Wood Scrap Collage

This is a continuation of our Wood Scrap Sculpture post. We had so much fun making our sculptures so we decided to just paint flat wood scraps and practice mixing colors on each wooden shape. Each individual scrap turned out beautiful, but when you put them all together they made some amazing Wood Scrap Collages.

Materials Needed for Wood Scrap Collage:

Wood Scraps

Paint

paint brushes

Glue

Cardboard base

First gather some wood scraps. I've gotten wood scraps from craft stores, home stores, and the Wood Shop Teacher at the High School that I work at too. 

Then we just started painting and mixing colors on the flat pieces of wood. This was a lot of fun and many of these could even stand on their own as beautiful miniature paintings.

Then we started arranging them in different ways to create collages.  

Another way....overlapping.

This was a great activity....painting the scraps, arranging them, and just simply playing/building with them. You can glue them in the end or just leave them as is to arrange and rearrange. Hope we have inspired you to create some colorful scrap wood paintings or collages.

Printed Tape Creations

Have you seen the Kid Made Modern line at Target Stores?  There are some really cool creative products in this line.  If you like creative art supplies,  be sure to check them out here.  One product particularly stuck out to me in this amazing collection.... the Printed Tape and the Solid Color Tape Set.  I  think I may have loved them more than my daughter!  Recently my daughter and I (mostly me) made some creations with this fabulous tape. I'm still brainstorming on what else we can make with this tape.

Here is a picture of C creating with our printed tape.

C's finished tape collage. 

Mine.

Creations from my sketchbook for TinkerLab's DPS Challenge using this tape. 

Sunset

Crazy Lines

Rainbow Jungle

We are still thinking about what else we could create with this tape?

Any ideas?  Please Share.

Patriotic Paint Chip Flags

If you've been following me a while you know how much I love paint chip (paint sample) projects. (other paint chip ideas listed at the end of this post) Here is my latest paint chip project.... just in time for all the summer holidays.  All you need are some paint chips in red and blue shades, scissors, and glue.

Here are all 4 versions of my Interpretations of the USA flag.  I think I was inspired by artist Jasper Johns.

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

I did these as part of Tinkerlab's DPS Challenge.  You check out the challenge here if you want to join.

I'm sure these had to be some of my inspiration:

Three Flags by Jasper Johns

Two Flags by Jasper Johns

Have fun creating with paint chips!

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Other Paint Chip Ideas from The Chocolate Muffin Tree:

Paint Chip Rainbow Chain

Paint Chip Art Collage

Paint Chip Candy Cane Garland

Paint Chip Valentine Cards

Outdoor Nature Collages

This was my daughter's idea.  I gave her some scrap matte board and white glue and she went to town! Busy for about 1/2 hour.  Lately it has been difficult to get C into making things and this definitely sparked her interest. If it is "her idea" she is more likely to create...maybe it is just those 5 1/2 year olds? Be sure to check out all the beautiful nature collages below.

C easily gathered lots of nature around our yard to get her started.  The great thing about making a making an outdoor nature collage is that the supplies are endless...

C hard at work...

Here are all the lovely collages:

A dandelion sun and a leaf for a cloud.

This one is mine.

So simplistic, but Lovely.

Trees with green leaf clouds.

The outdoor show.

I love how simple the collages are.  We even attempted a stick sculpture in the lower left corner.  I loved making these too and I'm sure your children will love it because as you can see we had a blast!

What have you been creating with your kids outdoors?

Need More Flower Ideas?

Check out other Flower Inspired ideas below for Tinkerlab's Challenge.

This post is shared with: It's Playtime

Shaving Cream Marbled Easter Egg Cards

We created some Easter Egg greeting cards this past week. We used our shaving cream marbled papers left over from when we made Shaving Cream Marbled Hearts and Shaving Cream Marbled Rainbows. If you haven't seen our posts on shaving cream marbling, be sure to check out the great tutorials on it in each post here and here.

To get started, we first gathered our wonderful supply of shaving cream marbled papers.  Then we cut out a bunch of Easter Eggs that could fit on a greeting card.  Some small, medium, and large sizes.  For younger children you may want to have the eggs already cut out.

Then you can either buy pre-made blank greeting cards or just fold a piece of paper in half to create a card size of your choice.  We used Glue Sticks to adhere the marble paper eggs to our cards.  Glue sticks worked really well for this process.

We tried various different egg arrangements.  C enjoyed this process of collaging the paper eggs together.

Ta-da! Here are some of our finished cards! Ready to send out or give to friends and family for Easter!

Happy Easter!

How to Make a Sailboat: by C

My daughter always asks me if she can make her own project for The Chocolate Muffin Tree and this is one of them: "How to Make a Sailboat".  I've even let my daughter take pictures of her own projects step by step (but the photos didn't turn out.....we're still working on that).  She sees me documenting the steps of everything all the time and sometimes I wonder what kind of effect will have on her? Maybe it means we just need to create without documentation of everything (we are working on that)....the spontaneity gets lost sometimes. Here is one of her adorable construction paper sailboats.

For this project you'll need:

2 Sheets of Construction Paper

Scissors

Tape

Markers

Take it away C:

First you fold up the corner on a piece of construction paper like this.

Then you cut of the part that is showing and even it out.

Then fold it again on a corner. (Are you getting all this?) Then cut off the part that is showing again. This  is the sail of the boat.

It should look like this.

Now take a different color of construction paper and fold it the short way. This is the boat.

Now take the sail and make sure it is folded together.

Place the sail on top of the boat and use clear tape for this, not glue.....!

Now, add stripes (or no stripes) on the sail with marker and add yourself and your name on the boat part and you are done!

Finished boat!

Here is another sailboat that I (C) made. 

What do you think of C's self designed project and instructions?

Are you blogger that writes about the things you do with your children? 

If so, what challenges do you face with blogging and your children?

Free Art Play: Construction Paper Tree

Do you ever let your children just explore with materials without an intended outcome? I hope so. Even as an Elementary Art teacher I would give my students free roam of the "scrap box" and let them create what they wanted....boy did they love that!  Often we are pressured as Art Teachers (and Bloggers) to always have a beautifully finished product to showcase.  Tell me the truth.  As readers,  don't you expect a project in my posts?

In this post I did not have a project for C to do.  I just caught her in the act of creating her own little project.  She always has access to construction paper, tape, markers, crayons, glue, and who knows what else.  Here is her amazing Tree that she created with construction paper, tape, scissors, and markers. What do you think?

Here are the simple supplies she was using.  I absolutely LOVE construction paper.  My Mom always had a huge stack of it around and even as an Art Teacher I couldn't get enough of it.  It was so difficult for me to throw away any scraps too.

C in action.

She must have been occupied for at least 45 minutes or more.

The tree once again.  She told me there was a bird on top and on each side too.

Not too long after the tree C was on a roll creating these panda bears.  She had taught herself how to draw a panda from a drawing book and decided to create them in construction paper.  I love them.

I sure hope that you encourage your children to create independently.  This is where children truly get creative.  I have found when you keep presenting children with so called "projects" some children lose interest.  Even my daughter from time to time will tell me she is not interested in doing what I'm presenting her.  I want to present beautiful ideas on my blog and sometimes I need to remind myself of the value of free play with art materials too.  I hope I have convinced you of that too.

What Independent Art Projects Have Your Children Been Working On? (Please Share)

Would You Like To See More Ideas Like This On The Blog?

My absolute favorite construction paper : Tru-Ray Sulphite Construction Paper Why: it keeps it color longer, doesn't tear so easily and has vibrant colors.