I love it when an activity devised for Rylan (1) ends up being a crowd pleaser for the big kids too. Kenzie kept asking me to paint on this day, so I finally obliged her with this craft activity I'd "earmarked" as a Rylan-pleaser.


Homemade sidewalk chalk paint recipe:
2 tbs. water
2 tbs. cornstarch
4 drops food coloring


Mix different colors in a muffin tin. & Be on the ready with refill ingredients. This was a big hit.



By: Stacy, Kenzie (5) & Rylan (1)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

Homemade body paint:
2 tsp Cornstarch
1 tsp cold cream
1 tsp. water
3-4 drops food coloring.
Mix together in an egg carton or muffin tin, apply with paintbrushes.
We used the garden hose for clean-up!!



By: Stacy, Kenzie (5), & Rylan (1)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

These pictures are of something new we tried with the girl while camping last weekend. I try to plan entertaining activities for camping trips, so as to avoid those whiney "I'm boooooooooooooored" statements. Fortunately, this was a great trip and the lizards kept her well entertained. :) But, I knew she'd love this so I broke out the paints anyway.

I felt bad about "messing with nature" for about 2.5 seconds. She had such a great time with it, even narrating her art for the video camera at the conclusion.. that it was worth the guilt.



And, heck, it was washable paint. It'll come off in a good rain storm.



All you need is a kid, some paint, and a tree.

By: Stacy & Kenzie (age 4)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

I've found a new way to buy some moments of peace & Kenzie enjoys it too. I write "secret messages" on a paper, Kenzie matches each letter with another letter found within a magazine and pastes them all down. When she's completed the collage, we decipher the message. Sometimes, she also adds pictures that go along with the message after we decipher it.

She knows all her letters and appropriate sounds now. And, this also is aiding in beginning reading skills.

By: stacy & kenzie, age 4
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

The days of summer are rolling by in a blur and creativity is stifled in between baby cries and "must do's." However, I was instantly enamored with the new project by some of my favorite girls and wanted to join in..

Kenzie gave me the inspiration this morning...




We did just as Kenzie suggested - using the flowers and bits of nature to paint & collage the art. Thank you Kenzie & the Echoes creators. This Mama needed that.

**My piece is on top. Kenzie's outcome follows.**

By: stacy & kenzie (age 4)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

Following each holiday, we enjoy turning the cards into collage art. It ends up being a joint massacre of our card collection, but it's a nice way to condense, reuse & recycle the stash. Here's our Valentine "work of art."

By: Stacy & Kenzie (almost 4 yrs. old)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

With my due date looming near(er), we're trying to include Kenzie in preparatory projects for the babe. She's helped paint the room, picked out our gender neutral clothing ensembles, and we made these little gifts for the baby.

This is a super easy project for kids:
1. Cut fine grit sandpaper into small portions (3x3's would work well). **I didn't do this and learned the hard way!!

2. Color an image on a fine grit sandpaper with your everyday Crayolas. Make sure and get a healthy wax build up on the sandpaper (Press Hard).



3. Lay the sandpaper, image side down on your fabric choice. (or directly on the onesie if you'd like to be done a few steps sooner!!) Iron the image well to insure the color is transferring.

4. Machine stitch around your image edges to give it extra whimsy, or perhaps, ahem...make sense of the scribbles? This here little guy is a FROG, by the way. :)



5. Attach to a onesie, t-shirt, pants leg, whatever. & Voila. It's an easy Big Sister gift to the new baby...


6. Set the color by tossing into the dryer for 20 minutes. Launder as usual.



We've another version of a darling but LARGE image of big sister holding the baby's hand. We also have an alien. (Yeah....don't know what we're going to do with that one.) But, we're going to frame the large sentimental image and turn it into wall art. I'll post a picture as it's completed.

By: Stacy & Kenzie (age 3.5)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

To close up my little family's advent season , we drew the following activity: make a snowman out of paper or snow. At the time, we didn't have any snow. We decided to junkadoodle one instead.



Merry Holidays!!!

By: stacy & kenzie, age 3
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

This is for Holli's contest. We (or, rather, I) had envisioned a dragon theme to match my gals dragon costume, however things soon got out of hand (as they typically will with a 3 year old wielding paint brushes). I quickly ditched the "planned" part of the project and just aimed to survive...

Kenzie painted. I arranged the junk. She whined while I arranged the junk. (she had other ideas).
But, I think we like the outcome:



It was fun, albeit, er, ahem...a wee bit stressful for those of us who aren't so patient. Honestly, I don't know who made the biggest mess - her or me?

By: stacy & kenzie
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

I'm taking a brave step into using my photoshop program. I'd like to play around with digital illustration, but I find the whole photoshop process terribly overwhelming. Today, while playing around I discovered that I can create coloring pages from digital photographs in just a few steps. Kenzie prefers this one, although there were other photos better suited to the process.

To make your own coloring pages:
1. Open an image in Photoshop and size to fit your paper. I've been using an 8x8 size.
2. Create a "duplicate layer."
3. Make sure your foreground is set to black and the background is set to white.
4. Go to Filter--> Sketch --> Photocopy and adjust the detail and darkness settings.
5. Clean up the image by adjusting the levels. Go to Layers--> New Adjustment Layer --> Levels and move the slides accordingly until the image is crisp.
6. Print!!

*** You may need to tweak these directions depending on the photo. Some photos required that I "reverse" the image with: Image>Adjust>Invert. Whatever, the case - don't ask me!! I'm truly a photoshop novice.

I'm imagining coloring books, which would be supersweet gifts to cousins or a great memento of a birthday party or other big event... You could create a book of family members that aren't seen as frequently as you'd like... This could be a fun playdate activity, etc.

We're off to color Kenzie some purple hair!!

