Cupcake Collage

I have been creating all sorts of cakes recently with children at the OKCMOA to celebrate the new exhibition, Poodles & Pastries (and other important matters): New Paintings by Franco Mondini-Ruiz. We are taking inspiration from his paintings and sculptures to create our own unique works using different mediums.

Yesterday we focused on collages in a class for 3-5 year olds and in Drop-in Art where children of all ages come to create.

In the class we talked about sweet treats, especially cupcakes! We visited the gallery to view the new works and read the book, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff.

We shared our favorite paintings and talked about our favorite type of cupcakes.With all of this information in mind we headed back to the classroom to cut, tear and glue our own cupcake creations.

We went over our steps but I have reminders on the board.



Supplies are ready to go:


Tables were supplied with baskets full of scrap paper, tissue paper, sequins, hole punches, glue sticks, yarn, scissors, background paper, 3 pre-cut cupcake bottoms and 3 icing tops. I explained that the tops for the icing could be covered and decorated or used as a template to trace on scrap paper and then the scrap paper could be cut out and used.

The children were instructed to decorate all 3 cupcakes differently. I think we succeeded! So much fun!

First ground our cupcakes with a semi circle. Then glue cupcake bottoms:



Now we start to top our cupcakes and decorate our papers!





You will need:
-9x12 heavy paper for background (we used tagboard)
-Various scrapbook papers
- Brown cardstock for cupcake bottoms (I pre-cut)
-White cardstock for icing tops  (I pre-cut)
-Tissue paper
-Scissors
-Hole punches
-Glue Sticks
-Yarns, sequins,other embellishments

Here are some of our finished creations! Are you hungry yet? :)

Tabletop Puppet Show

So, the favorite project from my Elmer's Kid's Craft Camp were the tabletop puppet shows. The kids really enjoyed making these fun little people all put behind a little theater that sits on the table in front of the performer.

We started with our Elmer's Bi-Fold Foam core board. I used my X-Acto to precut a square opening on the prefolded side of the board.



This should be done by an adult or with adult supervision as those blades are way sharp and I have cut my own fingers on them several times!

Now with each each of our theaters being cut and ready we use our X-Acto scallop and zig-zag scissors to cut and use our Elmer's Craft Bond sticks to glue down different papers. We do not paper over the pre-cut fold on the board because we need that to fold back when we are finished.





To add a little sparkle to our theater we use the most awesome pens- the CraftBond Gel Pens to write and color. Then we use a few dots of Elmer's glue and add various sequins. These are set aside to dry while we create little paper puppets.



We used our gel pens again to draw our characters. We used different colors of cardstock and glued them together with the Craftbond Glue dots and Tape. We attached a little craft stick to the bottom of each character and finished with some Elmer's 3D Glittle glue. Oh yeah, who doesn't love glitter glue!?





When everything was dry we turned our theater over and used the CraftBond Tape to attach fabric to the back. I recycled and used some of the packaging material Elmer's sent to me but you can use whatever fabric you have on hand!



Now set your theater up on the table and get ready for the show! So much fun!

You will need:
For Puppet Theater:
-Elmer's Bi-Fold foam core board
-X-Acto blade
-X-Acto Scallop and zigzag scissors
-Papers
-Craftbond gel pens
-Elmer's Glue dots, Craftbond glue sticks, tape
-Sequins optional

For characters:
-CraftBond Gel Pens
-Scissors
-Craft Papers
-Glue Sticks
-CraftBond Glue Dots and tape
-Craft Sticks

Gears!

This is the lesson plan for a class I was going to teach this weekend but I am doing a mud run and thankfully got another instructor to cover the class for me (Thanks Ms. Amanda!!) The kids love her and I am sure she will add her own creative touch to this class.

Why gears? Well the OKCMOA has an incredible exhibit right now that you might have seen traveling through your town, 1934: A New Deal For Artists. The first part of the exhibit is about industry and what better way to talk about industry than machines and gears!

Gears are fun, they make a lot of things go, just have your kids look at some of their toys. I found some books at our library and this great video.



The first step was some prep work. I actually traced circles of different sizes for each student as they are 3-5 years old. Your students and children can freehand circles or use a template like I did.

Now we cut our circles out. To give our gears teeth we make an even number of little cuts around the circle.
Now we fold back every other tooth.



Set gears aside and prepare background. First we use oil pastels.



Then use a watercolor wash to fill our paper.



Now we use our glue stick to cover the back of our gears and press and hold. You need to use quite a bit of glue and press and hold, hold, hold. I usually tell kids to press, hold and count to five.



Arrange gears over paper and we trimmed a small strip from each side of our final work. We glued down our big piece down on black paper and finished by gluing the strips around the piece with a little space left between the piece and the strips.



That's it! Wish me luck that I don't break a leg at the race! And please don't forget to enter the

Elmer's Giveaway!

For this project you will need:
-Colored cardstock
-White constuction paper
-Black paper for mounting
-Pencils to draw/trace circles
-Glue/gluesticks
-Scissors
-Oil pastels
-Watercolors

My Hero and Me

It has been a really busy summer here. My boys are out of school and we are in a million directions. I am also teaching a little bit at the OKCMOA over the summer and will be doing some outreach programs. I had a wonderful experience last week through the museum and that was working with children through Hearts for Hearing. They had a camp where campers got to experience many of the cool things downtown OKC has to offer. Their theme was heroes and when they asked me to come up with a project idea I had the perfect thing come to mind.

I actually saw this project done as My Teddy Bear and Me. It was a magazine collage with tempera paint project. I really wish I could remember who did this, if you know please post and I will link. I changed it up a bit but loved the idea! The kids did an excellent job as you can see through the works they completed! These kiddos rocked and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to meet all of them and work with them. Thank you Hearts for Hearing!

We talked about heroes and named some that are in our lives. They gave me the names of various people, their parents, family, teachers, doctors and more. They had to pick one to get started.

Workstations are prepped and ready to go.



First we used oil pastels to draw our hero on 10x8 paper. We used a heavy white construction paper. We added details and used a watercolor wash over the top. Set these aside to dry. You can use a hairdryer to speed the process along if needed.





Now we get started on our self portrait. We start by tracing our hand on a piece of construction paper that has been folded in half. When cut this will give us two hands.



Now we cut our head and begin with details like eyes, nose, mouth and hair. I had pre-cut shoulders and paper strips for arms.





Assemble self portrait on 12x18 construction paper. Use glue/gluesticks to attach. Arm strips are placed in an upside down "v" and hands are glued to the ends. (that "v" is covered by the hero painting later) When painting is dry it is glued on a piece of 12x9 construction paper to frame it. That is glued on bottom half of portrait. Arms are brought up and fingertips are glued to the painting to "hold" it.

These turned out amazing. I am going to post a ton of pictures. I can't resist sharing the wonderful work they did!

You will need:
-10x8 white construction paper for painting
-Pacon Multi-cultural paper for skintones
-18x12 colored construction paper for background
-12x9 colored construction paper for framing painting
-colored construction paper for body, arms, portrait
-Scissors
-Glue/Gluesticks
-Oil Pastels
-Watercolors/brushes/washout bowl
-Pencil for tracing hands