Funky Pendants

What is not to love about these sweet little tiles of artwork that we made into pendants for necklaces and bracelets.

First, I have to mention that every now and then you have a student that on their own free will makes something for you (the teacher). A brother and sister made this bracelet for me and I happily have been wearing it all weekend! So sweet. Very special.



So, Shrinky Dinks pendants were not my original plan. I was going to use cardboard and other items but I got Shinky Dinks paper for my boys at home and thought, this is way more awesome. I have to do this instead and I am glad I did. Old and young had a great time Saturday at the OKCMOA creating these beautiful pendants. Of course the second best part was watching the entire process. Magic!

At home my boys and I started with making little tiles. Here are a few.







This is when I had the epiphany that these had to be made into pendants and that is exactly what I did.



This is the supply table. I talked about how artists and designers need a plan before beginning a project. We used scrap paper to draw our designs first. I pre-cut the Shinky Dink paper into little 2.5 inch by 2.5 inch squares using my Fiskers sliding blade paper cutter.

With a plan in mind students can now either trace by placing the Shrink paper over their designs or freehand it. They use color pencils to fill in their work. Now we use a regular hole punch. One punch for a pendant, two punches for a bracelet. They can trim their work slightly with scissors. Now they give the pieces to me to put in the oven.



I used my toaster oven. I taped off an area on the floor around it and called it the Hot Zone. This way when I opened the oven I could tell the kids to keep behind the red line. I find a visual is always better than just saying, "keep back!" Keep back to where? This lets them know 100%. Behind the red line.

Inside the oven exciting things happened! Curling and wiggling our little pieces shrank before our very eyes!



Our pieces only took about 2 minutes at 350. They are pulled out when the plastic has completely uncurled and layed back flat.


These beauties are cooling off. They take about a minute to be completely cool to touch.

Now we use cord to thread our pendants, add a few beads and voila! SO MUCH FUN!





You will need:
-Shrinking Plastic (I used Shrinky Dinks Brand)
-colored pencils (Prismacolors work best for vibrant pieces)
-Hole Punch
-Scissors
-Cord
-Pony Beads
-Oven or toaster oven

**Always follow directions for the paper you buy.

Weaving Paintings

I led drop-in art at the OKCMOA this weekend and we had a great time exploring warm and cool colors with watercolors and weaving.

First I gave each student two pieces of watercolor paper. I explained warm colors and cool colors and we looked at examples on the board. Now we get started painting.

We used our yellow, red and orange watercolors to completely cover our first piece of paper.




Then we filled our second sheet of paper with cool colors. Our paint was blue, purple and green.





We used salt and paper towels to add fun effects to our papers while they were wet.

We used a hairdryer to speed up the drying process and then worked on cutting our papers to prepare them for weaving.

Looking at your paper vertical, or portrait style, bring the bottom of the paper to the top making one fold. We made our cuts from the folded end almost to the top of the paper. You do not want to cut all the way through the paper.



You can make straight cuts, wavy cuts, zig-zag, etc.

Now we cut the second sheet of painted paper into strips. You want the strips to be as long as your loom paper so looking at your paper vertically make horizontal cuts creating strips for weaving.



With our paper vertical we weave our strips of paper going over and under our loom paper. The second strip will go opposite of what you did the first time. If your first strip began on the top, your second will start on bottom. As you move along the paper will take on a checkerboard effect.



To finish we mounted our papers horizontal on construction paper that was a little bit bigger than our weavings creating a mat for our piece. I laid out a lot of colors so the kids could see how putting their piece on different colors could really change the overall look of their piece. This was so much fun, here are some of our finished creations!

You will need:
-Student grade watercolor paper
-Watercolors
-Brushes and washout bowls
-Scissors
-Gluesticks
-Salt and textured paper towels (optional)
-Hairdryer for speed dry (optional)

Recycled Gardens

What better way to greet Spring than with a beautiful garden? Look close at the papers and you will see we used cardboard food boxes, straws and lids to create a fun flower filled garden.





We started by talking about what we might find in a garden. Ground, flowers, fences, bugs and more. Then we took a look at our supplies. The children were excited to find cheerios and spongebob boxes. They were surprised we were using these instead of paper.



I admit, I am a craft supply hoarder. I save all our bright colored food boxes. I just fold them up and put them in a file. I also save lids. The straws are actually new, I didn't recycle used straws! I just thought it was a fun element to include.

Now the kids get busy. They created beautiful and thoughtful works!





You will need:
-Cardboard food boxes
-Blue construction paper
-Glue sticks and Elmer's glue
-Scissors
-Straws and lids

Some of the work we created: