Art Week Part 4: Trash to Treasure

Some of the best art supplies come from the trash or recycle bin! Give your kids some duct tape, screws, nuts, glue - whatever and let them have at the trash/recycle pile!

Kandinsky art by No Time for Flashcards

Love the color wheel from Little Illuminations

Robots from Spoonful

Some fun recycled art from maureencrosbie on Flickr

and I love Modern Parents Messy Kids recycled art roundup

Art Week Part 3: Art Lessons

My friends over at Classic Play have an awesome collection of art lessons on their blog. A great resource if you're looking for ideas! Some of our favorites are

Modern sculpture with tin foil (tin foil is a great item to bring on a road trip!)

Wire scuplture

Kandinsky Kids

Art in Motion

Art Week Part 2: Air-Blown Art

My son saw me doing this one day and instantly wanted to try. It's become one of his favorite ways to paint. It makes a great wrapping paper or personalized birthday card without much effort!

You'll need water colors, a paint brush, water, paper and a straw. I like to do this project in a box to contain some of the mess. The longer they paint the messier (and more fun) this project gets.

Load up your brush and water color of choice with water (a bit more than you usually would which isn't hard for kids to do)

Let the color drip onto your page

Using your straw blow the paint around the page - the more water your paint has, the bigger the drop, and the farther the paint will go.

Repeat until your masterpiece is finished.

That's it! Easy, messy and fun!

For those that asked the watercolors we used are Artist Loft from Michaels they are actually good quality and fairly inexpensive (I used a coupon)!

Art Week Part 1

Welcome to art week! We have the day off today so I thought I'd bring back a reader fav from Build/Make/Craft/Bake - Hammer Some Art

I found this Hammered Flower and Leaf Print tutorial on their site a while back and it has been a big hit with many of you!

The short version is gather flowers/leaves (on a nature walk?) spread them out on textured paper (like watercolor paper) and cover with a paper towel.

Hammer away!

Peel Off

And you're left with a fun natural print!

Visit Build/Make/Craft/Bake for the full tutorial. I'd love to hear if any of you have tried this yet!

Celebrate Spring with Crayola - Giveaway

Crayola is probably one of the first brands I ever loved. I STILL love the smell and usually have my own fresh box for coloring (don't tell the boys). They wanted to celebrate spring with you and get some Easter basket ideas from Crayola lovers.

They sent us some fun Crayola products and asked us to make up a fun Easter basket with them. Here's what we came up with

--------------> CLICK HERE TO READ MORE and enter to win your own Crayola goodies

Personalized Stationery - Quick Giveaway

PERSONALIZED STATIONERY

When I was a kid (heck right now) I LOVED anything personalized. My boys don't have as common a name as me so it's not often they find their names on the "already personalized" items so getting something personalized is extra special for them! My friend Erica Hernandez is a talented designer who made up this fun/stylish personalized stationery set in her Etsy Shop

You can print out as many as you like and she even has a tutorial on her blog on how to make it into a glue top notepad!

So whether you are making gifts for each other this year or just want a personalized stocking stuffer - these are PERFECT! They are only $5 but Erica is giving one away to one of you today! This is a quick giveaway so you have time to print them out or have them printed for the holidays.

Just leave a comment below to be entered! I'll pick a winner tomorrow! 

GIVEAWAY ENDED

and the winner is...

#25 LIZ! Congrats Liz! I'll be emailing you!

Terms: Comments close at 11:59am 12/20/12 MST One winner will recieve a personalized PDF file - no physical items will be received. Value $5. If winner is unable to be reached another will be chosen.

Speaking of notepads I've been keeping an eye out for some great DIY art kits for my 8 year old art lover here are some I've found!

From Balzer Designs

From Everyday is a Holiday

From Playing House

I'm eyeing some already made sets and that's what I may end up with but I love the thought of one put together like these.

Free Printable Coloring Page - Ooh Moon

I've shared the gorgeous artwork from Katie at Ooh Moon before but I JUST saw this gorgeous stegosauras coloring page I had to share. I'm not normally wowed by kids coloring pages but this just deserved a share!

I missed the first 2 for free but you can grab this one today. She offers up amazing artwork for free each day.

Thank you again Katie for sharing your gift with us! I think I'll be coloring a dinosaur later today :)