Making Paper Clowns!

Here are two different clown designs, to be used as craft projects --

First there is a clown that has hinged joints, using metal brads:

For this clown, the pieces are first colored, then cut out, and joined together.  Notice that if you want to make a shorter clown, the same parts can be used, but without the upper arm and leg sections.  

This was a really fun project to make.  The clowns can be posed in various ways, and played with, so it is a craft that also can become a toy.

The second clown project is a simpler project, but also makes a moveable figure.  The body is an accordion-folded strip of card stock, and the head is a cardstock circle, with a triangle hat.  Both arms are made together as one long strip, that is taped or glued to the back of the folded body.

For pattern pages to make both types of papercraft clowns, see Gentle Shepherd's Arts and Crafts Freebies page: www.gentleshepcurr.com/arts-and-crafts-freebies

Plaster Pictures

"Fresco" means "fresh," and in art a fresco is a wall painting, usually painted directly on wet plaster.  The paint will actually seep in and become part of the plaster.

Here is a fun way to try out painting on fresh plaster.  All you need is some plaster of Paris, water, some plastic plates, and some paints.

Mix up the plaster and water according to the proportions given on the package, then pour it into the plates. If you'd like to have a hanging hole in the plaster, shortly after pouring you can put a small (about 1 ") tubular piece cut from a plastic straw into the plaster, leaving it there while the plaster is firming.  It takes about 30 minutes for it to get fairly firm, ready to be painted on.  Just before painting, remove the straw tube-- which will leave a small hole.

Tempera paints can be used, but be sure to use a fairly undiluted paint-- because the plaster will absorb some of the paint, the design will tend to fade; you may want to put on a second coat of paint.

Using acrylic paint will result in brighter colors (less fading).

Here are some designs I made, using tempera paint:

I experimented with making some indentations in the plaster, also-- the design on the right has markings made with the end of a spool pressed onto the plaster, and the other two pictures had some lines made by "drawing" with a plastic straw (using something heavier, like a popsicle stick, didn't work well-- it went right through the plaster, tearing it).

Here are some plaster pictures by students in the 4th grade glass I was doing this project with:

Once the plaster is dry, it's easy to take it out of the plastic plate.  (Please note: don't try to do this project using paper plates; paper tends to bond with the plaster instead of resisting it.)

It takes several days for the plaster to completely dry; in the meantime it is especially fragile-- so the pictures need to be set somewhere that they will not be disturbed.

This was a fun project; next time, I'd like to experiment with making different picture shapes-- maybe rectangular or square, depending on what kinds of plastic plates or containers I can find, to pour into.

Dinosaurs!

Here is a felt project I've been working on lately.  It is a dinosaur play set-- several kinds of dinosaurs, with a volcano and lava.

The lava is in loose pieces, so it can be arranged when playing . . .

Here are the individual dinosaurs -- a long-necked purple one

a bright green stegosaurus

a  flying pterodactl

and two blue tyrannosauruses

They are made with a double layer of felt-- so can be held and played with, as well as using on a felt board (or anywhere-- on a blanket, rug, tablecloth, etc.).

This is a set for kids who like playing with dinosaurs!

Here is my Etsy listing: 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/254821153/felt-toys-dinosaurs-felt-play-set-kids

Bugs in the house . . .

Here are some felt bugs I've been making . . .  some have pin backs and some have magnets. Their legs are made with crochet, and the eyes are small beads.

This one is a curtain climber . . .

This one likes to stay on the refrigerator . . .

Besides being around the house, these two are also up in my Etsy shop, Fuzzlemania.

Winter Trees -- Paper with Accordion Fold

I wanted to do a craft project with 6-year-olds that would be winter-themed, fun, and not very complicated . . .

So in thinking about this, I envisioned some paper evergreen trees, all joined together like they are part of a forest.  The idea of a paper doll chain type project started to form . . .  and this is the result . . .

To make it look snowy, I used spatter paint, with a toothbrush, brushing it over a plastic needlepoint canvas --

The tempera paint I used needed to be watered down to make it fairly thin, so it would spatter through the holes more easily.  However, I did find that the holes tended to clog up with paint, and when there were a lot of clogs it worked really well to just blow the paint out (bending down close to the plastic mesh and blowing fairly hard).

Using the plastic needlepoint canvas was much less messy than if I had just flicked the paint off the toothbrush, as it directed the spatters to go directly below the canvas.  So I was excited to see how well this method worked :)

Now back to making the trees . . .

The first step is to cut a long strip of paper; I tried out some different sizes, that's how I got some of the different trees in the photo above.  Those ones were cut using strips of regular size paper (colored typing paper, construction paper), in different widths.  I also experimented by cutting some really big ones, using strips from large size construction paper.

As you can see, after the folding, cutting, and painting was completed, these large trees stood up more successfully when the center one was folded out, as in the picture above . . .

When making a group of paper trees, the way to fold the paper is just like when cutting a paper doll chain, or making a paper fan -- it is an accordion fold. Look closely at the top photo of small trees, to see how this looks; you have to be sure to start cutting on an outside edge, not on a folded edge.  

When doing this project with kids, I made a pencil mark for where their first fold should be, and they took it from there . . . they did the folding, then I drew a pencil line in the shape of a zig-zaggy evergreen, along one end piece, and they did the cutting.  It was kind of hard to cut through many layers of construction paper, so sometimes help was needed.

This did turn out to be a really fun project-- there is an exciting "surprise" when you undo the folded and cut paper and see how there is now a whole set of trees!  And adding spatter paint was another hugely fun activity . . .

Maybe you'd like to make a winter trees paper forest of your own; if so, try using this accordion fold technique!

What other accordion fold crafts have you tried?  How did they turn out?

Make Big Paper Bugs -- FREE pattern!

Making BIG paper bugs was a recent project . . .  I did this with a class of first graders. They had been studying insects, so putting paper bugs together by using three insect parts (head, thorax, abdomen) plus legs and antennae fit right in, and helped to reinforce what they'd been learning.

It was great to see the variety in colors and insect types of the resulting big paper bugs . . .

Also, I was glad that the pattern pieces I'd come up with worked so well, and wanted to make the paper bug pattern available to others.  So here it is!  The pattern pieces are in a short PDF ebook called Paper Insects Project, and it is up as a freebie on the Gentle Shepherd educational materials website: 

http://www.gentleshepcurr.com/paper-insects-project.html

Please feel free to share this link with others who may like to have a ready-to-go pattern for making HUGE paper insects :)

Apple Mosaic with Paper Squares

Last Friday I was helping a group a kids make apple mosaics.  This was a project the kids really enjoyed; they were around age 6, and I heard several of them say, "This is fun!" as they were working on it.

My part was to bring all the supplies, and some finished examples.  I also used pencil to draw an apple shape on the papers beforehand, so all they would need to do was glue on the paper squares (our time was limited, but if you have the time, drawing the apple shape could be an extra step and some kids would probably like drawing their own or using a template to trace around).

The supplies:

colored paper for a background, cut to the small size we wanted (about 7' x 8 1/2").  I offered the kids a choice between four colors-- light blue, dark blue, yellow, and pink.  I was kind of surprised when every single girl wanted pink . . . so most of my pink supply was depleted.  The boys mostly chose blue, though one brave fellow decided on yellow.

glue and some small plates to put it on, and cottons swabs to use in applying the glue.

paper squares, in various shades of red, pink, and orange-- I did have a small amount of these precut, but mostly just had long narrow strips (cut with a paper cutter) and went around cutting these off into squares with a pair of scissors, to replenish the squares as needed.

some long strips of brown paper (even more narrow) for cutting the apple stems-- I saved this for near the end, when kids were almost finished with their mosaics.

Here is what a finished mosaic looks like:

One thing I did to make some different shades of colors for the squares was to use paint (tempera and also watercolor) and paint some cardstock with reddish paint.  This also gave an interesting texture to some of the pieces-- because there were brush stroke lines. It also gave more variation in the color among the squares.  Watercolor paint gave me pinkish-red shades; the tempera paint I used was reddish-orange.

In the sample above, some of the squares were cut into rectangles and triangles, to better fit in along the lines.

An apple is a great subject for a fall mosaic, because apples are harvested in fall, and it is a simple roundish shape.  I think this could be also be very easily done for pumpkins or jack-o-lanterns.

If you'd like to see some more mosaic ideas, using all kinds of materials, there is an assortment here on this Pinterest mosaics board:
http:// www.pinterest.com/weavings/mosaics/.

the Creation Story -- in felt!

This past couple of weeks I've been working on sewing some felt pieces for a "Creation Story" felt set, to use in kids' church.

Here are some pictures:

In this one, day four is represented (light, the sky, land and sea, plants, and sun and moon and stars have been created).

Here is day 5:  birds and sea creatures, fish

And day 6 part one: land animals

Adam and Eve have some skins on . . . this is getting a little bit ahead in the story, but oh, well . . .

Here is a close-up picture with people and animals together (this time they are on a brown rug, instead of a blue felt board):

For Adam and Eve, I used the "cookie people"- shaped patterns from Fuzzle Family Felt pattern set, available from either Gentle Shepherd or Fuzzlemania.  The tree shown in the earlier Adam and Eve picture is from that set, too.

This creation felt set is bright and colorful, and the pieces are easy to handle (most things are sewn with a double layer of felt so they are sturdy and can be played with off the felt board, too).  It was a joy to make this set-- and it came together pretty quickly because I already had a lot of sewn animals in my felt toys inventory-- the only ones I needed to sew were the fish and birds and dinosaur.  The piece that took the longest to make was the bright green tree with all the parts hanging down.  It is an interesting tree to look at, though-- I think it is worth the extra time.

Have you ever wanted to make a Bible story felt set?  I hope these pictures give you some ideas.  The story of Creation is a fun one for kids to help tell, too (putting up the pieces either with or for you).

Day 6 part 2: people

The Mermaids Have Arrived!

The mermaids are here!  Yes, they're ready to swim right up to your couch, table, or felt board!  I made this design a couple of months ago, when our young granddaughter had a "Little Mermaid" birthday party. Then a little while later our son was in a youth theater version of Disney's Little Mermaid (he was a sailor and also changed costume to become a "tentacle" assistant to Ursula).  So I made a lot more mermaids and donated some to the souvenirs table at the play . . . and now there are some of these watery world creatures up in my Etsy shop, Fuzzlemania.

They all have long hair, but for some it is straight (like the one above) and for others it is wavy (like these two below).  I used the basic person shape pattern from Fuzzle Family Felt, and adapted it to have a mermaid tail instead of feet.

Here's a picture of the "Mermaid Assembly Line" in process:

As I said before, these mermaids can swim anywhere!  on a couch (as in this picture), table, rug, bed, or even on the kitchen floor (they are very magical and great at swimming); do you know any young girls who might like to play with them?

A Hand Sewn Felt Family

Homemade felt people . . .


I enjoyed doing the beadwork for the mom and daughter in this family.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/158059074/kids-toys-ebony-felt-doll-family-felt

These felt people are hand-sewn, using a double layer of felt for the body and then adding clothing on both front and back.  A pattern set for making a felt family, Fuzzle Family Felt, is available through Fuzzlemania (Etsy shop) or Gentle Shepherd (also includes patterns for a felt house, trees, car, dog, cat, and more!).

Fuzzle Family Felt -- Day 37 of I Homeschool Network 40 Days of Christmas

TODAY there is a giveaway -- for Fuzzle Family Felt pattern set, by Gentle Shepherd (continuing through Friday, Dec 13).

 

It is part of I Homeschool Network's "40 Days of Christmas" advent calendar . . . 6 winners will receive a pattern set (PDF ebook) with patterns for people, clothing, house, car, trees, bushes, dog, cat, and more . . .

 

Making up felt stories is a lot of fun for kids, and these felt toys are quiet, soft, and flexible-- easy for kids to handle, and convenient to store or to take traveling.

 

Today (Dec 10) is day#37 -- Here is a link to the calendar:

 

http://www.ihomeschoolnetwork.com/40-days-of-Christmas

 

Here are some more pics from this felt toys pattern set--

 

Homemade Button Drum -- from a CD canister

I wanted to make a handmade drum . . . and was looking around for possible materials.  We happened to have an empty CD canister, and it looked like a good size for a child's drum-- so I thought about what to do next.

