Hand and Foot Angels

Here is a great project to do with your little ones. There are no shortage of hand and foot projects out there but this is my favorite. I have done this with a gazillion kids and they always turn out wonderful. This year I did them with Kindergarten and Grade 1. That's 80 kids in all. (can't believe that we washed that many feet!).

I have seen this done with 3 handprints but I think the foot makes a better angel body.

You can also do these on fabric if you want, just use acrylic paint instead of tempera.

Materials Required:

blue tempera paint

yellow tempera paint

white/red/brown tempera paint

white paper (I used fingerpaint paper as it is nice and heavy)

dollar store sponges

foam plates ( I know this isn't very green but they work the best)

glitter glue

black paper or paint

sequin stars (optional)

glue

bins for washing

towels

If you are doing a classful of kids it helps to have a system. I had a helper, so one would do the foot and the other the hand.

Set up your workspace. We worked on the ground, I set up my dropcloths which are just vinyl tablecloths (they work like a charm). Place out a chair for the child to sit on. Remove one shoe and sock. Pour some blue tempera into a foam plate, double it for extra strength. Press foot into paint.

Press foot onto paper to make a print. You want it centered but have the toes towards the bottom to give you some extra space to put on your head.

Lift off and place immediately into wash up bin.

This is where those Kindergartner's get the spa treatment!

Towel off and put sock and shoe back on.

Now on to the handprint. We selected only one hand for ease in cleanup but you can certainly do both if you wish.

Place yellow tempera into double foam plate. Press hand into paint with fingers slightly spread apart.

Press into place. Repeat on other side of the footprint for two wings. I found you could easily get two good prints without having to put the hand back into the paint.

Place hand immediately into wash up bin and dry.

Your angel should look like this now.

Let dry for a bit.

With a paintbrush and some blue paint paint in the arms. Some kids have a tendency to make really long arms so ask them to keep it within the yellow of the wings.

For the hands I cut up a sponge into a small circle. Mix up some skin tone paint with white, red and brown to whatever shade you desire.

Using the sponge make 2 hands at the end of your arms.

I took part of that same sponge and cut a larger circle for the head. Using our skin tone paint stamp on the head at the heel of the footprint.

You could use a paintbrush and paint a circle but this worked great for the 5 - 6 yr olds.

With leftovers from that sponge I cut some square shapes and we used some brown paint for hair. The idea was to have the kids stamp on some shapes around the head but the kids had their own ideas. They did swoops, some did curls, and some had the Rapunzel thing going.

It should look something like this.

We then took glitter glue in gold and silver and made our halos.

Let dry. If you want you can get your kids to paint on the eyes and the mouth. I find with really young kids that this leads to angels who look like they have been in a fight.

We hole punched some black paper and glued it on for eyes. We then took a fine red marker and made the mouth.

Finally we glued on some sequin stars around the angel before mounting the completed angel on blue paper.

That's it.

Give it a try. For a more permanent keepsake you could use acrylic paint and make a banner or table runner. You will have to paint on the eyes and mouth in this case.

see you soon and I can't help it......Way To Go STAMPS!!!!!

For those of you not in Canada the Calgary Stampeders won the Grey Cup yesterday which is the Canadian equivalent to the Superbowl. We are so proud.

Virtual Sketch Date for November was completed yesterday for those of you interested. I haven't been able to find time to do my own painting with things at school so I didn't get a chance to participate. If you get a chance check it out.

later

gail

How to Make Angel Pencil toppers

There's nothing like a few good pencil toppers to make the homework go faster.....or to help you with that Christmas list.

I enjoy making pencil toppers with little people on them.



( sorry for the picture quality but we have been cloudy so no good natural light...I'm hoping for a mini picture studio for Christmas )

Here are some Christmas elf ones that I'm working on. The basic design comes from the Gnome Craft Book. One of my favs, in fact I find all the little Floris craft books great.

Here is the how to on the angel, one I came up with on my own.

Materials Required:

felt
tacky glue or if you want to sew them needle and thread
wood beads 14mm or 1/2"
beads for hands 3-5mm
pipe cleaners
pencils
wool roving or stuffing
store bought wings or artificial flowers to make wings from.
template







Take your wood bead and either draw on or paint on your face. I like to paint mine but my kids do better using micron markers and drawing on their face.

