Felt! Stress-less Ball

Oh how I LOVE felt!

I discovered it over a year ago and am amazed at the limitless amount of items that can be crafted from pieces of dyed, carded wool. Be prepared to see many more felt projects created by kids on my blog in the near future.

Since, in this class, I have so many different age groups (from 3 to 8), I decided the first project would be a basic one.

During the games at the beginning of class, I use this little ball to roll to the children:

It's also very nice to squeeze or roll gently in little hands as a type of "stress ball" - hence the name I've come up with "Stress-less Ball"

It was originally made as one of 3 juggling balls by my boyfriend at a festival last year. We met a lovely woman called Emma who taught us how to felt all types of things - juggling balls being one of them.

Just look at all the pretty colours we get to work with today!

Our supplies: The inner ball is made with balloons filled with rice. 1 container hot soapy water, 1 container cold water, laundry tablet bags, Carded dyed wool in layers

The children learned the wool came from sheep, shorn by the farmer, dyed by Kerry Woolen Mills in their factory, posted to me - now ready to be made by the children into felt.

They learned that felt is created by relaxing the fibres of the wool in warm soapy water- like you'd relax in a nice warm bubble bath - scrubbing it between your hand to bind and shrink the fibres. Then you shock the fibres to stick together by putting them into cold water. Needless to say they had great fun with this imagery - I was very pleased that I had plenty of towels and a mop to hand as some imaginations went into overdrive!

Hot, Cold, Scrub, Shrink, Shrink, Shrink.....

TA-DAH!

They also made felt stringy-thingys to tie on their wrists, around their neck or attached to a hairslide and wear in their hair like a dread-lock! This is simply felt rolled in the soapy water, then cold and repeated until fibres are bound together.

And there you have it - the first of many felting projects - Good, clean, wet FUN!

Next week.....willow framed Dream-catchers & Soul Shields!

Colour Mixing - Like Magic!

A few classes ago, when the children were using paint, you will recall that they experimented with colour mixing themselves. As a result, all colours were mixed together and the children discovered that they had created a sludgy brown.

Following on from this experience, I thought it would be a good idea to teach the children how to mix primary colours properly.

Mixing colours is one of the most important lessons we can learn about art. Once you know what colours mix to make others, you can shade, lighten and add dimension to your artwork. It's a lesson that I hope will stay with these children for life.

The children were taught that the primary colours are....Yellow, Blue and Red. They can be mixed together to make other colours.

Here are some of their colour mixing sheets:

They also learned that mixing white with other colours makes them lighter. It was fun to hear the children exclaim when they discovered what new colours they had created.

For the next part of the class, I did cheat a little and gave the children some extra pretty colours to work with....just to add a little more colour to their artwork.

They saw how the colours mixed in their fold-in-half butterflies.....

And experimented with finger painting on their colourful Alien creatures planets.....

All of these works of art have been safely added to their Art Portfolios which they will bring home with them at the end of term as a nice reminder of what they learned in art class!

Next week.....the children will make felt! Be prepared for a soapy, fun blog!

This Little Piggy....Bank!

So we have our papier mache - it has dried out and it's time to turn it into a lovely piggy bank.

For this you will need:

Crepe Paper in chosen colour

Eco-glue/PVA glue

1 toilet/kitchen roll cardboard inner tube

Masking Tape

You can use either Eco or PVA glue for this - PVA glue dries harder and faster so we used that. Spread glue on an area of the papier mache. Apply paper strip, adding more glue if needed.

Cut the cardboard tube into one inch pieces - you should get 5 of them. Attach them with strips of masking tape. Four on the bottom for feet, one on the front for a nose.

Cut 5 squares of paper - enough to fit over the nose and feet. A thin layer of glue on the cardboard cylinders and attach:

Cut the paper into strips, 1 inch wide. Layer of Glue on Papier Mache and apply until your pig is completely covered. Attach ears, tail, eyes and smiley face! Get a craft knife and cut out your "money slot":

And now see some of our little Artists at work.....