**P.S. I'm sure this a "been there done that" concept for many of you. I, however, was thrilled to end up with anything usable from my first photoshop experience. :)

By: stacy and kenzie (age 3)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

It was an adamant and persistent request that we make art. That we make an elephant today. RIGHT NOW. Frankly, my heart wasn't in it, but Kenzie's sure was. I'm glad I played along though - she does enjoy this so much.

She chose the junks. She did the paints. We both worked on gluing the bits down to create this (which was extremely difficult to photograph for some reason):



A close-up of Mr. Elephant:




By: stacy & kenzie, age 3
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

Kenzie likes to pick me flowers from our yard, which we put in a little bud vase inside the house. This random act of kindness, was the inspiration for these. I don't think this was my unique idea - but I can't remember a source, so I can't site it. :)




We created the blooms while recycling toilet paper tubes, glammed up in glitter paints. Tissue paper is stuffed inside the round center, and a bamboo skewer makes a nice stem. And these, won't wilt.



Directions:
This was one hour worth of solid entertainment for my daughter. I cheerleaded & surfed the web while she drowned her flowers in paint. :)

I used one toilet paper tube per flower.
Draw a ring 2" in from the edge of each tube. Repeat on other side.
Draw cut lines every 1/2 inch (so the kid knows where to cut, but reinforce that they have to stop at the center rings! This required a lot of impatient reminding on my part.)
Fold petals back, and you should have a flower with two layers of petals.
I tried to make each flower different by varying the cuts. :)

By: stacy & kenzie (age 3)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

I found some really great & cheap fingerpaints with built in sparkles the other day. We tend to make a huge mess fingerpainting, so we took our antics outside.

The colors were lovely, and SPARKLY. We commenced with making sheet after sheet of painty goodness. Both of us dug in, albeit I was a bit more restrained than the child, given that I didn't want a sparkly camera after the ordeal. :)

While painting we started drawing lines in the thick paint. And then we begun to see accidental subjects, calling them out to one another. Another injection of creativity into a simple exercise.

We saw:
A race track (me)
A giraffe in a rainstorm (kenzie)
peppermint candies (me)
a snake slithering through grass (kenzie)
a kangaroo tail (kenzie)
leggos (me)
rainbow hands (kenzie)
fairy dust (kenzie)
a checkerboard (me)
crazy lady hair (kenzie)
...and this was only a few.

Amazing, how my mind went to the tangible - and Kenzie saw more visionary imaginative findings. It was a most excellent mess.

By: stacy & kenzie (age 3)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

Onward into summer, it appears that we need at least a craft project per day now that it's blazing hot outside. We've got an arsenal of craft supplies, on the ready.

For Big and Little Art, we had much begging to do another collage. Each week, I keep wondering when we might waver from the animal theme. Not this week. A "rhinoceros" she said. "Oh, and some flowers."


Painting and each flower handstuck by Kenzie. Wonky Rhino, missing a horn...by Mama.



And some handmade critters of the foam variety. This time, we (I) managed to get all the body parts in the right place.

By: Stacy and Kenzie (age 3)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

Today, Kenzie was very specific about what to make for our project. How about these "giraffeses?"



I decided to make this more of a collage piece rather than again copying Holli's Junk-a-doodle style, so I gave Kenzie bare cardboard and asked her to announce the colors we'd need based on viewing our subjects. She painted these tones, which I then cut into the forms to make the giraffe's. Kenzie however insisted on a few found objects mid-way through and collected the junk herself. So, that's how we got to the outcome (after a final bath in glitter glue):



By: stacy & kenzie (age 3)
mama's doodles

Labels: stacy d.

A Zebra. Kenzie announced we'd make, with this coy little expression.

The outcome is:


As usual, I let Kenzie do all the painting, which again resulted in a big pile of stuff all toned in the same color. Sadly, aside from flowers, which I didn't want to include this time - I couldn't think of a thing to do with the other junk. So, I scrapped it and kept it simple. We have some pieces that aren't the color they should be (eyes and ears), but, I do want her to enjoy and be free in the process. Obviously, I did take some liberties with embellishing her painting, for the zebra and thought bubble's sake.

As Kenzie painted, I busied myself with sorting another junk pile which sits on the counter in a basket. I found this little picture of her in her lion costume and decided to include it.

So, we have a cowardly zebra - hiding out from the mean, mean lion. Said lion is licking their chops. :)

By: stacy & kenzie (age 3)
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

A Hippo, she ordered. Our junk pile included two umbrellas at her insistence (is it bad that I keep the accumulated junk collection in the liquor cabinet??)
Kenzie painted. Mama arranged. Oh, and the background was (mainly) Mama's fault too.

By:Stacy & Kenzie, age 3
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

I had this idea come to me while creating the Lion in a flower jungle. Since, I love to make textile art scenes - I envisioned incorporating Kenzie into the process by allowing her to paint willy-nilly all over my fabric scraps. I chose a handful and just let what may happen. What a wonderful way to use up my "junk" pile of fabric scraps!!!

With no inkling of how to involve Kenzie in the sewing process - I just asked her the subject for the artwork. She said a snail. I envisioned it in paradise.

I think our future pieces will waft between the two styles we've tried this far. (not including those we imagine up in the future).

By:Stacy & Kenzie, age 3
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.

Kenzie, the youngest artist on this piece is nick-named the "doodle." We've borrowed Holli's style of junk-a-doodle making, but tweaked it a bit to include my fondness for textile art. An excited Kenzie sat down to a pile of "junk" and announced that we'd make a:
Lion in a Flower Jungle.

A detailed summary of our creative process is located at: Kenzie's Doodles .

By: Stacy & Kenzie, age 3
Mama's Doodles

Labels: stacy d.