Art – Page 16 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Owl Art

So, I saw an idea shared by one of my favorite bloggers for these adorable (and perfect) owls. And I decided to make our own project – to make our family… and let it be more of a “free” design. I just cut ovals by hand – no pre-design – and let Becca do all the gluing (a BIG step for me since, as you know, I’m somewhat of a neat freak… and so is she!). I put glue on a paper plate, and she used a throw-away foam brush to spread it. Worked great! Then we used fake leaves from a package b/c let’s face it – in South Texas, our leaves don’t turn until November, and I wanted to do this project now!

To be perfectly honest, these owls sat about 2/3 finished on our counter for almost a week. B/c that’s just how we roll when Mommy is living every day in constant pain from RA. Some days I have patience for art projects, and some days I just don’t. But now they are done, and hanging on our wall, and they are just absolutely adorable! Becca helped color the background paper and told me what names to write by each owl. I love her interaction with every step of the process, and they were certainly super fun.

To make your own, you’ll need:
cardstock ovals for the owl bodies
paper to go behind the eyes
google eyes
leaves
paper for the noses and feet
glue
and a large sheet of butcher paper if you are going to hang them on a display picture like we did.

Halloween Rice Sensory Play

Back when I colored a bunch of rice (see that post here), I made both orange and purple rice. Today I only gave her the orange rice, a few pumpkins, a spoon, scoop, some cups, and this pumpkin ice cube tray I found at Dollar Tree. She had so much fun stirring the rice and transferring it to the tray. I’m hoping to have time to make some additional items to go with this activity before Halloween. When I do, I’ll update and repost this. The long-term plan is for her to have the orange and purple rice mixed together. 🙂

Clean up tip: If you’ll put your plastic table cloth with the fabric side up, the rice doesn’t bounce or roll off of the table cloth. 🙂

Total Prep Time for Mommy: Because I already had the rice colored, this took about two minutes (or less) to throw together.

Total Play Time for Becca: About 15 minutes. I’ve noticed the past few days that her attention span for activities has been shorter and shorter. But, it took very little time to set up, or clean up, so it’s all good.

Leaf Art

Well, as you know, I’m not Jean… but I am trying to become a more art-loving parent! So, when we went to the library and the story time activity was to go outside and collect leaves, I decided to bring them home and do something with them!! I made the poster, then gave her the bag of leaves and a sheet of contact paper to stick them on. She loved putting them on the sticky paper, and then was so excited to see her leaves on her poster! We also put the leaves under some copy paper and did rubbings of them. It was a super fun art time!

Here’s a view of our art wall, which I’m really striving to keep new art rotating through more regularly! Becca LOVES seeing her art displayed on the wall, and is so proud when we hang up new things! I need to come up with a really good way to keep the stuff we take down off of the wall…

This is the text “picture” that anchors the wall. Found this quote and fell in love with it. We just very simply attached a cable to the wall behind the picture, and anchored it at both ends with nails. Then I can clip art of various sizes easily.

Autumn Sensory Bin

In continuation of our week of autumn, here’s what I threw together for Becca this week: dry beans, old popcorn kernels, foam leaf stickers (I peeled the backs off and stuck them together), play pumpkins from Dollar tree, and flat toothpicks. Of course I also gave her her favorite scoop, and a little bowl as well. She really doesn’t like the toothpicks at all. So I keep presenting them in different ways so that she’ll have the textural experience. She likes the pumpkins and the leaves and digging her hands in the beans. At one point, she started sorting the corn kernels from the beans. Ever the OCD… not too fond of things mixed together. HA! She also asked for a tray to assist in her sorting.

Total Prep Time for Mommy: five minutes just to throw it all together

Total Play Time for Becca: she didn’t play at this one as long – only about 10 minutes. I think when I give it to her today, I’m going to help her pull out the toothpicks… and then I bet she’ll play with it for much longer. Those durn toothpicks!

Orange/Pumpkin Scented Playdough

I love making play dough, I really do. But it’s been a LONG time since I had made any because I really need stuff I can throw together quick, and I’m not really willing to dedicate 20 minutes of my time just to making something I’m gonna throw away in two weeks. But, with all the fun play dough options out there, I wanted to try my hand at modifying my favorite recipe, to see if I could make something fun for fall. And wow, was it a success!! I had to remind Becca that we don’t eat the play dough, we just smell it and look at it and feel it.

Here she is smelling it – she did this several times – it really does smell GOOD, ya’ll. (A great conversation about our 5 senses followed – and she informed me that we can hear it too – we can hold it to our ears and squeeze it!) I gave her some fall shaped cookie cutters to play with, and she loved them! She kept calling the turkey a chicken, but we can work on bird recognition later. 🙂

So, here’s how you make your very own pumpkin play dough:

It works best in an electric skillet, but can be done on the stovetop in a non-stick pan. I recommend using a wooden spoon for mixing, but that’s not required. Bring to a boil: 1 1/4 cup water and an overflowing Tbsp + an overflowing tsp of vegetable oil

Meanwhile, mix in a bowl (child can help if you feel like also having a math lesson!): 1 cup flour, a little less than 1/2 cup table salt, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, and 2 packets of orange Kool-aid.

Turn the heat off on water/oil after it’s boiled hard. Dump in the dry ingredients, and stir well until dough forms. Use the spoon to lump dough together in the center, allow to cool for about ten minutes, then place in freezer bag or sealed plastic container. Condensation will form- this is good, and helps the play dough stay moist.

Note: If your dough isn’t very moist, but rather grainy, you have too much salt and/or not enough oil.

I highly recommend thorough hand washing when done, and then using hand lotion- the salt in the dough can really dry your skin, and the cinnamon and nutmeg can cause super sensitive skin (like Becca’s) to turn a bit pink. The dough should be kept in a sealed container when not in use, and will stay fresh for about two weeks.

Enjoy the scents of fall in your kitchen!

Total Prep Time for Mommy: about 20-25 minutes

Total Play Time for Becca: on first use, about 30 minutes, but I know she’ll use it every day for the two weeks til I have to throw it away and make some more. Maybe I’ll try apple scented play dough then… hmmm…