Slide on to pipe cleaner until it is in the middle. Bend the top half of the pipe cleaner down around back of the head and twist about three times underneath to the other half of the pipe cleaner.

Try to get it as tight as you can.




Now we will make the halo. Take some gold or silver pipe cleaners, you could also use wire, form a loop and push end down thru hole in head.




Take some wool roving or stuffing ( poly stuffing will work as well), put some tacky glue around the head and glue wool on for hair. You can always style it a bit after the glue has dried but don't fuss with it now you'll just end up with wool stuck to your fingers.

Your head should look like this. I like having the halo above the head as it kinda looks like a kid in a Christmas concert or something. You could just make a loop and glue directly on the head on top of the hair.









Using the template cut out the dress and collar from some felt. Make sure to cut the dress on the fold. The collar can be cut with pinking shears if you're really careful or you can make the jagged edge with some sharp scissors. You could also just leave it round if you don't want to fuss.


For the silver angel I cut my collar from some ribbon.

Make a little hole in the center of both the dress and collar for the head.










Thread the collar on first, then the dress.

Take your two smaller hand beads and thread on to the pipe cleaner ends. Push up into place.

Now this step is a bit harder to explain. Holding the bead, bend the pipe cleaner end back on itself and twist a few times to form an arm. You want the hand to be in place at the end of the sleeve of the dress.

Wrap what is left of the pipe cleaner around the halo wire a few times. If you don't have a halo wire just wrap the two arm ends around each other.




Take your pencil and wrap those pipe cleaner ends around the top. We will be gluing everything into place so don't worry about it being too tight.

Apply some tacky glue in the middle of the angel and glue the two dress sides together sandwiching in the pencil. If you want you can sew it into place instead.

Use some clothespins to hold it together while drying. You might find you need more glue depending on your felt. I find some types of felt just suck up the glue and don't stick on the first try.



Glue on your wings. There are lots of angel wings in the stores right now for Christmas crafting. You can also use 2 petals from an artificial flower for wings or make your own from felt.

And there you have it an Angel to watch over you while making all those lists and checking them twice.

You could easily turn this pencil topper into a pin by leaving out the pencil and sticking a pin back on.

see you next time

gail

How to make Christmas Bird Ornaments

I wanted to make some clay birds with the kids. I had envisioned a tree branch with some realistic looking birds by the front door for a nice November display. It was only after we started painting them that I realized how nice these would look on the Christmas tree. So we plan on making quite a few of them in the days to come.

Here's the how to:


Materials required:

air dry clay ( I get mine from Michael's, it costs about $10.00 a package but don't let that put you off, this single block will probably make 24 birds and if you use your 40% off coupon it is very economical )
foil
wire or pipe cleaners
a knitting needle, skewer or nail
toothpicks
wax paper
reference book if required
water
paint and sealer




Take a piece of foil, about 12"x12" and crumple into a ball.




Crumple up as many foil balls as you want birds. We are using the foil to form the inside of our bird. This makes our birds more lightweight, they dry or cure faster, and it makes your clay go further.





Take a lump of clay about half the size of your palm and knead it a bit. You'll find the air dry clay a bit hard at first but it gets softer as you manipulate it.


We are working on wax paper.





Flatten your clay out like a pancake. Place your foil ball inside and form the clay around it.


Have some water sitting by and wet your fingers. Use the water to help seal the clay together.




Once your foil ball is covered start to pull the clay out from the ball shape to form the bird's head and tail.




You want to keep a rounded belly on your bird. If you find the foil is starting to show thru you have pulled too much clay away from your center. Try to re shape or add a bit more clay to your bird. Again use some water to help blend it together.



When you have formed your head and tail take a toothpick to define your eyes. We just made an indentation where the eye would be forming the brow. You will be painting in your eye so you don't need to make a hole to represent the eye.





We also used the toothpick to define where the wings are.

I like having the birds perched in the tree. If you want your birds to sit in your tree turn your bird over and use a knitting needle or nail to make two holes where the feet would be.

If you want to hang your birds like an ornament make a hole in the back of the bird.


Now you need to let your air dry clay dry or cure. It will take about 48 hrs. Be sure to turn your birds every 12 hrs. or so. You want all sides to get exposed to the air. You will be able to tell your bird is curing as it will get warmer as it dries. If its ice cold it still needs to dry a bit. It should be just a little cooler than room temp.