Lots of Pink Pigs here:

Gluing, sticking, gluing:

A Blue Pig in the making....

Some of the finished Piggies!

Pink....

Pink....

Blue!

The only way to get your saved money out is by cutting your pig OR smashing it...just make sure you've saved plenty of money first!

We will be taking a break from class for mid-term, but will be back in 2 weeks time for some exciting new projects to work on.....join us then!

Eco Glue Recipe

As a child, we used wallpaper paste for papier mache. But Eco-glue is economical and won't harm the environment as some of those pastes or glues can. Wall paper paste can be made with toxic ingredients. Not only does it smell terrible while you are applying it, chances are it will emit harmful VOCs (volatile organic compound) for years to come.

Not very nice to mix up for our crafts!

So...here's the recipe for Eco-Glue

Recipe:

1 cup Flour

3 cups Water

What to do....

Put the Flour into a medium sized saucepan. add one cup of water and stir into a paste with no lumps. Add the 2 more cups of water and turn up the heat. Stir and stir and stir - never stop stirring or you'll get a lot of lumps! Bring the mixture to the boil (when it's bubbling and thick). Remove from heat. Allow to cool.

PASTE STUFF!

The glue does not keep well, so only make as much as you know you're going to use - since it's so easy and cheap to make

I doubled this recipe for 6 kids papier mache projects and it was plenty for us. This glue can be used for other crafts too as it's plenty sticky!

Papier Mache - The "Art" of Recycling

Papier mache is a fantastic way to teach kids about recycling. Or, to use an even newer term "upcycling". Where we take old items, used or "useless" items and turn them into something new and beautiful. A creation! Plus it's sticky, squishy and fun to plonk our hands into!

To make the Papier Mache part of the Piggy Banks.......You will need:

Eco-Glue

Newspaper (in strips about 1 inch wide, length doesn't matter)

Balloon

Before class, I made up a nice big batch of Eco-glue. We will do the gluey Papier Mache part in class this week - wait for it to dry - then turn it into a pig next week.

I also pre-cut the newspaper into strips (to save us some time so we can play some games after!) and pre-inflated the balloons.

We covered a strip of newspaper in glue (either by dipping it into the glue or painting it on with a brush). Placed it on the balloon - repeated this over and over again until the whole balloon is covered.

Then....cover it in another layer.....and another.....3 layers should do it.

Have fun squishing, sticking and pasting - our class certainly did!

And it should look a little like this....

And now we leave it to dry for next week. And we even had some time to make a few Valentines cards too!

The calm after the creative chaos....!

Next week - Watch our Piggy Banks grow legs, a snout and turn PINK!!!

Salt Dough Painted!

And so the objects were baked to perfection - after very slowly cooking for many hours in the "borrowed" Aga.

The kids had great fun mixing the paint colours, and although I explained that blue and yellow make green, white and red make pink - all the colours eventually mana

ged to turn - as they do - mainly brown.

But it was all about the fun and learning. I actually loved to hear the children's delight as they mixed the colours together to see what they turned into. Next time we paint, I'll make a colour chart so that they can follow that.

Paint got on hands, noses and luckily, mostly on the old shirts I had brought with me for the children to wear to protect their clothes.

We added pieces of coloured wool and twine to the things we wanted to hang up, such as our nameplates and decorations.

Nameplates for bedrooms:

Some Decorations:

A Door Hanging Decoration....

And one that makes me smile.....A little grey sheep.....awwww....

And some pretty snazzy jewellery too.....

Everyone did such a great job at finishing up, that we had enough time for some favourite games, such as taking it in turns to tell each other how wonderful we are and finding out what makes us feel happy or sad. We finished off by singing a few songs, "If you're happy and you know it" is one that really gets everyone excited - even me!

Next week, we will be making Papier Mache piggy banks. We will even be using "Eco-glue" - glue that doesn't harm the enviroment. Bet you never thought about that one before?!

