Collage

I have to admit when I read that this unplug project was making a collage I was thinking about skipping this one. I never enjoyed doing collages. I have to say now after 2 weeks of off and on cutting, adding glue, and layering several textures (giving collages a fair try) I have changed my opinion on collages. They are fun! I think my children had more fun that I did.

How we got going with this was I was sorting out some of our school supplies before Christmas and I came across a tiny laminating machine. I have never even used it. I got it as some kind of free give away 5 years ago. I already had a larger one before I got the free tiny one so I never tried it out. When I found it I thought it was broke and I almost tossed it out. I put a tiny strip of paper in and it came out with a thin plastic on the front that slid right off!!! I was thinking this is a piece of junk. I then remembered AmySue saying that you can make stickers with them. I picked up the paper scrap I had just tried to laminate and I noticed a strange looking sheet on the back side. When I picked off the back sheet sure enough it was sticky. I no longer thought this was a broken piece of junk. Right then it became my favorite toy in the house! I got all excited and started dancing around singing Yay! I have a sticker maker! I have a sticker maker! I can make some stickers! I was so excited. I ran to the computer to look for things to print to make some stickers for the children. That is when I got the thought of printing pictures of them. I thought they could make some little personal gifts for family to put with Christmas gifts. I didn't want to waste my sticker roll because I know I will not get another roll for a long time so I decided to print out some tiny heads of my children for them to use for silly crafting. I was going to show them how to make stick people and add heads on top. Travis and I together came up with making snowmen with the heads. That is how our collage project got its start.

First we took some blue paper. I used white card stock and printed a blue print on it from a clip art site. I wrote down what site but I lost my paper because we made them almost 2 weeks ago. Below you can see Demi putting the paper snowman on the blue paper (we used 1/2 sheets).

We then stuck on the sticker heads and added some snow (finger painted). We finished it off with some glitter.

Demi and I made the one below together.

I made this one. I added fabric scraps to make hats and scarves.
The one below Demi did. She is only 2 years old so that is why her brother's and baby sister's heads are not on straight. Notice she put her own on straight and centered. LOL! I did draw on scarves and arms. I helped her with the glitter glue because the bottle is almost empty by this time and it was hard to squeeze out.
This is the one Travis made. He used a full sheet of paper and made lots of snowmen.
We tried doing a more traditional collage project yesterday. We used magazine clippings.

Travis decided to make a body part flip book. I thought that was very creative. It was better than my cut off the heads of people and put them in windows of a paper house idea. lol!
Below is a picture of a man's head, a baby's tummy, and a child's legs. I took the picture side ways and forgot to rotate it. The head does go at the top of the book.


He got even more creative part way into his flip book. He put a ladies head on a flower for the head.
By the end he got VERY creative. He realized that magazines have more heads than body parts. He ended up making his own body parts to finish the book. This one is an baby head (with wings) with a flower tummy, and a flower and I think 2 hot peppers for pants (I had a seed magazine in the pile ). Demi made a picture book. Travis and I cut out the things she wanted. She then added glue with a glue stick on the backs and stuck them how she wanted. I had to keep an eye on her because she got confused several times what side to glue. Magazines have pictures on both sides and that confused her. If she was younger I would have added the glue and then let her stick the way she wanted.


We did a large if your happy and you know it clap your hands collage. We put it on wallpaper. I have a collection of old wallpaper books and we used a sheet from it to put our collage on and another page of it to cut out as a frame for our words. The wallpaper and the magazines together make it fun to touch. I never thought I would be saying that but the texture is fun and interesting.

Travis started one similar to this one. He was making up what looked like a advertisement for something but he got tired with it and quit.

Do you want to do a collage with our children but short on time because of New Years? I found a collage cheat (but a great resource) the National Gallery of Art has a collage machine 1 and collage machine 2 if you do them online I guess you are not unplugged because you are using a computer but it is a way of doing a fun collage AND you don't have the mess of paper slivers and glue. I found lots of other art things I want to go back and check out on this site. I think this site is wonderful to add into our art appreciation class. Below is a print out of the collage I made on the collage machine 1 page. I printed it and then took a picture of it because I am too tired to look for another way to share it. I just found this site tonight so I haven't shown the children it yet. I will let Travis and Demi both make one tomorrow.