 

I tried cutting up big circle out of a plastic bag, and then putting that over the top with a rubberband; that didn't work very well -- it seemed too flimsy, and it was easy to slip off, too, even with more than one rubberband.  The sound made was not very impressive, either.

So went back to searching for materials -- if only I had a large enough balloon to use, like one of those punch balls . . . that would be sturdier and make a nice sound.  But no, nothing like that  . . . I tried a normal sized balloon but it was way too small.

After taking out all the fabric scraps I had, I came across a brown piece of vinyl from an old purse-- yes, this would probably work, so I pulled it out.  Also there was a smallish scrap of fake fur in brownish tones, so I decided to use that on the other end of the drum.

I cut out a circle a couple inches bigger around than the canister top diameter, from the vinyl, and made the fake fur circle about an inch bigger than the canister bottom diameter.

But how to get the end pieces to stay on?   I knew they would also have to be as taut as possible, so thought buttons could be used as something to put lacing around, holding both pieces onto the drum; the ends would both be pulling towards each other.

The next step was to pencil a circle on the underside of each of the fabrics, the same size as the canister top.  I got out some buttons and found 20 that kind of matched the brownish theme, and sewed 10 around each circle (on the right side of the fabric) on both the vinyl and fake fur.

 

Then I needed to lace the whole thing together.  We had some cotton twine, and this was a good fit for the small buttons I was using.  Doing the lacing was really not so easy; I had to get out some duct tape and tape the fabric circles in place so it would be easier to lace while also pulling the ends towards each other.

 

But it worked!  After lacing all the way around, I tied a knot at the top, and since there was a lot of twine left, I was able to make a slip knot a few inches down so there could be a loop-- for holding onto the drum, or hanging it up.

 

 

Now the drum was ready to play-- and I found that both ends had different sounds-- they both sounded nice; the lacing had produced a tension that pulled the circles fairly tightly, giving a "drummish" drum sound.

Have you ever made a similar drum -- or one that is different?  What did you use? What kind of result did you get? 

Kayla Aimee's Early Christmas Shopping Giveaway!

Kayla Aimee is a young mom who blogs about "faith, family," and her "favorite things."  She has created a series of three "Gift Guide" posts that feature shops of her readers!  I think this is really great-- these are crafters like me who have online shops in various stages of development.  Some are very established and others are just starting out.  They are all offering various discounts through coupon codes, and there is also a giveaway on the blog, for $50 (paid through PayPal) to go to two different winners-- for some early Christmas shopping money! 

It's easy to enter the giveaway; you just make a comment on the blog post. 

My "Fuzzlemania" business is included in today's group of shops.  This post features baby and toddler items. 

Anyone who places an order for felt toys from Fuzzlemania using the coupon code (given in Kayla's blog post) will receive a discount and also a free rabbit finger puppet.

The giveaway, using Rafflecopter, is continuing through this month (November).

See the blog post and giveaway at Kayla Aimee here:
2013 Handmade Holiday Gift Guide | Baby & Toddler Edition

Wild Creatures

Here are some wild animals --  have been having fun making different kinds, with felt.

a giraffe . . .

 

lions . . .

                                                                            ... a zebra

 

Some of these  can be found in my felt toys Etsy shop -- 

come go on a safari there :) 

 

www.etsy.com/shop/fuzzlemania 

 

All these wild animals are handmade from felt; and they are tame to kids

(not always quiet, but tame).



Easy Batik!

Recently I tried out a modern technique for doing batik-- traditionally, batik (a method of decorative coloring for fabric) has been done using hot wax to form areas that will be resisted by dye.  With the modern technique, washable clear gel school glue is used instead of wax.

I used a brush to apply the glue to the two pieces of fabric I used; that was because my glue cap was broken, and I wasn't able to squeeze glue out through the cap-- but either way can work fine.

Here is a photo from the beginning of making an owl picture. You may not be able to see the owl design but it is there!  I painted it on with clear glue and let it dry thoroughly before starting to paint.  Acrylic paint is used, as it is permanent after it dries.  Here is one eye.

