kids – Page 16 – the long thread

June 1, 2010

Long Days

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Here are some more photos from our rainy weekend hanging around the house. Hannah from Lily & Thistle generously sent over some of her beautifully illustrated MiniMe paper dolls for the girls which kept them happily occupied through the rain. The dolls are personalized to look like your child with your choice of skin, eye, hair color and style and her name at the bottom. I wish my children always looked as sweet as these paper dolls. They come with a sticky strip so the clothes really stay put and a CD so that you can print out more dolls and outfits (if say, your daughters accidentally tear one when they are fighting over it). Also included is a set of All About Me pages for your daughter to complete.

These dolls led to all kinds of great imaginative play involving my daughters as characters. Here, they were playing Sleeping Beauty so my older daughter made a spinning wheel. Be sure to check out Hannah’s shop to see more of the lovely artwork she has created for these dolls. So sweet.

paper-dolls

Another project from the weekend was this zippered pouch. My five-year-old embroidered this as a gift for her friend (with a little help on that back stitch). We added some pencils and a drawing book.

embroidered-pouch

And during a rain break, the kids painted some fabric with squirt bottles and diluted fabric paint. We probably should have stopped there, but we didn’t so the fabric is really covered in paint. I might make some patchwork pillows from it. Another addition to the project pile.

fabric-painting

May 27, 2010

Summer Crafts for Kids

Even though summer doesn’t officially start until June 21, today was the girls last day of school and it’s already getting hot here in Atlanta. So I am thinking about how to entertain these kiddos and was looking through the summer crafts that I posted about last year. So check it out here.

May 13, 2010May 13, 2010

Dick Bruna

b-is-for-bear

Apparently this week is Children’s Book Week, so I thought I’d write about my all-time favorite children’s book illustrator, Dick Bruna. Anyone studying illustration or graphic design should be familiar with his amazing work. The Dutch artist manages to take a drawing to its essence of line and color, creating brilliant work with zen-like simplicity. My kids love Miffy and I myself have fond memories of his work from my childhood.

This well-loved copy of b is for bear belonged to me and the images are forever etched into my brain. Can you see that I wrote my name on the cover and tried to color the bear purple? This book is sadly out of print now, but you can see the emphasis on simplicity here. Read this interesting article for more about his process. I especially love the way he talks about whittling down his drawings to their bare essence by removing details like Miffy’s tears. His spartan lifestyle reflects his art. And who wouldn’t want a husband that makes you a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice and a drawing every morning?

Pictured below are the “L” and “O” pages from the book.

b-is-for-bear2

I also had a copy of Snuffy, in which Bruna manages to tell a heart-wrenching story of a lost child found by a puppy with minimal words and details. My original copy was apparently loved to death, but I was able to find a new one. My seven-year-old read this book to my younger daughter’s class last week.

snuffy

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And then I bought the girls a vintage copy of Cinderella with sweet drawings of Cinderella in a simple yellow frock. And look at those stepsisters! I love the symmetry of that image. I think that all three of these books might be hard to find now, but there are plenty of Dick Bruna books that are available and the Miffy franchise remains popular. And take a look at the Miffy website for games and activities.

cinderella

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May 8, 2010May 10, 2010

Happy Mother’s Day

The girls and I made these linoleum prints for the grandmothers. My favorite thing about making prints is that you can make multiples, so we made some for teacher cards, some for us, and some for both grandmothers. And all you need is a simple drawing to make a nice print. We basically used the same process that we did here, but this time I used their existing artwork and I have now invested in a baren, so no more foot pressing. I used easy-cut linoleum so I was able to easily trace their drawings from the paper onto the linoleum.

I think it’s particularly effective with younger children’s artwork to make multiple prints in varying colors as I did here with the sunshines. We’re late with these, but the grandmothers will get them next weekend. Happy Mother’s Day!

March 24, 2010

Auction Projects: check.

auction-projects

It’s good to get things done. I just finished up the two auction projects for my daughter’s first grade class. Neither of these projects was my idea. The first is a scratch foam printing project that I saw at Glitter Goods. Ours is a night time scene of Atlanta to fit with the auction’s Starry Night theme. The children made drawings, traced them onto styrofoam and I printed them. Hint: Remember that words will need to be mirror image for the prints, so you can scan in the drawing, reverse it and print it out again for the kids to trace. I forgot this, so had to make some fixes. Or you could just skip the letters in your project.

kid's-printing-project-2

And the wall hanging/table runner is a batik project that I saw on Swallowfield, but the tutorial can be found at That Artist Woman. The kids glued on the fabric, let it dry for a day, painted it, then I washed off the glue and sewed the pieces together. I gave them some ideas about patterns, but they mostly came up with their own designs. I debated if each square should just have one color, but in the end I let the kids decide. As you can see, most kids decided to use multiple colors. Hint: These first-graders found it tiring to squeeze the glue bottle and you do have to squeeze pretty hard. For younger kids, you could cut the tip off the bottle to allow the glue to come out easier. Also, I was going for a brighter color palette, but the fabric paint does fade a bit so be sure to go darker with the paint.

Both of these were manageable projects for kids and weren’t too overwhelming. Good auction project ideas. Thanks to Glitter Goods, Swallowfield and That Artist Woman for the creative inspiration! I can’t wait to show these to the kids today. For those of you with younger children, I have found first-grade to be sort of a magical year — they can do things for themselves, can understand much about the world, and they get jokes. But they’ll tell you that sarcasm is rude and that you shouldn’t use the f-word. Everyone needs a first-grader around.