Spin Art Christmas Trees

We Love Spin Art here and we have done quite a few posts on it! Here is another one to add to our collection: Spin Art Christmas Trees!  Here are some of our beauties.  I like the whimsical look of them!  Find out how we made them below.

We used a salad spinner for our spin art this time!  We cut a paper plate to fit our spinner first and squirted paint in shades of green, yellow, blue, gold, and white.  Then we put on the lid and let it spin.

The only disadvantage to using a salad spinner is that you can't see the art being created, but it can create a larger finished project.  So the salad spinner was perfect for this project.

Here are our Beautiful Results:

After letting the spin art dry we cut a circle in half like this.

Then to create all the parts of the tree,  we made half circles successively smaller like this.  The large pieces for the bottom, and smallest for the top.  We shaped these pieces into cone shapes and use staples to hold the cones.

Here are our undecorated trees. Very cute too!  I didn't glue the cones together, but you could!

I just LOVE these little trees!  We used sequin and spangleswith white glue to decorate our trees!

These trees make me so Happy!!!! I hope they make you happy too!

Happy Holidays!!!

Other Spin Art posts:

Valentine's Day Spin Art

Spin Art Easter Eggs

Spin Art Without the Spinner

This post is shared with: It's Playtime

Introducing...Artterro: Eco Art Kits

While searching the internet one day I came across this wonderful company, Artterro,  dedicated to Eco-friendly Art Kits for kids and adults, and now a sponsor on my blog !!!  I personally would LOVE to own all their art kits to create myself!!! (there are over 12 kits!) Not only are these kits Eco-Friendly,  but they are BEAUTIFUL!  The materials are high quality and are designed to promote open ended art experiences.  Artterro is a small business aiming to be sustainable in every way: from the materials in the kits to the packaging and the fact their kits are assembled by Goodwill Industries in Milwaukee, WI. WOW! what a Great company! Artterro is providing a special discount code to Chocolate Muffin Tree Readers provided at the end of this post for your Holiday shopping!

Artterro sent us their Wool Felt Bug Kit to try out and we created some amazingly artistic bugs!
To begin, I first laid out all the materials in the kit to see what our possibilities were!   Lovely wool shapes, beads, fabric, embroidery floss, ribbon, needles, and more...

Then, we started gluing the basic shapes of wool to create our bug bodies.  C had FUN with this part.

We let them dry a bit.

Then C guided me to what beads, and embroidery floss I should use.  I started sewing the bugs together too.  I'm not much of a seamstress,  but I enjoyed this!!! My kind of sewing! You can see some of our LOVELY creations: Our Bee and Caterpillar

And more... Queen Ant (with the blue wings), Purple Ladybug, and Jazzy Bug!

We took Artterro's advice and used their packaging to frame our Art.  I decorated the frame.  GORGEOUS!

Since the Holidays are upon us,  we even fashioned our bugs into ornaments.  What do you think?  They could go with author David Carter's book: Jingle Bugs!!!

There were even some beads left to create some bracelets by C.

Speaking of Christmas,  these kits would make Great X-mas gifts or anytime gift (I know I would enjoy getting them!) Artterro is providing a special discount code to Chocolate Muffin Tree Readers: TREE20, this will give you 20% off any order until December 14, 2011 for their online store @
www.arterroecoartkits.bigcartel.com/


Be sure to check out Artterro's web site here to find out more about this wonderful company and you can purchase their kits here.

Some of their other Lovely kits:

Wire and Bead, Bookmaking, Creativity Kit, Wool Felt Wearables, Art Dolls Kit,  Paint With Wool, Collage Jewelry, Garden Art,  Canvas Storybook,  Bubble Wands, Collage Decoration Kit and Art Journal Kits.

You can view all the kits here.

A Visual Christmas List

This is the first year that my daughter created a list for Santa. We created a list with pictures!  We don't watch TV in our house (just videos) so my daughter has never really been influenced by commercials about toys.  When she was 3 years old she wanted butterflies and rainbows.  Last year she asked for jingle bells and wreaths!  These requests were so precious and will always remain close to my heart!!  As you can see,  C is a little more influenced by commercialism, but I guess it was to come sooner or later!

