glittergoods

doing our part for the kindergarten economy

So, as part of their math unit on money, tomorrow the kindergartners are having a class "store," where they'll be given "money," allowed to spend it on various things (donated by parents), & then track their purchases in a "ledger." 

I decided to make clothespin doll kits, because I think that just about anything is more fun in a kit, also I had a big bag of clothespins sitting around.

I started by using acrylic paint to "stain" some of my clothespins brown.  I like those triangular makeup sponges for this:  wet the sponge, dip it in some brown paint, rub it on the clothespin, & then wipe off the extra.  You can also do this with a pretty wet paintbrush (brush on) & a paper towel (wipe off), but the sponges make it quick & easy.

Next, I drilled a 1/16" hole across the "shoulders" of the pin (perpendicular to the leg opening) for the pipecleaner arms to go through.  In the past, I've just used a regular old drill to do this, but this time I got out the new Dremel drill press that I haven't touched since my parents gave it to me at Christmas, & it worked like an extremely speedy charm.  (Yeah, I asked for it to help with various resin tasks, but instead I'm using it for yet more school projects.  Story of my life right now.)

The kits contain a clothespin, a 3" length of pipecleaner (bent around into a "hand" at one end), two scraps of fabric, a tuft of wool for hair, & a bead bracelet.  All stuff I had around, super easy to put together.  The only really time consuming part of this project came from my decision to make an illustrated set of directions (click here for a pdf version!)*.

These are going to be "big-ticket" items, priced way up at 99¢ (the top of the imaginary price range).  I think they'll sell well.

So then, caught up in the excitement of making tiny craft kits, I put together some bead stringing sets (34¢) & little bundles of wool for felting.  (Felting has now become an activity center during the kids' afternoon free time, but they don't get to take the wool home, so I thought that it would be fun for them to be able to buy their own bags of wool (57¢)).  I did end up picking up supplies from the craft store for the beading sets, but everything else came from stash, which in & of itself was a useful exercise, just looking around at my supplies & re-seeing them from a kid's perspective.  (Can you tell that I have a loooong summer with kids ahead of me?)

It's sort of like getting ready for a craft show.  With fake money, & the easiest-to-please crowd ever.  I can't wait!

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*When you open the pdf file, it looks like a blank page.  Scroll down & you'll see the instructions.  It's two-sided, folded in fourths for packaging, & I designed it so that the fold would be across the top of the cover illustration, so the top part of the first page is blank.

and the winner is! plus kindergarten felting!

My random number generator of an 8 year-old son has spoken, & abcgirl is the winner!  Thanks for all the comments, & thanks for the list of music to check out.  Lots of familiar names, but lots that are new to me, which promises some fun poking around on iTunes.

Around here?  My latest favorite album is Midnight Boom by The Kills, but I am also really liking Hideaway by The Weepies.  With the kids, Beauty & the Beat is in heavy rotation, also various Ramones songs, a B-52s greatest hits compilation, & Elizabeth Mitchell's You Are My Little Bird hasn't really faded away since we saw her last year.

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Today I had the task of mounting the flat felt pieces the kindergarteners made last week in the second of our two felting sessions.

I used the leftover adhesive photo mount squares from the auction project & stuck the felt to pieces of 8x8 cardstock.  Easier & quicker than glue, & the squares will hold the felt nicely behind glass & well enough for a piece that gets tossed in the bottom of someone's kindergarten art 08-09 box.  I used to use those squares quite a bit years ago when I was more into book & paper arts, but am finding them handy in all sorts of ways these days.  An excellent (& cheap!) rediscovery.

Anyway, it was fun to get the felt pieces home & really take a look at them.  This project was a little tricker for the kids than making beads & ropes (our first felting lesson, which I am just now realizing I completely didn't write about), but was perfectly manageable (we had around 25 kids, 4 adults, & 30 minutes to get things done.  This project requires enough dexterity that all 4 adults were kept very busy helping the whole time.).  We did plastic bag felting:  each kid laid out a wool background (two layers of wool strips, strips slightly overlapping on each layer, layers laid perpendicular to each other), added a design on top, then a grownup tucked the whole thing into a quart-sized freezer zipper bag, added some soapy water, & the kid proceeded to smash, squish, & scrunch the whole thing until felt magically appeared.

