Preserving A Child's Artwork

Finding it difficult to throw away the hundreds of my children's and grandchildren's art paper's I've collected over the years I came up with a way to enjoy their drawings throughout my day.
First I took a photo of the art I wanted to preserve.   Then using my computer reduced them to the size I wanted and printed them in black and white on regular copy paper.

Then I transfered the drawing onto prewashed and dried, white cotton muslin simply by placing the fabric on top of the drawing and tracing it lightly with a pencil.   Holding the fabric and paper up to a window so the light shines through may be necessary if you can't see the print through the fabric.

Then I used embroidery stitches to fill in the artwork.   If you haven't done embroidery and would like to try this wonderful craft click here for a link with easy to follow embroidery instructions by video.

I used strips of colored cotton material to boarder each piece of white artwork and then sewed them all together to make a quilt top.   After machine quilting and binding - they were finished.  

Here are some photo's of the finished quilts. 

I love the children's artwork and the quilt will become even more valuable as they grow older. 

Learning how to make an airplane

Today we made our own airplane out of cardboard. 

With the idea in mind of teaching my son how to safely use an exacto knife 

and a hot glue gun I made up this pattern for an airplane.

Then today, He used my pattern and designed his own. 

First he cut out the pattern pieces and traced them on to the cardboard

Well done!   Now he plans on building an army tank on his own.

Alyce's Miniature Puppet Theatre

Today we made a miniature puppet theatre and painted little people. 

Hours and hours of creative fun.

I started out with a packing box of thin cardboard, a ruler, pencil, Exacto knife (with a lot of blades), 

and tape.  And a glue gun at the end to add the trim if you want to cover the tape. 

Figuring in my head about how large I wanted it to be (based on the height of my grandson)

I cut out the base, made a support for inside and taped it all together securely

Based on how tall I wanted it to be I cut out and attached the back

securely with tape. 

Based on the back height I then cut out the two front sides of the stage

Next cute out and attach the top.  

Using a lot of tape is the secret.  (You can cover the tape later if you want to)

I used more detailed cut out pieces to cover up most of the tape and give it character.

Here's the finished theatre and my job is done. 

And now Eric's job begins!

Acrylic Painting FUN!!!

Eric's very own Puppet Theatre!

Now, let's paint some wooden people.

And cut out some puppets

Hours and hours of fun - 

We are going on 8 hours and the excitement hasn't faded one bit. 

This creative craft is a hit! 

What I learned:

1. After watching Eric play with this toy all day the best part are the front embellishments on each side of the stage because they formed a trap that he could drop his painted men in to and then dump them out.   A castle with traps and hiding places would be a fun project.
2. Use plenty of tape and make it sturdy so it can withstand vigorous play. 
3. Don't make it to large.