Project: Simple wire sculpture

Here's a very simple project that leaves room for a lot of creativity across a wide range of skill levels. Create a sculpture using simple craft supplies: buttons, beads, feathers and pipe cleaners.

Picture from The Artful Parent

Project: Book binding

For the creative kid who wants to try their hand at something new, I discovered this two part tutorial that walks you through binding your own book. There are pictures and in-depth instructions every step of the way.
Part 1 lays out all the materials and prep work, showing you how to sew the pages together. Part 2 tells you how to add the cover and complete the process.
You do have to download the file to see the text (just click "Download Image" just to the right).

Project: How to make a plush toy

Here's a how-to that walks you through making a simple plush toy out of craft felt. The Basic Plush Toy Tutorial is perfect for beginners (that's who the author says it's aimed at). It's an easy template for your kids to get creative with and add more elements to.

Project: How to make a fleece hat

Here in Minnesota at this time of year, it's important to be properly covered when you go out in the cold. I came across a very simple how-to for making an easy polar fleece hat. The Fleece Hat Tutorial walks you through the process step-by-step, with a bunch of accompanying pictures. The author used a solid colored fabric to make it easier to see what she did, but I would go for a fun pattern myself.

Something like this!

Project: Paper beads

I came across two in-depth how-to's today for creating beads out of paper. The author of both tutorials, going by the name Crimefish on Deviantart, is an extremely talented artist. Her highly detailed pencil drawings are amazing to behold.

I would suggest this project for older kids, as it requires fine motor skills, lots of scissor usage and using nail polish as a varnish. My sisters and I greatly enjoyed making paper beads when we were kids. The way we made them was with one long triangle shape of paper. We just used glue and no varnish, which is why our beads probably fell apart so easily.

In the first, Paper Picture Bead Tutorial, you cut out colored paper to decorate beads made from printer paper.
The second, Paper Bead Bracelet Tutorial, shows you how to make colorful charms from magazine pages, and how to make a bracelet with the beads.

If your kids love making these, there are innumerable variations out there, just Google "Paper beads." You can also have a stockpile of beads to pull out when your kids are bored or want to do a fun activity with friends. We just kept our extras in an old plastic ice cream bucket. 

Project: Pasta Sculptures

You can do so much more with pasta than just gluing macaroni to construction paper. This project is a good example of a little prep work that yields some creative fun.

The Chocolate Muffin Tree (love the name!) has a lot of fun ideas (not just about art) from a creative mom of a preschooler. 

Happy Valentine's Day

To you, my readers! Thank you for spurring me on to keep being creative!

I made this with a class of kindergartners today. 

What a great way to celebrate Valentine's Day! 

If you're wondering, it's crayons and watercolor paints on cardstock paper. The holes, made with a paper punch, were for threading yarn through (which I didn't have time to do as I was helping smaller hands figure that out). The cool thing about crayons, they're what's known as a "resist." Watercolor paints won't stick to them. So you draw with the crayons first, then paint over the picture and the paint stays off your drawing. You can make some pretty cool effects with that. I was just playing around and showing the kids different things to try.
The drips on the upper left are also fun to create. You glob some very wet paint down and then blow really hard to get it to spread out.
There's nothing better than handmade Valentines.