I essentially used the instructions from Kleas (complete with pictures!), but instead of pouring a bunch of water in & then squeezing it out into a towel, each of the adults had a big narrow-tipped squeeze bottle & we just squirted warm soaped-up water into each kid's ziploc for a count of 10.  We also bypassed the final step of shocking the felt with alternating hot/cold water, but for kindergarten purposes, it was totally fine to skip it.

My demo piece for the kids was a tree, which of course ended up showing up quite a bit in their own work.

 

This kid was very careful in all steps of the project, from wool layout (his pieces were nicely fluffy & loosely laid out, which makes it much easier for the wool to tangle together & felt up) to meticulous & patient smashing of his wool-filled baggie.  I think he probably got the smoothest, feltiest result.

 

However, I think I might love this kid's tree ON FIRE just a little bit more.

ok, then. also, 200th post giveaway!

Dear blog, I didn't think I'd be away for quite so long, but you know how it goes.

Auction:

Birthday:

Pizza night:

Birthday quilt for my mom:

Next design project for school:

...so I've been keeping busy enough.

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To celebrate this, my 200th post on this blog, I'm going to have a little giveaway (because, really, with all of my blog absenteeism, who knew I'd hit 200?  I'm so pleased!).

It's one of my modern patchwork pouches, complete with hand-printed loopy twill tape & a glitter zipper charm.  For a chance to win it, leave me a comment with your favorite current music -- album, artist, or song -- & I'll pick a winner on Monday.

Comments are now closed, thanks!

Silent Auction this Saturday!

This Saturday our silent auction, a free community event happening at the Ballard Community Center.

Procurement is not my gig (I'm the design end, see above), but I can tell you that our staging area is packed with cool stuff, including, well, stuff, but also gift certificates for local businesses, parties, lessons, exciting things to do, & much more.

I've donated the following handmade items:

A princess outfit for an 18" doll,

A pair of modern patchwork pillows,

 

A glitter + resin ring,

 

And, my favorite, the lap quilt that I made especially for the auction this year.  You might find yourself bidding against me for this one, I really do love it.

Hope to see you there!

Saturday by the numbers

1. Our silent auction (we split our event in two, I've probably mentioned, so when I am done with this one I am still not DONE) is one week from today, & while we have a LOT of tissue paper flowers:

 

we do not have ENOUGH.  I have helpful friends & some time yet, so I think we'll be ok, but I am generally ALL-CAPS about anything auction-related at this point.

2.  In preparation for finally being DONE, I am collecting a stack of new craft books.

I have some legitimate need (ok, "need") for the felting book (upcoming kindergarten project), & the crochet book (my girl has been learning finger crochet at school & is asking about hooks.  I am no crochet genius, plus, this book is clear, sweet, &  illustrated by Lena Corwin, so could not resist), but the fabric jewelry one was just pure impulse during a long dark moment of scouring Barnes & Noble for their single copy of You Can Draw Star Wars.  (I found it, sent it off to a skateboard birthday party (not ours) today; my son adores this book & it is our current favorite birthday gift for his crew.)  I haven't had time to read it yet, but it looks like it has some interesting ideas (for my girl more than for myself, I think), & I like Sherri Haab for technique if not always for aesthetic.  Anyway, just having it in the house is clearly having at least some effect on my creative lizard brain, because:

3. I was trying to work out a. how long it takes to make a decent felt snake & b. if it was more or less than the average 6 year old's attention span, so then I had these felt snakes & a little time on my hands last night.

 

Cute, right?  She's been wearing it all day, says "it doesn't even feel like anything," which is a high compliment when it comes to my miss fidget & jewelry.  So, thanks, cover photo of Felt, Fabric, & Fiber Jewelry, for the inspiration!

4.  Yesterday my girl asked me if we could make felt today.  Today, though, she had different priorities.

Because sometimes a girl really NEEDS a wedding-style flower fairy to add to her collection.  And her mother doesn't really mind too much taking a break for a fiddly little project before going back to a fiddly big project (see: absurd numbers of paper flowers, above.).

scratch foam block printing (plus a few bonus auction project tips)

Over the course of this school year, I've done two big block printing projects with my daughter's kindergarten class:  a "quilt" collage print using the letters of each child's name, & the "city" auction project that we recently finished.  We used scratch foam, thin styrofoam sheets designed specifically for printing, & although I am anxiously awaiting an eco-foam alternative to styro, in the meantime this stuff is pretty excellent for printing with kids too small for a linocut blade.