Now you can paint. Use a reference book if you like. We used acrylic craft paint. The clay accepts the paint really well. You can be as detailed or simple as you like. For the Christmas ornaments we use a little glitter for some sparkle.






Seal with a good sealer. I prefer dura clear.



Let dry. I stuck mine on a skewer to dry.





When your birds are dry you need to add your wire. For perching birds put a little tacky glue in the holes and insert wire or pipe cleaners. You need each wire to be about 2 inches or so.


For hanging birds form a little loop with your wire or pipe cleaner. Put some glue in the hole and insert the end of the loop. Let dry. Use ribbon or fishing line and thread a length thru the loop.

Place in your tree and enjoy.

See you next time.

gail

How to Make Accordion Books

As many of you parents know there is some great artwork in children's books. It can be very inspiring to your little ones.

So it is no surprise that kids are often quite eager to create their own stories with accompanying illustrations.

A traditional book style can be a bit overwhelming...so many pages...so many pictures to create. I find using an accordion style much easier.

An added advantage is that your child can see the progression of the story in one view.

Please feel free to click on the photos for a closer view.




Here is a book I created with my own kids. We were talking about winter coming and what changes that brings about. Living close to the Canadian Rockies, this led to talking about Bears and hibernation. It resulted in this book.

Accordion books are very easy to make. The hardest part is usually finding a piece of paper long enough to fold into the book. I used to try and piece it together but now I use a roll of Kraft paper or packaging paper. It's easy to find at the dollar store or Post office and you can roll out however long a piece you want.
















Materials Required:

kraft of packaging paper (even a large paperbag opened up and cut to get the longest piece you can from it)

thin cardboard (like from a cereal box)
scissors
glue
ruler
pencil
string
buttons
needle and thread





Measure your paper to get the size of book you want. Cut a long strip for the accordion folds, decide how many pages you want and divide the total length by that number. This will tell you where to place your folds. Measure with the ruler and place a mark where each page fold should be.
Make all your folds.




To make this more like a book we will give it a front and back cover. Place your folded paper on the thin cardboard and trace out the size you need. You will need 2 pieces.


Cut these out.




Pick one of the cardboard pieces to be the front cover. Sew two buttons near the edge on one side. I used a big needle to push thru the cardboard. You want your buttons near the center of the edge.





You will need to make a shank on both these buttons. After you have made a few passes with the needle and thread poke your needle up thru the cardboard but not the button, have it come out on the side .



Wrap the thread around the stitches you have sewn and then back thru the cardboard.


This causes the button to rise up a little from the cardboard so we can wrap our string around it in the finished book.

Knot off and repeat with second button.

In these photos I had glued the cover on too soon. I then had to figure out how to conceal my knots. If you do the sewing first you can hide your knots.













We are now going to attach our front cover. Put some glue all over the thin cardboard on the printed side. I used tacky glue. I found a glue stick was just not strong enough for the book.

Take your folded accordion paper and place in front of you like a closed book with the first page opening on the right. Place the glued cardboard directly on top of this page. You want the buttons to be on the right side. Align your edges as best you can. You can always trim the cover after the glue dries. Your knots from your stitching should sandwiched between the cardboard and paper




Take your book and turn it over. Open the first page ( which is actually the last page of the book). Set aside.

Before gluing on the cardboard take a 12 inch piece of string. Make a loop and knot it. This will be the string that holds the book closed.




Put your glue on the second piece of thin cardboard. In the picture I did it the opposite way with the glue on the paper, glue on the cardboard seems to work better.
Sandwich your string loop between the paper and the cardboard. You are gluing the cardboard to the inside of that first page on the left side. If you opened up your accordion book fully, the cardboard would be on the backside of the first page and on the backside of the last.

In the Bear book I glued my back cover on the wrong side, that is why the string is sticking out between the last 2 pages. It's a little awkward like that so put it on the other side.





You should now have a book with a front and back cover that you can close by winding the string around the buttons.




Now you can create your story. Figure out what you want to say and what pictures you want to go with it.



You can open it up fully in front of you to paint, color and illustrate.








You can add some extra embellishments if you want. Here we made a little 3D mini book for the bear.






These make wonderful keepsakes and presents for the grandparents.




later

gail