Gallery Walls – Old & New
This week I thought I’d share with you our new Children’s Art Gallery Wall. This is to replace our previous Chalkboard Art Gallery, which we are now using more for creative drawing, messages etc. The new display uses 3 Hanging Wire Picture Holders, which are of course a variation of the traditional ‘washing line’ display, using steel wire and clips, only this one uses a vertical wire, weighted at the bottom, with tiny strong magnets to hold the pieces of artwork in place. I love it’s flexibility – artwork can be changed or adjusted (slid up or down the cable) really easily, and you can have just one vertical display,…
Experimenting with Oil Pastels
There’s nothing quite like opening a new set of crayons and seeing them laid out all beautiful and pristine ready to use for the first time. I was offered some art materials to test out for Caran d’Ache, and was happy to do so, because although I don’t do a great number of reviews on Artful Adventures, nevertheless good quality free art materials never go amiss, and I genuinely thought I could turn it to use as a piece that would be of interest to readers. For some reason I was expecting pencil crayons to arrive, but what actually turned up was a set of Caran D’Ache Neopastel artists quality…
More Creative Scanner Papers
I thought I’d share a few more scanner papers that I created a little while back. As regular visitors may know, I love the simplicity and directness of scanner art, and think it’s a great way especially to make your own special wrapping paper for small gifts. I experimented with the following: Buttons Coins Feathers coloured matchsticks torn up pieces of tissue paper Confetti created from hole punches in different coloured paper Postage Stamps. I think next time I’m going to try using some old family photographs, and experiment with pieces of coloured wool, embroidery threads or string. In order to get the best…
Gorgeous Glue & Glitter Cards
This project is simple in the extreme – but for me the best projects are always those that provide fantastic results with the minimum of effort. To create these glitter notecards (they could equally well be bookmarks or gift tags, depending on how you cut them up) I used a stiff black card, which needs to be stiff enough to resist buckling when wet. You can of course use any colour card you wish, and I found that using the same colour glitter as the card base to create a white on white design for example or black on black looked especially stylish. While you could use glitter glue to…
Exploring Texture and Layers.
I’ve always loved the visual effect of torn layers – billboards layered with posters, one on top of another, some ripped back to expose older ones beneath, and I once looked after an old house which had layers and layers of ancient wallpapers – some dating back as far as the 18th century. For me, such layers are almost a metaphor for time, and I think I love not just the beauty of the visual effect but also the almost archaeological thrill of discovering what lies beneath, of peeling back the layers so that you get a glimpse revealed of something older, earlier, deeper. It also makes a…
Choosing the Perfect Sketch Book
Sketch books come in many sizes and shapes – the sheer choice out there can sometimes be bewildering, but at the end of the day, what is a sketchbook? At its simplest level, it’s just a plain paper book – so what’s all the fuss about, surely one sketch book is as good as the next? As a lifelong enthusiast for gorgeous sketchbooks, this is a subject on which I could write at length. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to do that here, since I suspect for anyone other than fellow enthusiasts it would be extremely boring, but I thought it might be helpful to outline some of the factors…
Exploring Positive and Negative Space
This project is another great way to use up some of the decorative painted papers that kids artwork produces. I’m accumulating an ever higher mountain of these – they are so beautiful I can’t bear to throw them away, so I’m always looking for ways to use them, in addition to their usual use as wrapping paper, which I don’t think I will ever need to buy again! The papers I used for this were those which we created using bubble or foam painting. Whenever I look at these I see pictures developing from them – rather like seeing pictures in flames, and I’ve never been quite sure how to…
Creating Thank You Cards with Kids Artwork
It’s that time again – time to make thank you cards for the Christmas presents the boys received, and get them sent off. I have to say it seems to take us longer and longer to do this every year – but I at least, feel guilty if it’s not done, and it’s not really something I can or should do for them. This year I persuaded my younger son to draw some pictures specially so that I could create some cards from them. This I thought might be easier than expecting them both to make a whole pile of cards, only for them to lose interest half way through,…
Decorative Foil Seals
These decorative seals use a simple sgraffito technique, similar to that used to make paste paper. They’re really easy to make and offer lots of opportunities for variations on a theme. If you make a batch up, they’re useful to keep on one side so that you can create simple emergency gift tags, cards, envelope/bag seals or embellishments for gifts at any time of year. Used in combination with scraps of ribbon, you won’t even need any decorated gift wrap – a plain brown wrapping paper or even newsprint will look equally effective. Kids can have a go at making them too. All you need to make these…
Vintage Christmas Wrap
I’m still here! Something terrible hasn’t happened, I’m not ill, and I haven’t got bored and decided to do something else. No the reason why I haven’t managed to write a post for 3 weeks, is simply because of Christmas. I was full of plans for projects and features here this Christmas – it’s such a fabulous time of year for children to be creative, but unfortunately they are all still lying around the house half finished 🙁 So in the meantime I thought I would offer up an early Christmas gift in the form of 3 sheets of original vintage Christmas wrap for you to print off. These come…
The Incredible Edible Art Gallery!
I’m not much of a baker and would certainly never make it to the Great British Bake-Off, but will often optimistically pin some of the ‘oh so simple’ looking baking projects on Pinterest, only to fail miserably in the execution. There are lots of inspiring iced cookies on there, so I thought I would have a go at making some of my own for the boys to decorate. After all, how difficult could it be?? Decorating biscuits is of course a ‘classic’ children’s activity, but this project takes the whole thing a few steps further on, to create a complete gallery of Masterpiece Cookies. I started off with a basic…
Create your own Paint Drip Pencil Pots
I’ve always appreciated the decorative potential of paint dribbles, and this project uses that most everyday of items – the tin can – along with translucent glass paints to provide pen/pencil/brush holders that have a painterly beauty all of their own. Because the glass paints are translucent, they allow the metallic sheen of the tin can to shine through, giving the colour a luminous enamelled effect. These are really simple to create. Having removed the original label from the can, I cleaned off the glue using white spirit, which polished up the can quite nicely, and then just painted a rim of colour around the top with a…
