DIY Backpack Tags

One of the reasons mom loves back-to-school time is the planning, organization, and pulling together of school supplies. The brightly colored folders, the unopened pack of lined paper, and the smell of a brand-new backpack. And every year she grimaces as she writes our names on the packs with permanent marker, ruining their newness before they ever see the classroom (we know, she's got issues). But this year she decided to make name tags for our packs and have us help using The Land of Nod's Jewlery Beads + String Set. Win! Head over to Honest to Nod to see what we put together!

And thanks to The Land of Nod for gifting us the supplies to keep our stuff looking spiffy!

Disclosure: The Land of Nod provided us with the Jewelry Beads + String Set in exchange for this post. No other compensation was provided and all opinions herein are our own.

Artworks: DIY Chalkboard Tag Notebooks

A few weeks ago, we had our very first kiddo book club with a group of friends. Our core group included kids ranging from rising pre-K to rising-1st graders, but a few younger siblings were included, too. To help keep everyone focused (or occupied) during our discussion, we made these super cute chalkboard tag notebooks.

Here's the deal -- you'll need:

- hardcover cardboard notebook (we bought some cute bold graphic patterned ones from Target -- they were under $2 each);
- chalkboard paint (a little can like this will do);
- painter's tape; and
- a foam craft brush

If you want a super clean tag and/or are trying to cover up something on the front of the notebook (we were doing both), have a parent help you outline your painting area with the painter's tape. If you want to do it free form, you likely don't need any help.

Paint thin coats (we did 5 coats) of the chalkboard paint with your craft brush -- allowing each coat to dry sufficiently in between.

Once dry, carefully peel off tape, prime it a bit by rubbing with chalk, and write your name!

Artworks: Collage Monsters

We are in full-on Halloween mode over at our house. Costumes have been tried on numerous times. Spooky stories are in rotation. And I am chomping at the bit to decorate the house for the holiday (I have to wait until after my birthday party to throw the spook around). This past weekend, I asked mom for a scary art project and she suggested that we make use of the giant Vogue magazine Nona gave us at the end of summer, which was full of page after page of fall-makeupped models holding their limbs at odd angles. Perfect for making our own collage "monsters."

Daddy rarely gets to participate in an art project with us, but we recruited him to help us cut out body parts for our collages. Once we had a good pile full of decapitated heads, bodiless arms and legs, and extra mouths and eyes, we set about to glue our monsters together. Mommy and I favored multiple-headed monsters. Cam liked the big hair. And daddy kept gluing odd noses onto faces. Pretty scary (and a good way to also use those unsolicited magazines and catalogues that roll in)!

We got so into it that we drew some ghosts and ghouls up on our chalkboard wall and snuck some of our costume accessories out when mom wasn't looking. What's everyone else have on tap for fall art projects?

Artworks: Melted Crayon Hot Rocks

This art project seemed overly simple, but also a bit dangerous. Take note: it's really not for the younger set. So, honestly, it's been on our back burner for a while. We put it on our Summer Bucket List just to get ourselves motivated to try it and, good thing, because we both LOVED it. There's something so magical and soothing about the crayon turning liquid and spilling over the rocks. The warm wax smell. The brilliant colors. There were a few hot fingertips, but we surprised mom by being really careful. Mostly because we wanted to keep doing it. I concentrated on covering the rocks with bright, sparkly colors. Kane went for making scary patterns and shapes.

Here's the deal: pull together some smooth, relatively flat rocks (we purchased some river rocks because we couldn't find any in our neighborhood) and your choice of crayons (if you use crayons wrapped in paper, peel off the top inch or so of paper -- they melt quickly).

Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Place rocks on a baking sheet and let them heat up for a while -- 10 - 15 minutes did the trick. Carefully remove rocks with tongs and place them into a heat-safe bowl. Place rocks, one at a time onto, a safe work surface. We combined a trio of placemat, kitchen towel, and aluminum foil to make ours.

Then choose your color of crayon and get to work. Watch your little's fingertips and maybe help hand them crayons to keep them from reaching over and around the hot rock. After you've colored to your liking, let the rocks cool and use them for whatever! We've used them for storytelling, building and plant decorations so far.

