Mimi's fabric collage

Mimi's fabric collage, a photo by libby dibby on Flickr.

It took over our living room for two days. Mimi was a hard worker and even got everyone in the on the act at some point as she cut and glued through my scrap bag. The finished project is about 4'x6' and now is proudly hanging in her bedroom above her bed.
She worked on it between making a cement stepping stone and knotting a fleece pillow. The girl is a crafting machine...(can't imagine where she got that from, I wish my day were as fun as hers!)

Camper Camp Crafts

We just went to Sequoia National Park on a camping trip with some other local families.
My responsibility was crafts and t-shirts. When I wasn't sewing in the car or giving their moms quilting lessons, I was making fun projects with the kids.

Though I love crafts and I love kid's art... I despise "puffy paints" and hand-drawn t-shirts that end up only being good for sleep and painting shirts. I knew my access to facilities and materials would be limited, so I tried to think of the best way to assure each kid of a cool shirt.
"Stencils!" i thought... "how could i use stencils?" Lucky for me, since the last time that i decorated t-shirts, a new product has come out.  These Tulip brand spray paints are awesome. They're not cheap - but it only took 4 bottles to make 11 t-shirts and 9 pillowcases - with about 1/3 bottle left over in each bottle.

Any stencil would work, but I wanted a custom one, so I printed out a clip art image I found of an RV and taped it to a discarded cereal box. I used an xacto knife to cut out the design and saved both parts. The RV alone ended up being a cool one for the adults (even the dads wanted them!) and then I drew and cut out the words "CAMPER CAMP" on the rest of the box for the kids' shirts.  Since I knew I would be using the stencil a bunch of times I actually coated both sides with Mod Podge to make it more durable. Acrylic Medium would work too.

Once we were on the trip, we laid down some plastic tablecloths on the ground and we got to spraying. One point to note is that the more intensely sprayed shirts ended up looking better after a wash.  The kids had a hard time working the sprayer, so I had them direct me which colors and how to spray.

Once the t-shirts were a big hit, everyone wanted to move onto the pillowcases that I had asked them to bring. But the girls, who'd been playing fairies in the woods all morning, wanted fairies and mermaids... so I drew and cut out of more cereal boxes some other designs - rudimentary, but all stencils are - I made dolphins, mermaids, hearts, pirate ships and fairies.  They sprayed the body of the pillowcases and used Sharpie markers to write their names along the hemmed edges of the pillowcases.

As I was making them - I realized, not only is this the perfect camping craft - it's also a great one for a birthday party.
I think we will be revisiting this process in the near future. With more fairies.

and just because I can't write about Sequoia and not show the giant trees... Here are some pics for inspiration and size.

 

(one big Sequoia with two cute 6 year olds.)

(see the tiny people down by the base of "General Sherman"?)

Art books for kids

I was thinking the other day, along the lines of my kids' art drawer ... And I was thinking about some of our favorite project books. Thought I'd share them with you. These are all really great books. And the "Best Craft Book Ever" is so great, I agree with it's title, for sure.

The Kathy Ross books are old school, and I think out of print, but they are so great. (find them on eBay or amazon)

I won the Rosie O'Donnell one as part of a giveaway on Mod Podge Rocks, and it's also really got some fun projects in it.

The toddler art books I found really resourceful when I used to do children's ministry - toddlers are so unpredictable, their art projects are different than bigger kids and these had some projects in them that were very resourceful and clever.