You need: 

• scratch foam (scroll down) or clean flat pieces cut from styrofoam food trays.  I bought a pack of 90 6x9 sheets for about $10 at the beginning of the school year, & since I cut the sheets down quite a bit, one pack lasted through two big projects in a class of 27 kids.
• a not-too-sharp pencil or a ballpoint pen (my favorite are the oversized Ticonderoga "Laddie" pencils)
• block-printing ink (use water-based with kids!):  Speedball is my favorite but Dick Blick brand works nicely too (it just seems to be stickier, can be harder to lay a smooth coat down).
• a brayer
• an ink tray or piece of glass or some other smooth rolling surface
• a baren (Speedball makes a nice basic one that you can also use for lino cuts; I used these bamboo barens with the kids) or a spoon or your fingers

Cut your foam down to the size you want (a paper cutter is ideal here, to get a nice straight edge on your image -- remember that the shape of your foam piece determines the shape of your image), & then use your pencil or ballpoint pen to draw your design.  You can't get a lot of detail with the foam, so simple designs work best.  Remember that any letters or numbers need to be written backwards to print properly. 

When working with kindergartners, I have them draw their image out on scrap paper first -- giving them a chance to practice & giving me a chance to make sure they are not adding too much small detail that won't print well -- & then draw it again on the foam.  You can also place the scrap paper drawing on top of the foam, trace it, & then trace it once more directly on the foam to deepen the lines enough, but I think that's best suited to older kids/adults who have more control over their pencils.

If you want your image to print clearly, you need to make your lines quite deep.  You can press fairly hard without poking through the back of the foam.

Roll out a small amount of ink until your brayer roller is coated.  Start with less than you think you'll need & add if necessary -- it's easier to add more ink than to deal with an over-inked brayer.  When I'm inking my brayer, I listen for a "sticky" sound.  If I'm not hearing anything & the brayer is sliding around on the plate (instead of rolling through the ink), I have too much ink.

Roll your brayer over your foam piece to ink it.  You are aiming for a smooth, thin, velvety-looking coat of ink.  I listen for the "sticky" sound here too.

This is what your inked plate should look like.  The image lines are clearly visible & white, meaning that 1. I drew them deep enough, & 2. I did not over-ink the foam.  If your lines are deep enough & you get some ink down in the grooves, you should be ok; just watch out for filling the grooves up with ink.  (If you over-ink, just pull a print on scrap paper & then take another look -- you may be just right, you may need to add a little more ink to hit the right amount.)

I like to make a test print at this point.  This lets me see if I need to go back over any of the lines to deepen them, & whether or not I need more or less ink on the foam.  With the kids this year, the test print was also a chance for them to feel how hard they needed to press/rub in order to pull a good print.

Turn the foam ink-side down onto your paper, & rub firmly with a baren, the back of a spoon, or your fingers.  Be sure not to let the foam slide around as you're rubbing.

Starting at one corner, peel back.  If you're careful with the foam, it can be rinsed & reused, so peel gently!

And, the big reveal!

These are the plates my daughter's class made for their city project.  It went swimmingly well, but I put quite a bit of prep into it beforehand.  The most important thing, I think, was that since I wanted various sizes AND various colors in the final piece, I figured out the print layout before I started the kids drawing, & I figured out the colors before we started printing.  We had a very clear idea of where we were going with it, & I didn't have a huge amount of stress when I was finally putting the finished project together. 

The kids each had an inspiration picture (a few local landmarks, a few trees, lots of houses & office buildings), & did a practice drawing of their building on a piece of butcher paper cut down to the size of the foam plate they'd receive before drawing on the foam itself.  They did their own inking & printing, & I was reminded of the thing I'd discovered last fall, which is that even kids who don't much like drawing, or who struggle with fine motor control, or are sort of bored by art, are pretty enchanted by the way you can smear ink on something (with a TOOL), press it down (with another TOOL), & then when you're done, it's your drawing that you made but somehow SO MUCH COOLER.

