How to Make Fall Leaves with Paint, Paper and Pastel

Here is a way you or the kids can make some Fall leaves to have on display in the house.



There are two methods, The darker leaves made with a pastel resist technique ( this photo does not give them justice they are much more colorful ), and the good old Coffee filter type.

I'll run you thru both....let's get started.


Materials needed: brown paper bags or package paper, pastels, dark brown tempera or acrylic paint, paintbrush, water, glue, a bare branch, scissors










First cut your paper bags or package paper into pieces. I cut mine about the size of 2 good sized leaves. I cut the paper into pieces so the kids can handle it better and don't get overwhelmed with trying to color in a big piece.

Next we get out the pastels in Fall

colors and start coloring. You want a fairly good coating of color, otherwise it won't show up under the paint.










Color all your pieces. We did about 6.






Now take your pastel colored paper and crumple it. You may have to do it a couple of times. You want lots of creases. Sometimes if your paper is really heavy it helps to dampen it slightly with water and then crumple. If you get a few holes that's OK it just adds to the look. You don't want alot of tearing though.

Flatten out your pieces of paper. Take your paint, you want a darker

shade of brown than the paper, and water it down a bit. We used acrylic because I like the intense color but you can easily use tempera as well.








Paint all your pieces and set them aside to dry.







When dry you want to cut out some leaf shapes. You could use a template for tracing if you wish. DLTK has a good one.










Put some glue on the back of the leaf where the stem would be and place on your bare branch.









You can use clothespins to hold the leaf in place until the glue dries.


When dry enjoy your new Fall decoration.





For the Coffee filter leaves you need the following:

coffee filters, washable markers in fall colors, glue, water, wax paper, paintbrush, scissors, bare branch




Take your coffee filters and color with markers. You don't have to be too thorough as the marker is going to saturate the filter in the next step. You can have white areas that's OK.









Take your white glue and pour a bit into a recycled marg. or yogurt container. Add some water, about a 1:1 ratio.

Place your colored filters on some wax paper and paint on the glue/water mixture. You'll find the colors start running together immediately. Coat completely and let dry.


















When dry cut out your leaf shapes and glue onto your bare branch like before. You can also cut leaves out of the wax paper you used. I found the marker seeped thru and it created a neat translucent effect.









A nice Fall display.






Incidentally, the boards we were working on for this project are the art boards I was describing in the last post. Truly indispensable, allow you to move your work while drying and protects your desk, kitchen table or where ever you craft.

see you later
gail

How to Paint Fall Trees

Here is a good Fall painting project you can do with your kids.



Crayola sent me a Fall art project to try, however when I looked at it (thru my how to teach this to 20 kids eyes) I was skeptical. The original directions called for you to do the tree first and then add sky and leaf color. I immediately thought MUD. As soon as the other colors hit the tree it would become muddy.



Here is my version, my kids did the test this afternoon and I think it will be a hit at school.





Let's get started.

Materials:

acrylic or tempera paint in Black and Fall colors, paintbrush,
paper (choose a heavy sketch pad paper, ie bristol with a little texture), a drinking straw,
newspaper to protect working surface, art shirt to protect little people's clothes
low tack masking tape (optional), gator or cardboard(optional)





Place a piece of paper on your work surface. If you want you can tape your paper onto a gator board or a piece of cardboard covered in wax paper.

At school we use Art Boards, I'll talk about them at the end of this post as I find them essential in a school setting.

We thinned down our acrylic paint to make it more like watercolor paint,( ie acrylic paint+water). Tempera will also work well but save your expensive watercolors for other projects.




Paint over entire surface with different Fall colors. We are trying to keep the colors somewhat separate. They can run together a bit but we don't want it to become one single mixed shade.


Let dry completely.








Take your black paint, (could also be ink ) and make it quite watery. Using your paintbrush or an eyedropper drop in some paint at the bottom. We wanted a strong trunk so the kids used the end of the straw like a brush and pulled the paint up a bit. You could also just use a paintbrush for this step.












Add more black paint where you want your branches to begin and blow the paint as far as you can. Try to get as many branches as you can. You can move your paper around if this makes it easier.






Keep blowing until you have the tree looking the way you want it to.

Let dry.

Remove tape if used and you have a great Fall Tree painting.




Finished Masterpieces


Allie, age 10
































Jeff, age 5








Ryan, age 8



ART BOARDS - at school I have the kids work on art boards. I go to Home Depot and get a full sheet of Masonite ( its what clipboards are made of ) cut into desktop size. One sheet will give you 12 boards. I don't give them the measurements they use their handy cutting machine to do that. When I tell them its for an elementary school they do all the cuts for free, got to love those guys at Home Depot.
It's not very expensive and these boards can be used for years. I then take duct tape and tape around all the edges to protect those little fingers. These boards also fit perfectly into those wire drying racks the school has. Art boards have saved me from endless desktop cleaning and they help support the work while it dries in the rack.
I'll be getting some done up this week so maybe I can post a picture of one.

see you later
gail

How to make a Mushroom Decoration for the Garden

I want to share with you how to make these Mushroom Sculptures. With all the cool rainy weather its been perfect weather for mushrooms, sprouting up all over the place. About 4 years ago I read about these mushrooms in Family Fun Magazine. They were supposed to be for the kids to play with but I decided to make them into garden decorations. Four years later and they are still holding up strong.

When I used to participate in Farmer's Markets they were always my biggest seller.

