Saturday, January 31, 2015

Blog Hiatus--Sandi Hospitalized

Kevin here on behalf of my wife.....

As some of you know Sandi is still hospitalized at medical City Dallas Hospital due to a massive and very serious leg infection. As soon as she can be back home and writing again her blog will resume.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Projects for Teenies to make



Teens like to write and decorate their jeans and shoes so here are some ideas! However the first project is on canvas; but, you can modify for jeans.


Snowflakin' Cute





Materials:  acrylic paints (we used white, a dark blue, and a medium blue), paint brushed, tape (we used regular scotch tape), jeans or canvas, glitter, modge podge, newspaper

Directions:
Put newspaper down to cover the surface.  i.e.: table
If you use canvas you will have to paint the canvas blue but first tape out your 'snowflake' and then just paint.
Completely dry peel off the tape.
For jeans tape the outside of the design and then pain and dry.
Paint some more white lines to make it look more snowflake-y.
Grab your modge podge, or regular Elmer's glue, and some glitter.
'Paint' the modge podge to the white area of the snowflake only, and then sprinkle on the glitter.

Simple Snowman Canvas Art






Materials: Newspaper, 16 x 20 canvas or jeans, mixing bowls, chalk, paint brushes, acrylic paints (we used turquoise blue, Black), spouncer

Directions:
Start with 16 x 20 canvasses and used mixing bowls to trace my snowman shapes with chalk.
Paint the outside of the snowman outline - in this case, one turquoise blue and one black. After that dried use my Spouncer to add eyes, mouths and polka dots on my carrot noses.

Paint my snowman with Mod Podge - just the white parts- and then sprinkled the wet Mod Podge with clear crystal glitter.
Then dipped my Spouncer in Mod Podge and dotted all my snowflakes again. Sprinkle them with glitter, too.
Shook off the excess glitter and gave the whole canvas a little spatter of white paint.


Share your ideas on this or anything here on the blog either here or e-mail me at stipple@verizon.net.  I look forward to hearing from you!

Monday, January 26, 2015

More Winter Projects for kids to make



When I was teaching one of the advisors would give out pom pom characters and the kids would go crazy over them.

Teensy Weensy Snowman Pal



Materials: 1 jumbo white pom pom,  1 medium orange pom pom,  2 miniature black pom poms, Black and green felt, Thin cardboard (snack box, back of a note pad, etc), White craft glue

Directions:
Cut "feet" from black felt. Hint: Cut a heart shape, and then trim off the bottom of the heart, leaving the humps.
Glue the “feet” to cardboard then trims the visible cardboard.
Glue the jumbo white pom pom to the feet. Glue the orange pom pom to the white pom pom for the nose and the black pom poms for the eyes.
Cut a scarf from green felt and fringe the end. Glue in between the white pom pom and the feet.


Polar Bear Bath Puppet



Adult Help is needed for the sewing depending on the age of the child

Materials:  2 pieces of toweling about 15 x 25 cm (6 x 10 inches), Scrap of colorfast black fabric for the nose, Glue or thread to attach nose, Fabric paint or thread to make eyes and mouth, sewing supplies

Directions:
Cut out 2 pieces for the body, using your hand as a guide for the size. 15 x 25 cm (6 x 10 inches) should be fine.
Round off the tops of the pieces and cut 2 little semi circles for the ears.
Using your black fabric, cut a triangle for the nose, and round off the sides a bit. If you want to stitch the face on, do it now. If you're gluing, you’ll save the face for last.
Put the body pieces together and sandwich the ears in the middle, with the bottoms (flat edges) pointing out. Note: If you’ve sewn the face onto the puppet, you need to make sure the face is covered by a towel piece so that it will be right side out when you reach step 6.
Sew the edges of the puppet. A wide zig-zag stitch works well if you’re sewing by hand. You can use a sewing machine if you have one.
Another suggestion is to use iron tape instead of sewing.
Turn the puppet inside out. If you want, you can sew the bottom of the puppet for a finished edge.
If you chose to draw the polar bear’s face, glue on the nose with some fabric glue and draw on the eyes and mouth with fabric paint.

Snowman in a Baggie





Materials: a baggie, peel and stick fun foam scraps in black, regular fun foam scraps in orange, silver glitter, shaving cream.

Directions:
Cut 2 large (about quarter sized) circles and 5 smaller circles from the black peel and stick foam. These do not need to be uniform or perfect circles. No tracing needed. They are "lumps of coal" for the snowman's face so any lumpy shape works.
Stick the circles to the outside of the baggie in the shape of a snowman's face.
 Leave room for the nose.
Add a generous sprinkle of glitter into the baggie. This is optional.
Put the orange triangle nose (cut from regular fun foam- not peel and stick) inside the baggie.
Add a generous squirt of shaving cream and seal the baggie zipper. Fold over and tape closed for added security.
Then you just squish that baggie around and try to line up the nose in the right place on the snowman's face! 

Share your ideas on this or anything here on the blog either here or e-mail me at stipple@verizon.net.  I look forward to hearing from you!