I mounted all the prints on a 2-ply museum board using some fancy acid-free dry mount something or other (my recommendation here?  Skip the art store & go straight to the scrapbooking section at Michael's), had the mat recut, & we were good to go. 

Much, much, better than last year.

ready for spring, maybe

I love our funny little Easter Egg dyeing ritual, which involves me putting the whole thing off until the last possible second (crammed in between art class & birthday party on Saturday), & the kids being SO EXCITED for about ten minutes, after which they wander off to play with something or other more interesting (Star Wars figures), & then there's always some sort of weakly disappointing coda in which we try to apply whatever newfangled situation came along with the Paas set this year (egg tattoos), & always fail partly because we are all impatient but mostly because, well, it's a $2.99 Paas set, quality not improved for being half off for the last minute shoppers.

On the other hand, I do love the colors that plain old Paas gives to brown eggs (I choose the super-extra-bright prep method), & I am always pleased that the kids get bored before they can make them too fancy.  I prefer the raffishly shoddy look.  Our eggs would be slouching in the back of the class, black-clad & disreputable.

I also love the one perfect cherry tree day when it's in full, fat, blossom.  It already doesn't look like this anymore.

And this, I love this.  The kids did a fantastic job with their printing, & I think it will do well at the auction.  My favorite part is all the smudgy little fingerprints around the edge of each piece.

.....

Thank you all so much for your sweet comments about my sweet old cat.  Really, I mean it.

the Late Great China Bean

Dear Blog,

I have no plans to drop off the face of the internet again anytime soon, but it's been a rough week & I'm not feeling so chatty.

Lately, we are a stressed-out household, busy wrangling various important deadlines & hoping that someday soon one or the other of us will not be sneakily working through "family movie night," & then on Tuesday we got the not-unexpected but still crushing news that the time had come to put our sweet old bean of a cat to sleep.

She was almost seventeen, had a lovely life until she started quickly declining these last few months, & I am grateful to feel sure that we made the best choice for her. (Local folks, I cannot recommend the Cat Clinic of Seattle highly enough for the care they gave her over the years & the support they gave all of us at the end.)  I still miss her, though.  (The children, on the other hand, are already asking for kittens.  This is less cold-hearted than it sounds, since China predated them by quite a few years & was almost completely disinterested in even being in the same room with them, ever.)

Anyway, I do have some things to share: a final picture of the kindergarten auction project + a little tutorial about the kind of printing we did; instructions for a cute girl-sized kerchief; some more PMC work, some more quilting, things like that.

But, next week, I think.

quilt, glitter

I realized yesterday that I forgot to photograph the back of the auction quilt, thus:

It was an interesting back to put together, not because there's anything particularly interesting about it, but because I'd picked up that aqua/brown dot on sale & thought yes!  this will be just right! -- forgetting that the reason that I do not have any of that particular line of dots (I think it's Michael Miller Dumb Dots) in my fairly serious polka dot collection is that I actually find it to be...mildly grating in some way, like the dots are a little too large or a little too regularly spaced or a little too obvious or something.  Whatever, I mean, clearly I think way too much about the specific scale & placement of polka dots; the point is that I quickly had buyer's remorse about the fabric, but sternly forced myself to use it anyway, & I think that in the end 1. it works pretty well, & 2. there's that much less fabric hanging around my overstuffed sewing space, so hurrah me.

Although really what I think is that denim chambray is a genius quilt backing & it can make anything look better.  It is on its way to becoming the linen/cotton &/or Kona sage of my quilt backing scene.  Also:  60" wide, makes my life much easier.

Ok, enough about the quilt. 

I have been thinking about  PMC (fine silver clay) for probably three years now, & finally took a class a couple of weeks ago. I've had this idea that the clay could give me some excellent flexibility in building chunkier settings for my glitter + resin.  So far, so good.  (Am taking a PMC ring class in a couple of weeks, very excited.)

happy trails, plus cake.

In a very welcome break from everything, today we went to a birthday party for one of my daughter's best old friends.  Who is a tiny little horse nut.

So there was some riding.

And some wee goats.

Tired?  Frozen?  Filthy?  Bring on the cake!

I made a horsey mini Mail Sack for the mini horse nut.*

With a mini horse tucked inside.

*I really like this pattern.  And, yes, I am thoroughly stuck on the auction quilt colors.