MATERIALS:

-set of stainless steel bowls, red spray paint (I used tractor paint and it has withstood 4 Canadian winters), white or cream colored acrylic paint, paintbrush, a good outdoor sealer (I use Decoart Duraclear Varnish in gloss) a drill, a nice log approx. 18-24 inches high (choose one with lots of good bark texture), some heavy duty screws 3 inches or so(don't use nails as they may split your log)

You want to first prepare your bowls for painting. Using Windex or Fantastik, clean the outside of the bowl. You can also handwash in hot soapy water. Sometimes they have an oily film on them and you want to degrease them. Next take some sandpaper and lightly rough them up, not a lot as you don't want the scratches to show thru the paint.

Take them outside and lay on some newspaper. Give them a good spray with your red tractor paint. I found mine in the hardware section of Wal mart. Let dry and then give them another coat. You don't want any drips so watch closely as you spray. While you have the spray paint out take the screws you plan on using a give the tops of them a quick spray.

When dry start painting spots directly onto the red paint. You want to vary the sizes . Let dry and give them an extra coat of paint ( or two).

Let the paint dry for a full 24hrs ( even if it feels dry it won't be cured, if you seal to early the paint may lift off on you ).

Paint a good coat of sealer on. Let dry and then do a second coat.

The next step is to make sure you log is level, you may have to cut the ends until it sits right.

Drill two holes in the center of the bowl, go slowly as you don't want to damage the paint. If you do damage the paint you can do a touch up once your mushroom is put together. Place bowl on log and mark where the two holes are.

Take off bowl and pre drill your holes in the log. Put the bowl on top of the log and line up the holes. Now take the screws you have painted and attach the bowl to the log. Try to get as tight as you can so it won't wobble. Do any paint touchups.

You now have some great mushrooms for the garden. They look especially nice in the fall with all those complimentary colors in the leaves. Make one or three or five. I have kept mine outside for four years thru all types of weather and they still look great!

Good luck mushroom hunting.

see you later

gail

How to Make a Paper Sunflower

The sunflowers are finally blooming, good thing as we came within a hairs width of having frost the last two nights. Oh well, that's life in Calgary. To keep us in sunflowers thru Sept. we have to make some paper ones. The kids were up for it so here we go.

Materials Needed:

- newspaper, coffee filters, glue,

thin cardboard (like a cereal box)

poppy seeds, twigs from the garden, felt

tempera paint, brushes, art shirt, wax paper

The first thing you have to do is paint your newspaper and/or coffee filters. We used liquid tempera paint. We tried watercolor but the color was too light.

Let dry. We left ours outside and it dried lickety split.

While the paint is drying, take your thin cardboard and trace out two circles. I used a small ice wine glass.

Cut them out.

Take one of the circles and use it as a template to cut out a circle of felt. Try to make it slightly larger than the cardboard one. Set aside.

Cover one of your cardboard circles with glue and sprinkle on some poppy seeds. Try to cover the whole area and press them down into the glue. Set aside to dry.

We tried dried beans for the center but they didn't look as good and they made the center too heavy. Lentils or sesame seeds might work to make a Sunflower with a different colored center.

Take your dry painted newspaper and/or coffee filters and cut into strips about 3-4 inches wide. Then using the accordion fold fold them up .

Cut thru all the layers. Cut a nice petal shape. You may need to do this several times to make enough petals.

Start gluing the petals onto the edge of the other cardboard circle. We alternated the painted side with the non painted side cause we liked how it looked. You could alternate with the painted filters or do one out of unpainted newspaper for a different look.

Keep gluing you need about 3 layers to get a nice full look.

When you have all the petals you want glued on put some glue in the middle and add your poppy seed center.

Let the glue set for a little while and then turn over and glue on your twig.

Glue on your felt circle. This will help get your twig attached to your flower.

Let dry and that's it. Make a bunch and you have a nice display.

see ya later

gail

How to do a Fall Glue Batik

My Blue Glue Batik tutorial seems to be my most popular post so I thought I would try to do new projects with this technique to inspire you.


Shortly after writing my tutorial I got worried. Micheal's had the Galactic glue on clearance, did this mean they were phasing it out, my precious blue glue aaggh.... I did what anyone else would do in this situation ....I bought all they had. I noticed though they had a new version. Elmers washable school glue in a no run gel. This had no glitter and I thought it might work.

I decided to give it a try for this project. I have to say THIS STUFF WORKS BETTER. Why you ask, first there's no glitter to clog up the opening. It also has a smaller opening to begin with so you can do very fine lines. The glue is thinner so it saturates the fabric quicker and the bottle is very easy to squeeze. Great for those little hands.

Anyhow here is my practice project with the new blue glue. I was going for trees in autumn. I think it will be the new fall batik project at school.

For a detailed step by step and how to use this technique please check out the Glue Batik tutorial link to the right of this page in my blog layout.

I'll show you the general steps I used for this project.





The first step is to pencil in your design. UPDATE: I now have kids draw with black chalk, it washes out better than pencil and it shows up after glue dries so the painting works out better.







Use the glue straight from the bottle to fill in the parts you want to resist the paint. Let dry.   Young kids can have difficulty squeezing the bottle so you can put some in small container and have them use a small paintbrush.









Start painting in color. I knew this was to be a wall hanging so I didn't dilute my acrylic craft paint quite so much. I also waited and let parts of the painting dry before layering on additional colors.

You do lose some of the vibrant color during the washing out of the fabric but that is just how it goes.









Wash out glue as directed in the previous tutorial, dry and you have your new design.


Give it a try a make a new Fall wall hanging or flag. Remember this technique is very kid friendly (preschool to adult).





see you soon.
gail




P.S. Thank-you crafty This and That for the award I just need some time to figure out how to post it and pass it on.