We made some tree ornaments with our sticker heads and foam snowflakes.... I can't find a picture of them so I might have to take a new one. I will try to share that in the next few days.

OH! Remember that beautiful pink sweater that was made for Zee? It was made by Kcaarin and she does have a blog. I got part of her blog to load on my slow dial up computer (enough to see her son's head in a picture) lol. I haven't had a chance to see what she has been up to lately but I plan to go read in the next few days. I just need to hit the refresh button a few times to get it all to load for me (joys of dial up). Things have been so busy with the holidays I haven't had much free computer time but I should be able to do this sometime next week. Anyway, she knits some beautiful things and sometimes shows them on her blog. She is a homeschooling mom to 4 VERY cute children.

I have a few more collage things started (trying to use all of our sticker heads up). I will try to remember to take pictures of them all and share with you all this week. I will try to share everything about our Christmas so our family who doesn't live near us can see. I have been uploading holiday pictures for a week and I hope to have that done in the next few days. I have several videos I want to upload still and I will keep trying to do that (might be next Christmas before I get that finished). Videos with dial up is a very S L O W moving thing. I need hours to get up a 20 second clip and 1/2 the time the computer will lock up and not upload. I will keep trying to get them up to share. I also want to upload pictures of our yarn crafts. I was so moved with the unplug yarn project we have gone yarn crazy. We are spinning yarn on the wheel, spinning on a drop spindle, grooming bunny (spinning angora from our bunny into yarn), making pompoms, making yarn flowers, we are braiding, knotting,playing cats cradle, weaving, knitting, crocheting, finger knitting, and more. I LOVE yarn! I am so happy to see my children also enjoy working with yarn. I want to teach Travis to knit with needles but he is putting up a fight. I will let you all know how that goes. I have a secret plan to make knitting seem more manly to him. I think it might convince him into trying it. I will let you know how it goes.

It is after 12 pm so it is now my birthday. We do celebrate New Years Eve and Day (with my little children) so I might not get to share much with you until later in the week. I am very tired and I don't have time to read this over. I hope you can all figure out what all I am trying to say.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Still more yarn.

I want to let everyone know I am not using the computer much right now. I have so many things I need to get done in the next few days. I will try to post a few things here to catch up a little as I get time.

Yarn coils. I remember doing this in 5th grade art class. It has been on my list of things to do with my children for a few years now but I never got around to doing it until last week. I am happy that the unplug project was yarn it gave me a reason to do it. I am guessing that many of you remember doing this in school. It is a piece of clothesline with yarn wrapped around it. I had some clothesline left over from the line Rob hung me on our porch this summer. I am happy I found a use for it. I remember in school making coasters, trivets, baskets, placemats, and being told we could keep going to make a rug. Travis, being the unique child that he is, decided that they are Christmas tree ornaments. LOL! Our tree gets more colorful each day. The small green ones in the middle are ones Travis made. I think he made about 4 or 5 but I didn't feel like pulling them all off the tree to take pictures. The rainbow one on the right Demi and I made together. The one on the left I am making myself. It was a coaster, now a trivet, I hope it grows into a small table runner, and my goal is a rug but we will have to see how far I get with it. The one on the left and the one on the right are both made with yarn I spun. I don't knit so finding ways to use my spun yarn makes me very happy.

For anyone who has never made one before, and wants to know how, you start about 1 inch or so from the bottom and start wrapping to the end. You keep bending the bottom of that inch until it folds (make it touch the long end of the rope). When it folds and you are at the end of the inch it should be touching the long end of your rope and you just wrap on that you follow a pattern of 3-5 wraps then make a figure 8 (loop into the row in the middle and back up). I remember the directions in school being wrap 3 times then once into the center, then 3 times and again in to the center. I have been doing 5 times with very thin yarn and it seems to be holding OK. I will take pictures of how I started them for anyone like me that needs to see a picture to learn. I might not have time to get that done until the first week Jan. To make a basket you can stack the coils on top of each other (making a tube) or you can just slightly shape it in the shape of a bowl. My mom still has the bowl my brother made when he was little.

Gingerbread houses.