Artworks: Circle Printing

Mom spied this art project on Pinterest a while ago, but as you might have noticed, we've been much more of a "get out and explore" mode than a "stay in and art" mode lately. Mom thought it might make a good Father's Day card project, however, so we pulled our ol' paints out and went to work. It turned out to be a really nice open-ended project that spawned additional paint exploring for us. And it produced some pretty cool abstract Father's Day cards too.

Here's what you need:
- white paper (we used blank index cards because we knew we wanted card sized artwork);

- black tempera paint (we love our IKEA Mala tubes -- we were on the road for this project and it was super easy for mom to just grab the little tube of black paint to bring);

- cups in various sizes (we used the tops and bottoms of paper cups to get our variation);

- a plate to spread out the black paint (we used styrofoam because that's what we had); and

- watercolor paints (again, our IKEA Mala watercolors are super easy to travel with).

Spread some black tempera paint onto a plate -- you can use a roller, but we just used the bottom of a paper cup. Use the cups as stamps to make circles on your paper. If you're like us, you might end up also "painting" with the cups as brushes -- Kane called that his hurricane technique. Let the black paint dry thoroughly and then go back at the artwork with your watercolors. Stay in the lines or don't.

We also did some printing on the styrofoam plate using q-tips (check out No Monsters in My Bed's similar art project) and made very real looking Rorschach prints as well. Loved them all!

Artworks: Craft Stick Bracelets

It's been a while since we posted an artsy project. We've just really been on a "get out of the house" kick lately. So mom owes a huge thanks to Where the Watermelons Grow for their popsicle stick bracelet post! They posted their fun idea at just the right time: when we were faced with coming up with a project to do for both of our school classes during a teacher appreciation lunch. This project works great with any age. My class used markers and foam stickers (glued on by the parents with fast-drying tacky glue) to make bracelets and watches (the watches were a BIG hit -- just glue a circle of foam on the middle and draw in the watch face). Kane's used markers and self-adhesive gems (the gems were a BIG draw for the 3 and 4 year-old little ladies). And we finished the rest up at home with paint.

We followed WWG's directions and soaked the large craft sticks in water for 24 hours. They could've used a longer time to soak, but we didn't have it. Mom's since spotted a few tutorials that boil the craft sticks first for 15 - 20 minutes and we think that would be a big help -- next time! Once the sticks were sufficiently saturated, mom very slowly bent them inside small mason jars (that was the size that worked best for little wrists). Another 24 hours of drying time and we took them out. Again, they could've used some more time drying, but we didn't have it. So we rubberbanded a few that needed it the most and that worked out just fine. Can't beat a great project with such minimal supplies!

Miscellaneous Madness: Wooden Doll Pin Fairies

I've been on a bit of a fairy kick lately (along with mermaids, princesses, etc.). When Kane found all those acorns recently and we used them to make jeweled acorn caps, mom got to thinking. One of my favorite fairy books, which has lots of little tiny things to flip, unwrap, and break, has several pictures of fairies wearing acorn caps. We actually aren't the craftiest of people -- we like making things, but mom can never figure out what to DO with all the crafts. Art we can display and save more space efficiently. But we continue to play with our Chinese New Year dragons, so mom thought we'd give a fairy craft a try.

There are lots of wooden doll pin fairy tutorials flying around the blogs, but mom doesn't sew and she wanted to try to use things we already had (for the most part). So here's what we came up with. We love them and are busy working on something else for our new friends ....

You'll Need:
- wooden doll pins (like these);
- fabric flower petals (we used these because we already had them);
- acorn caps (if you want a hat);
- butterfly wings (mom bought some like these, but you can also just cut them out of fabric);
- glue (we like tacky glue); and
- markers

Once you've got all your materials, here's how to put your fairy together:
1.  Put a dab of glue on the top of the doll pin and place the acorn on top. Press for a few seconds.

2. While the acorn dries a bit, glue on the flower petals for the skirt. Glue one and then continue around the pin, overlapping them a bit. We liked gluing the center of the petal and then folding the top down to make a double layer of petals.

