Coraline

While I haven't seen the movie to this yet, I have to say, the website is awesome and is definately something children would love....I think. ;) Or if you love to create things yourself, watch the featured films available from the website and see how the artists and producers created all of the clothing, flowers, etc. for the movie. It really is amazing to watch. :)

You can view the website here.

Create something....to mail!

It's so hard to be creative in today's time, what with so little time to actually sit down and do something. So, how have I been trying to incorporate art into my life? By making my own cards!

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of recent cards I've made at the moment, nor do I have any sequences of me and the kids in my life making any, so I'm afraid you'll be on your own with this art project. ;) Although it's fairly easy, so I don't really think you'll need my help. ;D

As for my cards, I've been making them out of store bought bank cards (which can be found in packets of usually about 50 or more at your local crafts store) and then using my scrapbooking accessories to make the card decorations with. Of course, if you're really in the creative mood and have the supplies handy, you can draw your own pictures right on the card. I've made my share of those, too, just not lately. ;)

The point of this project is to have fun and let your little ones create something that they can really sink their fingers into. It's always a special moment when a child feels they've created something all on their own. So, get started and create a card! Then mail it to someone really special, like their grandmother or to a good friend or neighbor. Or they can even mail it to one of their own friends. Just be creative and let them enjoy being creative with you.

And don't forget to have fun! ;D

Happy 4th!

Sorry I'm late on getting this posted, but I just wanted to say Happy 4th to everyone! Check out my other blog here to see a little picture I came up with to celebrate.

Oh, and if you have a little girl and are looking to inspire her, then check out this website. It's simply awesome and any little diva will love it. :)

And if you have a little boy, they might like the pictures here. Or they'd probably prefer to play some games over here. :) Then again, they might prefer the girls' website and the girls might prefer the boys' website! Either way, just let them have fun and view the wonderful world of art. :)

An "I care about you" package

I haven't made anything with my niece or nephews for awhile, so I've decided to send them an "I care about you" package so that they can have something fun from me during the week and hopefully it will let them feel creative, too. So, here's the package I'm getting ready to try and send them. I made the envelope and the little birdies myself out of scrapbook paper, buttons, and yarn. (If you visit my other blog, you'll see that they're similar to the hanging birdy I posted there.) I really hope they like them. If someone had made something like that for me as a kid, I think I would have loved it. :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today is the day it's okay to be green!

So put on your green hats and mittens and socks

and read Green Eggs and Ham (you can even read it in a box!)

To have more fun when you're done with that book

come over here and have yourself a look!

(There are more St. Patrick's Day things to do there!)

Enjoy being green today!

Oink, Oink! It's almost spring!

Spring is almost here, which means little baby animals and whatnot will be coming into the world. So since I haven't been able to post much lately of any new projects with my neice and nephews, I thought I would post one that reminds me of children. Specifically of children's stories, like Charlotte's Web. I did this picture fairly quickly as a sketch in Corel with my tablet, so it's not the best. But it reminds me of spring, so I thought I would share it until I can post some new projects. :) In the meantime, you can visit this site to do some piggy projects of your own! They look so fun and are really cute!

A snowglobe

Okay, I did some Christmas shopping last night, and after I got home and had wrapped all my nice new presents, I had some left over containers from some gifts. (I had taken out the gift to include it in a gift basket.) Anyway, I ended up having two clear, cylindrical tubes leftover. For some reason, my eyes kept seeing them as snowglobes, so what did we make? Snow globes, of course! :) Or I guess you could call them Snow tubes? Anyway, This was a fun project that I think would entertain both little kids and big kids alike. Plus, you can recycle old scraps of paper and the clear gift boxes you may get this season. :) If you're interested, here's the materials we used and the process of what we did.

Materials:

glue (either the bottle glue or glue with a brush is best. Stick glue wouldn't work too well.)

clear cylindrical tubes

an object to display inside (such as a small, thin toy or a small picture)

leftover scrap paper or glitter (you can use any colors or color coordinate with your object)

scissors

First, here's some pictures of what we used, just incase you're like me and have to see it to understand what I'm talking about. :)

Next we picked out what object we wanted to be in our globe, plus the colors we wanted to use for the 'glitter', or confetti inside our globes. (I used the snowmen and my neice used the hearts. She wanted lots of colors in her globe, too, while I wwen to have a more traditional one.) Notice that for our object, we simply made our own pictures out of paper. But if you wanted, you could put in a photo, or a toy, or whatever. (putting a toy inside with confettit would be so much fun for a kid to open on Christmas!)

Next we put it all together...brush some glue around the top rings to hold it on and...

...Voila! We have a snowglobe! :)

Here's a close up of each one to let you have a better look. (Mine is the snowman and my neices' is the hearts. Also, I put tape on tope of hers simply to make it more durable so that she could play with it until the glue dried.)

I want to make a girl...

Okay, I've decided to try something with my neice and nephews. I love art, as you can tell by going here. So, I want to try and give some of my knowledge and love of art to my neice and nephews. So far, my neice seems to be the only one interested, so over the weekend, and to keep her out of my mother's hair, we made a 'littwe guwl'. Translated, we made a little girl. First, we started off with a picture of a little girl, which is a calendar page from my Mary Engelbreit calendar. She said she wanted to make a girl like that, so we took her construction paper and cut out a face, and arms to start off with. Then we colored in the eyes, cheeks, and shadows for the face and arms, hair for the hair and some shadows for her dress.

Then we glued them all together, quite difficultly I might add, to make her into a little girl. Here is our final piece. (Notice we did not use any markers, which were her idea, or very much of the construction paper.

Overall, I was very happy with how this turned out. My neice loves her 'littwe guwl' and I love that she loved making it. :) Now I just have to see what I can make with my nephews....