To create the "Visual Christmas List", we folded our papers into 8 sections and first drew with a black marker. It was fun discussing what we wanted for X-mas.  C said, "Your list is boring!" Mine included a sweater, kitchen shears, a camera bag, boots.....need I say more?  

I always enjoy the drawings the best,  so I included this picture before C colored it!  She isn't the biggest fan of coloring,  but she has gotten better!

Here is her list again: Very hungry Caterpillar(since she lost hers recently), Mouse Trap Game, Mermaid Barbie, a new tea set, an airplane(no idea which kind), Baby Alive, small Lego set, and last but not least: Doggie Doo Game. If you haven't seen this Doggie Doo Game, it is what you think it might be! (funny for a 5 year old!) We've played with this game in a toy store and it brought many laughs!         

C had a lot of fun creating this "Visual Christmas List" and especially because I did one side by side with her.  I always did this with my Kindergarten Art students before Christmas time and they always loved it! Most of all they enjoyed sharing their lists with the rest of the class!!! 

Here is my "Visual Christmas List" (not very exciting!)

What Do Your Children Want for Christmas???

Cocoa Press Christmas Tree Cookies

Don't these look delicious?  These have become a tradition every Holiday Season!!! I think I have made them with C every year since she was born.  Most cookie makers are familiar with the plain butter or cream cheese version of these press cookies,  but we have fallen in love with the Chocolate version!
Of course, chocolate wins over since we are The Chocolate Muffin Tree!  Once you try these you'll never go back to the non-chocolate kind! If you want to make these you'll need these ingredients:

! cup butter (softened)

2/3 cup of sugar

1 egg

1tsp. vanilla 

2 1/4 cup flour

1/3 cup baking cocoa (we used hershey's)

1/2 tsp. salt

Cream butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla in large mixer bowl.  Combine flour, cocoa, and salt; blend in.  

Now you'll need a Cookie Press. This one below is my Grandma's from a long time ago!  They make them with a squeeze handle now and some are even electric.  My Mom had an electric one,  but she always liked this one! With this particular Cookie press you have to turn the black handle instead of squeezing.  You can buy a  cookie press here. You fill the back of the press with the cookie dough.

You can see the cookie dough comes out the tree shape here. There are other shapes, but the tree shape works the best for me so I don't fuss with the others.

You press the cookies onto a cool ungreased cookie sheet.  There is a trick with the pace you use so the cookies turn out.  Once you get the hang of it,  you'll know what works!  After you have the cookie sheet full,  then you can decorate with sprinkles!  Bake at 350 for 5 to 7 minutes.

Cool cookies on a wire rack.  The recipe makes 4 to 5 dozen cookies.  I love these cookies because they are the perfect size for small hands.  These are the type of cookie you don't feel guilty about when you eat 4 or 5 since they are small!  I know you'll enjoy these simple chocolate cookies!

What are your Favorite Holiday Cookies?

Origami Christmas Trees

We created some origami Christmas trees! I thought they turned out pretty cute and C especially enjoyed decorating them. Here is her finished origami tree!

We used about a 9 inch square piece of construction paper,  but if you have origami paper or thinner paper that may work a little easier! I found some metallic origami paper here, which would be really pretty for X-mas!!!

 1. The first step is to position the paper like a diamond.

2. Then fold like this.

3. Open it back up.

4. Then, fold both sides to meet the center crease....this is the kite base in Origami terminology.

5. Now fold up the bottom point.

6. Fold that bottom point (from above) a little more than half way down.

7. Then, fold bottom point to meet the fold above. I stapled it at that point because with construction paper it kept popping out of shape.  If you use origami paper or a thinner paper you wouldn't have to staple it!

Turn it over... and time to decorate!!!

This was C's favorite part! Who doesn't love glitter, sequins and spangles?  The children in my art class considered them gold and treasure! Notice I forgot to put newspaper down?... and glitter is everywhere on our kitchen table now!  We just used dots of glue for the spangles.  We added yellow paper stars.

Here is C's tree again!

Here is mine! 

Stay tuned for some more X-mas tree projects in the coming weeks!!!

Check out all these Different Origami Christmas Tree ideas from my Google image search here! (You'll be inspired!...I am!)