Monday, November 9, 2015

Wine Cork Santa Ornament Craft

A fun up cycled project that's very easy for all ages!

You will need:
Corks
Pink, red and black acrylic paint
Toothpicks or bamboo skewers
5 mm. red pom poms
Glitter drape for beards
Felt hats - or felt/paper to make your own hat.

Start by painting the cork with pink 1/3 and red 2/3rds.
Add the two eyes by dipping the end of a skewer or toothpick in black acrylic paint and dotting it onto the dry pink face.

I tried using red and black sharpies and also paint pens, but they kept picking up the paint on the tip and didn't work well at all.  Since I am going to be teaching this to kids I wanted to find a way to create the face that was easy.  The paint on the toothpick works great.

Glue a red pom pom on for the nose.
Cut the beard out of the Glitter Drape, basically a triangle with the top cut down in a curve.
Glue it onto the front of the cork just under the nose.
I bought this at the Dollar Tree and used it folded so it was 2 layers.  I took the glitter off.
You could use cotton wool, but this was really easy to use and very inexpensive.
I found these hats at Hobby Lobby, I had to stretch the bottom a little and then they fit perfectly.

If you want to hang them on the tree glue a thread or wire ornament hanger to the back of the hat.
These would make a cute hostess gift hanging from a bottle of wine!
They're a Jolly Bunch!

Student Santas





Sunday, November 8, 2015

Folk Art Angel Collage Art Lesson


I have always loved Mexican Folk Art Angels.
I'm going to use this as a Christmas lesson with my students this year.
It's an easy subject to simplify for any age.
Students love having a variety of materials to work with and making all the artistic choices to design their finished piece.

You will need:
white paper for the face and arms
scrapbook paper for the dress, background, wings and halo
colored pencils
fine point marker
glue
scissors
embellishments like ribbon, jewels, beads, flowers etc...
scalloped circle paper punch

I am going to have my students draw their own faces, wings and dress.
Once drawn, outline the face etc... with fine point marker.  
They can use colored pencils for the face etc...
If you would like patterns here is a jpeg:
The face is basically an oval with the neck and shoulders below.  The dress is the rest of her body except for the arms at the top of her dress.  There are so many ways to make the wings I thought I would just let the kids do them however they want.

I'm going to let them choose from a variety (foil and glitter are fun) of papers for the dress, wings and halo.
I used a punch for the Halo, but you could also cut out a circle.

Once they assemble the Angel and glue her onto the background they can use all the embellishments to finish her however they like.

A beautiful collage lesson with some drawing thrown in too.



Romero Britto Pond Life or Frog Watercolor Art Project

  My 2nd grade students are studying Pond Life and Romero Britto is so much fun I thought they would enjoy making a bright and colorful frog...