Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Draw a leprechaun face with Ds rectangles and squares


Here's a little leprechaun face I drew using the letter "D" pointing different directions and a few rectangles and squares. The steps are in the picture above. Finish with orange swirls for a mustache and beard, and a green hat with a black ribbon and gold buckle.

Never knew the plain letter "D" could become a mischievous leprechaun, did you? It's fun to experiment with what you can draw out of letters and shapes. Then drawing becomes easy.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Relaxing rock painting

For kids the doing of the craft is often the most important part. True for adults too. Here's a simple rock we painted with non-toxic, washable sparkly blue poster paint. It's kind of pretty, but it was so relaxing doing the painting.

A snowy or rainy day is a great time for a family rock paint in. The family that paints rocks together, relaxes together.
Have a great one!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine vase with a small yogurt container





And then if you don't want a breakable vase, here's one made from a small yogurt container. Just tape on little petal shaped pieces of pink paper with some torn fragments of red tissue paper and you're good to go.

Valentine tissue paper rose








I started with a rolled up piece of green paper for a stem. Then tore a short piece of orange paper for the middle of the rose with little tears part way down for stamen.  I wrapped the orange paper around the the green stem folding over one of the stamen to completely hide the top of the green stem.

Then I wrapped a strip of red tissue paper around the stem and secured it by dipping my cotton swab into my glue/water mixture and applying it to the bottom of the tissue paper around the stem.

Valentine's vase from a jelly jar, paper, and poster paint





Here's a Valentine's vase I made from a jelly jar and covered with ripped up pieces of white paper. I mixed some non-toxic washable poster paint in with the glue and water mixture and smoothed it on both sides of each piece of paper to adhere it to the jar.

Like the tissue paper vase, it shouldn't have water in it.

A tissue paper flower jazzes it up a bit.

Valentine vase made from a jelly jar and tissue paper





This Valentine vase was made from a jelly jar covered with torn pieces pink, white, and red tissue paper. I put about a quarter's size dollop of white glue with the same amount of water. Mixed it around with a cotton swab and then dipped the swab into the glue/water mix and smoothed it over the piece of tissue paper I was attaching to the jar.

So the jar shouldn't have water in it since it would ruin the tissue paper decoration, but dried flowers would be nice in this vase. Just dry a bouquet of roses upside-down. When they are completely dry, trim the stems, and display them in this vase.

I also made some paper flowers for the vase because I didn't want to wait for the real ones to dry.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Valentine heart, Chinese heart

Here's a heart for Valentine's day in Chinese. It's pronounced similar to "shin" with a high long short "i" sound.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

A Watercolor Rabbit for Chinese New Year


If you want exactly proportioned Chinese Characters, this is not the place, but if you want a little craft that may help kids remember a Chinese Character, this rabbit may be it.

2011 is the Chinese Year of the Rabbit, so I thought writing the Character for Rabbit painted with watercolors like a rabbit might be fun.

I've given the order of strokes for Rabbit in Chinese here. There are 8. Following the correct order is great, but this is just for acquainting children with the Character, so perfection is not my goal.

The pronunciation is "tu" similar to the English "to" as in "Me to!" With great emphasis on "to" for the down tone. And yes, I do believe trying to pronounce the tones is important even if the proportions in my Characters aren't perfect.

After I had practiced the order of the strokes a few times, I wrote it in crayon. I used a cotton swab and watercolor paint to make the shape of the rabbit over the Character. After the paint had dried, I drew a face with marker.