My children wanted to eat our real houses. Travis understands he can eat them on Christmas but Demi does not understand. She cries for the candy on them all the time. I didn't have any crackers on gingerbread house day and I am not as ambitious as Kate (wouldn't bake my own). Rob picked up crackers for us several days after gingerbread day so we called that day gingerbread day at our house. LOL! Below are a few pictures of what they created/ate.

This is a picture of my icing faced girl. She wanted to wear her brothers shirt for a "cover up" to keep her clothes clean. LOL! Look at all the icing down the front of the shirt.

Happy baby Zee! I love it when she is happy. She is laughing at her big brother in this picture.

This is a picture of some of our yarn ornaments. They took 5 days to dry all the way! Pealing them off the waxed paper was a lot of work! I am not going to be in a rush to make any more any time soon! I still have a large amount of them that I need to peal off to hang on the tree! I am tempted to toss them and look like I have no idea what happened to them. Maybe I will have Travis peel them off! Then when he gets frustrated with it I can suggest we toss them out! I think 10 is plenty for a tree. Don't you all agree?

More yarn.

Ugh! Now my camera battery needs to be charged so I will have to try to take pictures later. I am not having a good day! The picture below is the only picture Demi didn't delete. I made the red one. Demi was able to do them sitting on my lap. She can't remember what way to wrap them so I had to point showing her how to move the yarn. I had to give hers a few tugs to pull the yarn snug a few times. Travis had a lot of fun making them. He didn't need any help. He said he liked making them so much he is going to make 100 of them. I wonder what he will do with 100 of them? I had to look up online how to make them because I couldn't remember how to wrap them so they turned out right. I had wood showing the first 3 tries. It feels like just yesterday I learned to make them but I guess it was about 25 years ago.


I don't know if I will have a chance to post any more of our yarn crafts today. I am happy to say it looks like my computer is working again but it has been a long day!

Computer problems

My 2 year old did something to my computer earlier today and it isn't working right now. I am running a computer checkup and I hope that I can fix it. I hope what I am writing shows up. My email is locking up so I can't write to people. I can't upload more yarn pictures because it looks like Demi deleted them. I am going to take some new pictures and keep my fingers crossed that I can fix the computer mess up! She wasn't out of my site for more than 2 minutes. I have no idea what she did. If nobody hears from me in the next few days it will be because of whatever she did. LOL! I hope to be back online soon!

Yarn

We did the Unplug Your Kids project this week. I have wanted to join in with the unplug projects for weeks now but I wasn't sure how it worked. I hope I am doing this right. Kate and Heather made it look like so much fun I wanted to join in. Some of you know I spin yarn both on a wheel and on a drop spindle so yarn is something I LOVE to play with! I am very happy my children also like yarn. Someday I need to learn to knit so I can use up all the yarn I spin. We have many yarn projects going on right now. I guess you can say we have gone a bit yarn crazy at my house. I am going to try and get several of them uploaded for you to see. I will start with the ones my children liked the best.

Snow man ornaments
At first I planned to make pompom snowmen but when I started wrapping the yarn to show Travis and Demi how to make the pompoms I got this idea of just tying them and not cutting the strings to make pompoms. This one is a big hit with my children! Simple enough that I didn't need to help them much.

We used a small lid to wrap our yarn around. I chose a small lid because it was the first sturdy thing I found when I looked around in the kitchen for something that would work. We tied (I tied Demi's) at the top and bottom then slipped it off the lid. We used a red yarn to tie a scarf on and that is our snowman ornament.

We made lots of different ones and they are still making them right now so I may end up with a tree full of snowmen. This one we didn't tie in the middle.

A 3 piece snowman none of us liked this type. Travis decided that 2 section snowmen looked the best.Travis and Demi liked adding this kind of eyes on them.


Another thing we did was made ornaments by dipping yarn in glue and making pictures on wax paper with the yarn. They are still wet so I will have to update you later on how they turn out




I will add other yarn crafts we have done on Monday's post.

Salt Dough Ornaments.

I am so happy to have another picture of Rob joining us in making tree ornaments! I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside thinking about all the wonderful memories he is giving the children. I don't know of many children get to make tree decorations with dads. I didn't ever think Rob was the type to do crafts with the children. I didn't ask Rob to join in with us this time he just sat down and started making them with us. What a good Daddy! I think that I am a lucky wife to have a husband like him. I feel that my blog is starting to look a bit like Heathers. I see her hubby in so many pictures doing fun things with her boys. I noticed that it is easier to take pictures when Rob joins in. The children are busy watching and trying to do what Daddy is doing I get time to snap pictures.



Painting a few of them.
Demi made some more pony bead ornaments while Travis was doing his math lesson.


We have lots more to paint yet. I know I am going to need to help paint them or it will be next Christmas before they all get finished.

Yesterday and part of today

I have been trying to subscribe to friends blogs but I keep messing up! I feel so dumb when it comes to computers stuff. Last week I tried to subscribe to Heather's blog with my AOL and it wouldn't work. The other day I tried Kate's blog on firefox and I got the thing to show up on my firefox task bar but it wouldn't update. Yesterday I tried to subscribe to Yasmina's blog I set up a gmail account and tried having her blog show up my new google homepage but somehow I got new post today that are a month old. They showed up as new and ahead of ones from this month! Once again I give up! I have tried so many different things in the last 6 months and I can't get anything to work. Maybe I am better off sticking with my old system of blog reading at random friends blogs when I get a free minute. I hate this system because I never make it to every one's blogs! Do they have a blog reading for idiots book? I could really use one! I want to see what everyone is doing but I can't find a good system to do it.

A picture from yesterday.
I have been trying different ways of using glitter with my 2 year old. I don't know if any of you remember the glitter mess I had last year but I know it is something I will never forget. I had glitter on socks, walls, floor and everywhere else from Dec until the month of Jan. by the end of Jan. I was sick of finding glitter specks all over everything (Demi was only 18 months old last Dec). This year so far is MUCH better! I have found using bottle caps with small amounts of glitter glue in them with a Q-tip to apply the glitter a good way for her to decorate everything. I am looking back wondering why I gave my 18 month old free use of jars of loose glitter last year? I must have been crazy! LOL!

Below is a picture of the glitter caps she was using.


She has been covering all kinds of ornaments and crafts in glitter. I couldn't get a good picture of the glitter on her painted stuff so I asked her to"glitter paint" some gingerbread men on plain paper for me just so I could get a picture of just the glitter. LOL! I think you can see that the glitter goes on well with the Q tips. Every spot she touches gets glittery. I wish I would have tried this last year!

Today she painted letters,wooden toy cars, paper and other stuff. By the end of the day her hair, face, hands, arms, and clothes had paint all over them.

This picture was from early in the day today.
I have lots more to share but I think it will all have to wait until tomorrow. I need to get the children to bed. I don't have time to upload more pictures.

Happy girl

Happy note!
Zehira is a MUCH happier child! She smiles a lot more now. I have wanted to write about the beautiful sweater she has on in the pictures below for some time now. The problem I was having was she cried every time I tried to get a picture of her in it. Today I got several pictures (over 20) of her all happy! She smiled and laughed for a very long time. My friend Kcaarin knitted this BEAUTIFUL sweater. Kcaarin has a blog but I can't get my computer to load it (my dial up jams trying to load her photo album) I will try later and add the link in this message if I can get it to work. Anyway, pictures don't show how nice this sweater is! It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I think Zee looks so sweet in it. Don't you agree?





I hope Zee's happy smiles made you all smile today. I have to say it makes everyone in my house smile.

More paper crafts

We made a bunch of birds for out Christmas tree. They are VERY simple to make my son has no problem making them. Even a toddler can glue on the head and tail if you cut it and glue the head together first.

The same site has some tubbies.



You can find the cute little critter below here.


Science/history
If you are learning about Dino's you can build some paper ones.

Boy dolls?
Need some football player paper dolls?How about a dancing monkey?And if you still need something (like I often do) to keep the children busy so you can wrap gifts, feed the baby, make dinner, or just a moment of peace. This site has everything from Santa to the Great Pyramid to build. School age children can build them but I doubt a preschooler could. An adult can build then have a toddler or preschooler paint and play with them. I have my school age son builds them. My toddler and him paint, color, and decorate. Then my toddler can play with them as toys.

If you click on the Santa it should take you right to the printable Santa page.