A year without posts...

I can't believe it's been almost a year since I've posted anything on this blog. It's definately time to add some more pictures. ;) I don't have many to share of any artwork I've done with my neice or nephews, since they've been in school lately and too busy to do much art with me. However, Valentine's day is coming up and I decided I would make them each a little something special for it this year. :)

Here's a breakdown of what I used and how:

For the buckets, I purchased those from my local department store, filled each one with some grassy type of decoration found at the same store in the craft department (they were next to the fake flowers and floral accessories), along with some bits of red crinkled paper that was somewhere else down that same aisle, although if you wished to make these yourself, you could easily make the crinkled paper out of whichever coordinating paper you have on hand. The grass I used could also easily be replaced with easter grass or some other basket filler. I also purchased some black crepe paper which I then glued and crinkled around the top of each bucket, making sure not to hinder the movement of the handle. Additionally, I added a small floral butterfly to each pail (I used different colors to let each child know which one was whose). I used a hot glue gun to glue the heart sucker into each pail since they tended to make it very top heavy. If you fill the bucket with some other candy or small toys or use a smaller center piece, it would no doubt prevent that from happening. For each child, instead of making each a standard greeting card valentine, I decided to make each one of them a sort of puppet wand that they could play with instead. I digitally scanned and printed some of my recent clowns and cut out their silhouette which I then attached to a crepe paper covered bamboo skewer. A small plastic bead was attached to the other end as well. And from there, each child has their own, personal Valentine's day pail. :) It was extremely fun to create these and I'm hoping they will all be as equally excited and delighted to receive them. This idea can be used for any season and can by created with almost anything. It makes the gift both very unique and equally very personal to the receiver, which makes it even more special. :)

Happy Valentine's Day to all!

*All artwork copyright Mindy Lou Hagan, not to be used without written permission.

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. :)

Create something fun. ;)

I'm finally back. :) I've been pretty busy lately and haven't had time to post anything new. However, I have discovered something fun to do with your kids. Adopt a (fluff) friend! If you have facebook, you can adopt a fluff throught the fluff friend application and do all kinds of fun things with your kids. They can learn to take care of their pet, meet other fluff lovers, and even win some neat prizes (valuable only in fluff world) by creating fluff art. If your child is young, you definately want to sit with them while they play with this application, as anyone can post art, and while most of it is kid friendly, some may not be. Still, this is a fun application and allows you and your child to create art while thinking outside of the box and lets you spend some time with them while doing something fun. For some pictures of my art I've created, click here.

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!

Magnets?

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted something on here, but I've been so busy after Christmas and we all had the flu in January, that I'm just now back to doing things again that I can post about! :) And one thing I've been wanting to make for a long time are magnets! After seeing Holli's blog, I thought they were so adorable that I wanted to make some for my neice and nephews, too.



So, here's what I started out with. (I made this project by myself since I wanted to make these as gifts for the kids.)






Some tools I used were:

Glue (you will need sturdy glue to hold it all together)

some scraps of paper or pictures of what you want your magnet to show

clear glass stones that are usually used with fish tanks and decorations (which I purchased for $1.00 at the local dollar store) *also, there were other colors that you may prefer to use, just remember that dark colors won't let you see your picture as well.

magnets with self adhesive backing (if the stones are heavy, like mine, you will need very strong, thick magnets)

a pencil

scissors or xacto knife (scissors work best with children :)

some yarn or thin ribbon (optional)

Once I had everything I needed, I set to work. First I placed my glass stone on top of the picture I wanted, drew a circle around the picture and then cut out my picture. Then I took my glue (I used Elmer's cement glue with the brush made on to the lid. Regular liquid glue would work if you use a brush to spread it out.) and spread it on the flat part of the glass stone and then placed my picture face up on that. I did this with all the pictures I wanted to make magnets out of (I only made three) and then I took my magnets, outlined the
shape of each stone again, and cut out the size I needed. Then I just peeled the back off, stuck it to the back of my picture on the flat part of the stone, and voila! A magnet is made!

This picture lets you see how big the stones I used were. They were fairly large, and very heavy. If you want them to look a little more exciting, you can add ribbon or yarn by spreading your glue around the edges, and then just sticking your accesories on.

Above are my finished magnets. The top right one does have a picture attached, but it did not show through very well, as it was a dark picture. You may want to experiment with your pictures before you do anything. The only problem I had with this project is that my magnets weren't stong enough to hold up the glass stone when I put them on my refrigerator. If you plan to give these away as gifts or something, I would recommend using some better quality magnets.

There are plenty of other things you can make with these too. I got a whole bag of them, so I may make many more things. I was thinking about making a homemade checkers game, or a tic tac toe game. They can even be used to decorate something bland, or to make jewelry with, or to set out as a holiday decoration or .... well, the possibilities are endless. :)

I hope you enjoy making these with the kids in your life!

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.)

It's been awhile...

Sorry I haven't posted anything on here for awhile, but we haven't really made anything to post. :)

But, I'll post something now anyway, just to keep everyone up to date, and so you know I haven't forgotten about this page. :)

I already posted this on my other blog, but I'll post about it again here.

I was doing some watercolors a few weeks ago and my neice came in and saw my pictures and said she wanted a ballerina. So....I made her a ballerina. I framed it just this past weekend and we hung it on the wall with our family portraits, so that it wouldn't get broken.

Birthday

This weekend was my neice and dad's birthday, so to celebrate in my own, artful way (and since the little party we had didn't give me a chance to draw much this weekend), I decided to use Facebook's application, Graffiti, to celebrate her birthday, which you can you read my first blog about here. I thought this little girl would be fun to show how my neice was so excited for her birthday. I haven't done much art with any of my neice or nephews for the past week or so, so I thought this would be a bit more fun and colorful.

It's a little early...

Once we finished the hearts, our pow wow was interrupted by the nephews. Well, that just wound miss girlie up and even though we had already decided to make a bunny rabbit (which looks like it could be a duck in this picture), too, she really wasn't into it since there wasn't a whole lot for her to do. So, I cut out the pieces, colored them, let her add the grass, and that was about it. Then I glued everything down. Then, she helped me punch out polka dots for the 'eggs' as she called them. They really weren't anything but a decoration, but they do look like eggs, so I guess that's what they are.

So, I just have a before and after pic for this one. Like I said, I may not get to do these too often, so I thought I would do as many as I could at once, just in case. My youngest nephew (about a year old) seems like he'll want to do art with me when he gets a bit older. I really don't know what to make with him now that he could do himself. I have to 'help' my neice more than enough as it is on her projects. My oldest nephew, who's in school, only likes making the really boyish stuff, like trucks. And since art is like a school thing to him, he's not to fond of making too many things. However, a week or so ago, I learned how to do some Origami and made some paper boxes and paper cranes. He liked doing that because the boxes were easy to make and you got to blow them open with your mouth. (These are really fun to make once you get the hang of it, but learning them for the first time was hard. I did memorize how to make the boxes, but the rest I still have to read from the instruction manual. I got my book and paper from Barnes and Noble during their sale as well for another $1. It was a great day that day.... :)

Umm....hearts.....

Okay, last night, I let my neice choose between either hearts or Humpty Dumpty to make (don't ask why those two, that's just what popped into my head.) Well, obviously, miss girlie girl wanted to make a heart, although originally it was supposed to be Humpty Dumpty (we were even singing the song!).
So, I have the Mary Engelbreit Wrap It Up! book (which I bought brand new for $1 at Barnes and Noble during their big sale about a year or so ago. How awesome is that?!) Inside, she has these hearts you can make that are made out of suede or some kind of material. Well, I don't work much with cloth material, so we decided to make ours out of paper, since I have TONS of paper. :) Miss girlie girl wanted pink, obviously, so she had bright pink as the background, light purple as the inground, another shade of light pink for the flowers and bright green for the leaves. I chose yellow for the background, orange for the inground and a purple flower with bright green leaves.

First, I cut out the sets of hearts and set miss girlie to coloring hers. She's still young, so she doesn't exactly know to color the whole thing or to make designs or anything yet, so hers is kind of scratchy. Still, she colored it how she wanted, which I think is very important in art, and she watched me cut the design out for my background. Then, to keep her busy, I tried to let her cut out her flowers, which are just circles, but she didn't really know how to hold the scissors, so I did it for her and let her color them, too. Once I caught up with her, I did the leaves and we colored them, too.

By now, what had started out as a small project, was becoming pretty lengthy. For a girl who doesn't like to sit still, I'm glad to say that she sat it out with me. She was a bit antsy when she wasn't doing anything, but other than that, she was good. :) So, once we have all the pieces ready, we picked out buttons for the flowers and began glueing everything together. For her, once everything was glued fairly tight, I made hers into a necklace, which she seemed to like. I even put her name on the back so she would know it was hers (even though she can't read yet. :)
I took a few extra pictures of our progress to show how we made everything, but normally I wouldn't. And since my good camera is broken, my camera phone isn't exactly cutting it for me. :( I'm hoping to get a new camera soon, but I don't think it will be soon enough for me. I love taking pictures.

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....