3. Cut your butterfly wings off of the butterfly body (we were able to gently pull ours off) or cut your fabric wings. Put a dab of blue inside the pin slot and slide the wings in. Hold for a few seconds. Then gently bend the wings back a bit.

4. Use your marker to draw your fairy a face.

And that's it -- you've got your fairy!

Holidaze: Chinese New Year Pet Snakes

Our plan was to hit up the Chinese New Year parade this year. Then daddy dropped a little bomb -- he had a "work meeting" at a basketball game on Sunday. Uh huh. Mom was going to make a run at taking us both herself.  That is, she'd take us after a totally necessary Starbucks stop, of course. We planned to scoot to the 'bucks, caffeinate mom adequately, give the scooters to dad to take back home and hop on the train to Chinatown. 

As we were leaving the house, daddy said he had to be back in an hour. Mom looked at him like he was nuts and said "we only live 1 1/2 blocks from there. I think we'll be OK." 45 minutes later we had made it to the end of our street. I'd finally had my scooter privileges revoked. Cami had thrown no less than 22 tantrums (her leg was sore, she needed to stretch. she couldn't scoot fast enough over the cracks in the sidewalk. her hands were cold. she couldn't scoot in mittens. on and on -- you get my drift). Poor Vegas was getting pissed that his dreams of getting walked farther than the end of the street were dashed. Mom announced there was no way she was taking the two of us yahoos downtown in the freezing cold to wait for an hour for a parade. 

SO, back home we went for yet another art project. Our pet Chinese dragons have been a big hit at our house this past week - I change the name of mine almost daily, but Cam's has stayed "Mini Mouse" from the beginning. We decided to make some pet snakes in honor of this year's Chinese New Year animal. Nothing too complicated. Mom cut some snake shapes out of cardboard and we painted them with sponges and old toothbrushes to achieve a scaly look. Googly eyes and a serpent tongue and we were done. And, as with our dragons, we insisted on making a "house" for them -- this time we camouflaged it to help out our new buddies. 

Next year, parade. Next year.

At least we celebrated with a Chinese food dinner AND finally got our fortune cookies. Our fortunes were right on -- I'm in constant search of buddies willing to flow with my style of play and Cami, well, her new nickname is "Pinky Pie" after the always-ready-to-party My Little Pony. Girl loves to have a good time. 

In Home Entertainment: Collage on Cardboard

One of the projects we spent the most time on during our NYC children's art museum trip was collaging on cardboard. The cardboard provides a nice sturdy surface to hold all the collage bits and helps reuse the always incoming cardboard boxes and at our house. I'm big into cutting with scissors and I spend lots of time cutting paper into various shapes, which I like to fold, crumple and collect. And collaging also helps reuse all that paper. In addition to the items we recycle, our most favorite collaging materials are buttons, large gems, and pipe cleaners. On our most recent round, we added in our suminagashi'd hearts and some valentine hearts I've been cutting out by the dozen (mom's favorite is the one on which I requested she write, "Female Love.")

You can use anything you've got to whip up a fun collage session, but we've included below links to our favorite supplies. In case you forgot, we're Discount School Supply affiliates and the links below to DSS are affiliate links. If you click on any of these links (or the general DSS link on the right hand side of our blog) and make a purchase, we will receive a small percentage of the sale from DSS. So do us a solid and help support our arts and crafts habit -- if you are going to purchase something from DSS, do it through Not-So-SAHM!

Assorted Grandma's Buttons Huge colorful assortment of buttons range in size from 1/4 to 1 1/4Dia. Choose 1 lb. or 3 lbs. of buttons- 1 lb. set includes a convenient storage tub or buy the 3 lb. bag for extra savings! About 1000 buttons per lb.

Jumbo Foam Shapes - 150 Pieces Make cityscapes and jumbo-sized collages with these colorful geometric foam shapes. Kids will have fun using them for color and shape identification. 12 different shapes 2 to 5-1/2.

Giant Glittering Rhinestones - 1 lb. Add some glamour to your arts and crafts projects!

Striped Pipe Cleaners - Package of 200 Yikes stripes! These brightly-striped pipe cleaners come in 5 color combinations for amusing imaginative creations.