned them until dry.

after they were dry, we folded the bottom tabs in to create a bottom.

then instead of putting real fire inside, i used little electric tea lights instead.

now we are ready for the darkest day of the year!

all ready to bring the light on december 21st! (which, incidentally, is my birthday )

by the way, those cute wooden reindeer you see in the photos were a custom set that the talented chris over at mamaroots made for N. we sooo love her creations!

so, i let my 3 year old use a sharpie today. yeah, i know they’re not for kids, but she is a drawing FIEND and loves to draw with a regular pencil because she enjoys the black and white contrast. i figured i could show her how to use one of my new retractable ultra-fine point sharpie markers, and she LOVED it. she drew and drew.

my personal favorite media combo to use is sharpie and watercolors, so i put out the paints, and let her paint on her drawings. ah, markers that aren’t water-based don’t run. the joy!

yellow raincoats

true to form, N cranked out some greeting (mostly birthday) cards. (her middle name should have been hallmark. seriously. does the fact that she makes every card that goes out of our house and most of the gifts qualify as child labor?)

for my mom's ("gwee") birthday

i just love these!

she did some other non-card sharpie drawing, too. welcome to my favorite media, little one.

oh, how i am loving my new wall art in the playroom/guestroom, so i just had to share… we’ve had these great cool-hued finger paintings that N made before she turned two framed on the walls for quite a while now. here are the old ones, which i do love…

the finger paintings will live on in my heart and N’s portfolio, but N was making these amazing concentric circle watercolors the other day that i adore.

she loved choosing color schemes and watching how the paint colors overlapped and interacted as she painted.

after she had made a few of them, it dawned on me that these are the perfect addition to the newly rearranged playroom. as soon as they were dry, they were behind glass and hung.

N was super excited to see them in her play space.

it’s the simple things. we went to the beach on sunday. it was a foggy afternoon on the western side of the coastal range here in the bay area. a beautiful time for the three of us to spend together…

we spotted all sorts of treasures…

N is happiest on sand or with a paintbrush in her hand… so we had to decorate some of our beach booty upon our return. it wasn’t really a planned activity. we had the watercolors out and the shells were there, so it sort of happened.

and now our shells are all decked out in technicolor! i wish i knew how to drill holes into them to string them for chimes or necklaces, but i haven’t the tools. what do you think we should do with these beauties?