Tune in for the Eco-glue recipe and instructions for making the piggy banks with your kids at home.

Salt Dough....Let your imagination run free!!!

There was much excitement to get started at today's class. It did take a few moments to explain to the younger members of our class that this wasn't just play-dough, we could keep the things we made and bake it. This did take a while to sink in, as I noticed they would squish up the lovely things they made and begin again, instead of putting it to one side for baking!

Each child was supplied with a board covered in greaseproof paper (taped at the back to keep it in place while they created. They were also given plastic cutting utensils, plastic knives, shape cutters, rolling pin and bamboo skewers. Also I supplied some books for them to look at for ideas.

Some of the ideas the kids came up with were fascinating.

Of course, our younger ones had great fun making play food, long sausage snakes, and cutting shapes to make decorations with.

While our older members created Name plates for their bedroom doors, some mini wreathes and gorgeous decorative pictures.

They learned some new techniques....

......wetting the dough with a bit of water on their fingers so that they could "glue" smaller pieces to larger pieces of dough.....

....making holes in the dough to put string through for hanging and placing balls of dough onto a skewer to keep the holes in while baking.....

We ended up with, slightly sticky hands, some floury clothes (my fault for leaving the bag of flour within easy reach!) and so many gorgeous things made! I took them home to bake slowly in the Aga oven I had temporarily "borrowed" space in.....

Here they are, moved carefully onto baking trays and ready to pop in the oven!

Can't wait to see them all baked and painted by the end of next week's class!

Salt Dough Recipe

There is no end to what you can make with Salt dough. From decorations, to picture frames, to even something as intricate as a decorative bowl.

Salt dough is a fantastic way to keepsake childhood art.

My parents still have some Christmas Decorations I made about 15 years ago (wow didn't realise it was that long ago!). Those pieces were varnished after they were baked, so they last longer.

However, I have taken to just baking and painting these days as varnish is smelly, messy and takes a while to dry. Those pieces tend to last a few years once they're kept in a cool, dry place with minimum humidity. But if you have some varnish, patience and are lucky enough to have somewhere to leave it to dry, please feel free to use yacht varnish or any other craft varnish.

I've been making salt dough myself since I was a child. I have half a library of books with various techniques and tips. I've tried and tested many recipes - some go too crumbly, some crack while they're baked, some are too wet. The recipe I use, is one that I came up with myself and seems to be working quite well.

If Salt dough is something you might like to try out at home, here's the recipe I use:

1.5 Cups Plain Flour

Half Cup Salt (Any fine salt will do)

Half Cup Water

Making:

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Add water gradually, mixing as you go to form a dough. Add a little more or less water, depending on the consistency of your dough. Now knead dough by sticking the heels of your hands in, then rolling it over on itself - for about 10 minutes.

Just before the kneading.....This is how much Dough the recipe makes....

Baking:

This is the tricky part. You may leave your items to air dry in a warm place (hot press), turning frequently. However, this method takes about 3-5 days, depending on the thickness of the dough. It also tends to tend to crack.

Aga/slow cooker: I am lucky enough to know someone with an Aga that I can use. So mine went into the slow oven part at 150 celsius. Some items took 10 hours, other's took 12 - all depending on thickness etc.

Regular oven: I have never tried this, but one of my books says: 150 celsius oven 3 - 7 hours.

Tips:

* Dough does not keep in the fridge (goes sticky) or in the air (tends to go hard quite quickly) - So only make as much as you actually intend to use.

* Work directly onto the baking tray you intend to bake it on as some items are difficult to transfer once you've made them and may get squished. For the children, I cover wooden chopping boards with Greaseproof paper and then lifted the paper directly off the board and onto the tray for baking.

*I made 4 times more of this recipe for 6 kids for a one hour class and it was plenty to keep them busy.

* Varnishing adds a lovely professional look to items and makes them last longer - once you have baked and painted - use yacht varnish or any other craft varnish.

Hope you have as much fun with it as I do - stay tuned to see what the kids made with all the lovely dough!