Archive for the ‘Art’ Category

Paper Dress

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

paper-dressWhen I was little, my best friend made a paper dress for one of my plays. Of course, it tore when I sat down. But for some reason I have fond memories of making paper clothing. It’s almost like we were large dolls, and we were dressing ourselves with paper outfits that you cut out, bending the tabs back.

My daughter made a beautiful paper dress the other day. I used the same pattern I made for the Bible Costume in Five Minutes, which was made from a bed sheet. This time we used a roll of brown paper, folding it at the top where the shoulders would be. We cut the sleeves into a T-shape.

The kids started drawing and coloring designs on the paper dress, filling it in with colorful markers. They had a great time. When it was finished, we taped the sides and the bottom of the sleeves with clear packing tape. You could use staples instead if you want.

Your daughter will need to put her hands up as you lower the paper dress over her head. Then her arms will stick straight out like a paper doll. But won’t she look cute! You can add embellishments, like fake jewels or other textured art materials. You could even hot glue some large buttons onto the dress.

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How to Make a Felt Clover Pillow

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

st-patricks-day-crafts-5I’ve been writing a series of St Patricks Day crafts to go with a one-day unit study on Saint Patrick. Today’s craft is a simple sewing project that kids of all ages can enjoy. You will need the following supplies:

  • two dark green pieces of felt
  • one light green piece of felt
  • black permanent marker
  • needle
  • green thread
  • fabric scissors
  • pins
  • sheet of white card stock paper

felt-clover-craft

On the sheet of white card stock paper, draw a clover. Fold the paper in half, and cut the clover out so that both sides are identical. Open the clover leaf. Set down a dark green piece of felt. With a permanent marker, trace the shape onto the felt. Do this with all three pieces of green felt. With the light green felt, draw a line about one centimeter in from the outer clover leaf shape. Now cut the light green felt to the smaller size. Cut the darker felt along the outside lines you drew.

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Now you are ready to sew. Pin the light clover leaf to one dark clover leaf. You only need three pins, one for each leaf of the clover. Sew a straight stitch with green thread. Remove the pins as you sew.

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Pin the two dark green pieces of felt together. Use a straight stitch to sew around the clover. Leave one part of a clover leaf open to put the stuffing into the pillow. Shred up all the leftover felt by cutting it into small pieces. You will use this to stuff your clover pillow. Gently place the stuffing into the almost-finished pillow. Now sew up the remainder of the pillow. Enjoy your finished clover pillow!

Decorate a Clover Leaf

Tuesday, March 5th, 2013

decorate-a-clover-leaf st-patricks-day-crafts-12St Patricks Day crafts are fun for young children. One craft that even toddlers can enjoy is to decorate a clover leaf. Dump green craft supplies on top of your table and have your kids design their own green St Patricks Day clovers!

This is how we decorated our spectacular green clover leaf: Grab some green card stock paper and draw a large clover leaf. Cut out the leaf. Get some sparkly green paper (found at craft supply stores), and glue the card stock paper to the glitter paper. Now cut around the clover leaf, leaving about a centimeter of glitter paper showing.

st-patricks-day-crafts-13Have your child glue fake green jewels all around the outer edge of the clover. We just used regular white school glue, which dries clear. Now glue any design you want on the rest of the clover, using green art supplies such as feathers, buttons, sequins, scraps of cloth, and other similar items

We drew large tear drop shapes with glue, and then my daughter shook green glitter on top of the wet glue. (The green glitter looks like pixie dust.) Just pick up the paper, and all the loose glitter falls off, revealing a beautifully decorated clover leaf!

How to Make a Paper Leprechaun Town

Monday, March 4th, 2013

leprechaun-city

Are you looking for St Patricks Day crafts? You’ve come to the right place! This super cute Leprechaun Town was built by my 9-year-old son in about an hour.

The supplies you will need include green card stock paper in many shades of green, stiff cardboard for the bottom base of the town, tape, glue, scissors, green markers, green pipe cleaners, green fake jewels, and green plastic vines. Or just use whatever green craft supplies you already have in your home. You might also want a hot glue gun if you want green plastic vines to grow all over your town.

Start with the base. We glued grass paper to the cardboard. You can buy scrapbooking paper that looks like grass at any craft store. Or you can grow some real grass in a tray, and then build your town a week later on top of the fresh new grass.

Make your buildings out of green card stock paper. Draw windows and doors on them before you tape them together, since it will be harder to mark on the buildings later. Tape roofs to the buildings. You can tape the roofs on from the inside so that the tape doesn’t show. We used glitter paper for a couple of the roofs.

We made a crazy miniature swing set for the leprechauns to swing on. Cut out two letter A’s out of card stock paper. Make a swing from pipe cleaner, winding it around the top bar. Add a seat to the swing with a small rectangle of card stock paper. No glue was necessary for the swing set. We just stabbed the pipe cleaner through the A’s.

Decorate with fake jewels, and hot glue some plastic vines to the houses. Now your Leprechaun Town is complete.