And here is the entire painted owl . . . as you can see from the print left on the cardboard that was underneath, quite a bit of paint will seep through-- so you need to have something under the cloth to absorb this, then move the cloth off so it doesn't stick to this blotting material as it dries.  The fabric used was thin white cotton.

I also made a heart, on muslin--

Gluing, letting glue dry, and painting are the first three steps.  Next, you need to let the paint completely dry, and then soak the cloth in water for about 20 minutes.

This dissolves the glue, and here is the result:

After the wet fabric dries, you can use it for sewing, wearing (if you use a piece of clothing), or as decorative art; I found that when I attached the batik pieces to the glass of a sunny window, the shining light made the details of the resist areas even more evident.

By the way, did you know that just one country is known as a hub for creating batik art?  It is Java, in Indonesia-- although batik had been known to be used in China and Japan as early as the 6th century A.D., it  didn't continue to be used very much in these countries.  On the island of Java, it has been continually used for many centuries up to the present-- and was further developed by the Dutch when it was a Dutch colony.   

Through Dutch and English traders, batik was introduced to Africa.  Batik is a popular form of design today in many countries, especially in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.

Would you like to try it?  Maybe I will experiment with the traditional wax method sometime-- the cracks that occur in wax can give a certain special effect; but this clear glue technique was very easy to do, and I think it gave good results.

How to Make a Gigantic Hand-Dipped Candle

Once a month a homeschooled kids group meets at my house.  And in a recent month, we made candles!  They weren't all as gigantic as this one:

But still, they were an interesting craft to make, and also could be put to use, lighting our home tables!  My son James made this big one (23" tall).  Here is how to make a regular-sized dipped candle.  After the instructions, I can tell you how to modify them to make the really tall one.

How to Make Hand-Dipped Candles:

You will need: paraffin wax (available in the canning section of grocery stores), and a tall container to melt it in (we used an old ice cream maker's metal cannister-- you could use a metal coffee can or anything else you don't mind getting full of wax).  To melt the wax, start early-- It took about an hour for ours to melt-- We used two containers of wax, cut into smallish chunks.  Never heat wax under direct heat; use a double-boiler set-up, so the container holding the wax is inside a larger pan with water.  Wax is flammable, and in fact, if it gets too hot after melting and starts boiling it could burst into flames-- SCARY!  So be cautious and make sure you heat it until melted but then take it off the heat.

To get the color you can take the paper off crayons and add them in while the wax is melting (we used all the reddish tints I could find from our crayon collection-- you might want to try a candlemaking dye instead if you are short on crayons . . .)

The other thing you will need is wicking.  Alas! Our local craft store had no candle wicking available, but I did some research and found that you can make your own wicking string from ANY STRING that is 100% cotton, using a simple recipe.  It's really very easy to make, and probably a lot less expensive than getting pre-made wicking.  I found 100% cotton twine at a local kitchen store, sold for lacing up turkeys (synthetic blends could be a hazard or not work well when lit). You just cut the string in whatever lengths you'd like the wicks to be (ours were about 24" long-- keep in mind that one string will be used to make two candles), and let them soak overnight in a solution of  2 T borax, 1 T salt and 1 C water.  Then hang them up to dry.  We put ours on our clothes-drying rack and they became dry later in the day.

After the wax has melted, it's time for dipping the strings.  Because we did this as a group project, we took turns dipping, forming a long line that had a continuous change in "dippers."  With the middle of the string around a forefinger, the two ends were dipped quickly, and allowed to drip for a moment over a plate. then the person dipping would carry their string and go to the end of the line.  The next dipper would do the same, etc.  We put on some Christmas music (it was in December) and kept going for about 1/2 hour or so, until everyone was satisfied with the size of their candles.  Midway through, we even had an impromptu group song while dipping-- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Though music and singing are not actually necessary for making candles, they were a great addition, and added some extra festive feeling (!)

OK-- Now maybe you want to know how the giant candle was made . . . well, my son had two fairly large candles on each end of his string.  Then he got the idea to hold each candle by an end and dip into the middle (where there was no wax).  After dipping repeatedly to coat the middle section, he was able to create an especially long candle.  Here's another picture of it, with a flame: