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Monday 30 November 2015

Paper Making Tutorial


My girls were lucky enough to attend a homeschooling educational visit to a recycling centre. There they learnt how to make paper using old newspapers.  They really enjoyed learning about the process and seeing their finished results.  I have put together a quick tutorial of what they did at the centre, as this could be easily made at home with some basic equipment. I will share a video tutorial I found showing the process.

Requirements:

Old newspaper (cut into small strips)
Water
Basin
Flat sieve
Towels
Potato Masher (or an electric mixer)


Instructions:

Step 1: Tear up small pieces of newspaper and place into a basin.
Step 2: When finished tearing paper fill the basin half full with water.
Step 3: Squash the paper with your hands to make irt mushy, once slightly mushy use a potato masher to make it more mushy.
Step 4: Once the paper is all mushy then add more water to the basin.
Step 5: Using the flat sieve place into the basin and pull up slowly so that the sieve grabs the mushed up paper. Drain away excess water.
Step 5: Dab slightly onto the seive to make it flat and then tip the sieve upside down to place the flat mushed up paper onto a small towel.
Step 6: Allow the paper to dry overnight or 24 hours.

Optional: If you wish to add things like dried flowers or glitter then you can do this when it is wet, so will dry as part of the paper.

Here is a link to one of many tutorials showing you how you can do this at home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VdQYRc5Dis

I hope you liked this new craft post.





Monday 23 November 2015

Enchanted Forest Painting


This weeks art theme was 'Enchanted Forest'.  My 8 year old chose to do another watercolor painting for this task. She roughly followed an online tutorial but used her own style and colours for this. The tutorial she followed is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWvDtrVURDw


Hope you liked her latest design.




Monday 16 November 2015

Spooky Painting



Recently my 8 year old daughter painted a 'Spooky' Themed scene for her weekly art project. She came up with the design herself and she was really pleased with the end result.





Thursday 12 November 2015

Fireworks Painting



My 8 year old has been painting a Fireworks scene for her art project this week. She followed an online tutorial to do most of the watercolor painting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aURZl-KT_iA


She really enjoyed painting with the vibrant colours.


Thursday 5 November 2015

Mermaid Plushie Tutorial


My 8 year old daughter wanted to make a mermaid plushie as part of the Art/Crafts weekly event she has been participating in recently. The week's theme was 'Under The Sea' so instead of a painting she wanted to sew something. She chose the design herself and hand sewed the doll by herself. We used the spare fabric from some old woolen jumpers we had previously felted for older projects that we had spare.




Items Needed:

Felt (various colours)
Embroidery Thread and needle
Stuffing
Scissors for cutting
Paper template (we drew our own)


Step 1: Draw the design you want and cut out a paper template of all the pieces you would need to make the plushie.

Step 2: use the template to cut out the fabric pieces you need, remembering you need a front and back piece for the plushie.

Step 3: Start hand sewing the pieces together, I would suggest sewing all the front pieces together first and then the back pieces next. Then start sewing the front to the back. My daughter used a blanket stitch for all the sewing. Remember to leave a small gap to insert the stuffing.


Step 4: Insert the stuffing and then close up the gap.

Step 5: Hand sew a face design of your choice.


The photo below shows my daughter holding her completed mermaid.