How to make Christmas Bird Ornaments

I wanted to make some clay birds with the kids. I had envisioned a tree branch with some realistic looking birds by the front door for a nice November display. It was only after we started painting them that I realized how nice these would look on the Christmas tree. So we plan on making quite a few of them in the days to come.

Here's the how to:


Materials required:

air dry clay ( I get mine from Michael's, it costs about $10.00 a package but don't let that put you off, this single block will probably make 24 birds and if you use your 40% off coupon it is very economical )
foil
wire or pipe cleaners
a knitting needle, skewer or nail
toothpicks
wax paper
reference book if required
water
paint and sealer




Take a piece of foil, about 12"x12" and crumple into a ball.




Crumple up as many foil balls as you want birds. We are using the foil to form the inside of our bird. This makes our birds more lightweight, they dry or cure faster, and it makes your clay go further.





Take a lump of clay about half the size of your palm and knead it a bit. You'll find the air dry clay a bit hard at first but it gets softer as you manipulate it.


We are working on wax paper.





Flatten your clay out like a pancake. Place your foil ball inside and form the clay around it.


Have some water sitting by and wet your fingers. Use the water to help seal the clay together.




Once your foil ball is covered start to pull the clay out from the ball shape to form the bird's head and tail.




You want to keep a rounded belly on your bird. If you find the foil is starting to show thru you have pulled too much clay away from your center. Try to re shape or add a bit more clay to your bird. Again use some water to help blend it together.



When you have formed your head and tail take a toothpick to define your eyes. We just made an indentation where the eye would be forming the brow. You will be painting in your eye so you don't need to make a hole to represent the eye.





We also used the toothpick to define where the wings are.

I like having the birds perched in the tree. If you want your birds to sit in your tree turn your bird over and use a knitting needle or nail to make two holes where the feet would be.

If you want to hang your birds like an ornament make a hole in the back of the bird.


Now you need to let your air dry clay dry or cure. It will take about 48 hrs. Be sure to turn your birds every 12 hrs. or so. You want all sides to get exposed to the air. You will be able to tell your bird is curing as it will get warmer as it dries. If its ice cold it still needs to dry a bit. It should be just a little cooler than room temp.






Now you can paint. Use a reference book if you like. We used acrylic craft paint. The clay accepts the paint really well. You can be as detailed or simple as you like. For the Christmas ornaments we use a little glitter for some sparkle.






Seal with a good sealer. I prefer dura clear.



Let dry. I stuck mine on a skewer to dry.





When your birds are dry you need to add your wire. For perching birds put a little tacky glue in the holes and insert wire or pipe cleaners. You need each wire to be about 2 inches or so.


For hanging birds form a little loop with your wire or pipe cleaner. Put some glue in the hole and insert the end of the loop. Let dry. Use ribbon or fishing line and thread a length thru the loop.

Place in your tree and enjoy.

See you next time.

gail

How to Make Accordion Books

As many of you parents know there is some great artwork in children's books. It can be very inspiring to your little ones.

So it is no surprise that kids are often quite eager to create their own stories with accompanying illustrations.

A traditional book style can be a bit overwhelming...so many pages...so many pictures to create. I find using an accordion style much easier.

An added advantage is that your child can see the progression of the story in one view.

Please feel free to click on the photos for a closer view.




Here is a book I created with my own kids. We were talking about winter coming and what changes that brings about. Living close to the Canadian Rockies, this led to talking about Bears and hibernation. It resulted in this book.

Accordion books are very easy to make. The hardest part is usually finding a piece of paper long enough to fold into the book. I used to try and piece it together but now I use a roll of Kraft paper or packaging paper. It's easy to find at the dollar store or Post office and you can roll out however long a piece you want.
















Materials Required:

kraft of packaging paper (even a large paperbag opened up and cut to get the longest piece you can from it)

thin cardboard (like from a cereal box)
scissors
glue
ruler
pencil
string
buttons
needle and thread





Measure your paper to get the size of book you want. Cut a long strip for the accordion folds, decide how many pages you want and divide the total length by that number. This will tell you where to place your folds. Measure with the ruler and place a mark where each page fold should be.
Make all your folds.




To make this more like a book we will give it a front and back cover. Place your folded paper on the thin cardboard and trace out the size you need. You will need 2 pieces.


Cut these out.




Pick one of the cardboard pieces to be the front cover. Sew two buttons near the edge on one side. I used a big needle to push thru the cardboard. You want your buttons near the center of the edge.





You will need to make a shank on both these buttons. After you have made a few passes with the needle and thread poke your needle up thru the cardboard but not the button, have it come out on the side .



Wrap the thread around the stitches you have sewn and then back thru the cardboard.


This causes the button to rise up a little from the cardboard so we can wrap our string around it in the finished book.

Knot off and repeat with second button.

In these photos I had glued the cover on too soon. I then had to figure out how to conceal my knots. If you do the sewing first you can hide your knots.













We are now going to attach our front cover. Put some glue all over the thin cardboard on the printed side. I used tacky glue. I found a glue stick was just not strong enough for the book.

Take your folded accordion paper and place in front of you like a closed book with the first page opening on the right. Place the glued cardboard directly on top of this page. You want the buttons to be on the right side. Align your edges as best you can. You can always trim the cover after the glue dries. Your knots from your stitching should sandwiched between the cardboard and paper




Take your book and turn it over. Open the first page ( which is actually the last page of the book). Set aside.

Before gluing on the cardboard take a 12 inch piece of string. Make a loop and knot it. This will be the string that holds the book closed.




Put your glue on the second piece of thin cardboard. In the picture I did it the opposite way with the glue on the paper, glue on the cardboard seems to work better.
Sandwich your string loop between the paper and the cardboard. You are gluing the cardboard to the inside of that first page on the left side. If you opened up your accordion book fully, the cardboard would be on the backside of the first page and on the backside of the last.

In the Bear book I glued my back cover on the wrong side, that is why the string is sticking out between the last 2 pages. It's a little awkward like that so put it on the other side.





You should now have a book with a front and back cover that you can close by winding the string around the buttons.




Now you can create your story. Figure out what you want to say and what pictures you want to go with it.



You can open it up fully in front of you to paint, color and illustrate.








You can add some extra embellishments if you want. Here we made a little 3D mini book for the bear.






These make wonderful keepsakes and presents for the grandparents.




later

gail

How to make a City Skyline - Art Project

Here is a great art project for November. With no more daylight savings time our evenings are getting darker and our night skylines become more prominent.

We will be recreating this skyline using a few different techniques. AS ALWAYS YOU CAN CLICK ON THE PHOTO FOR A CLOSER LOOK. I usually start off this project by showing the kids some famous skylines. We talk a bit about architecture and how different places in the world will have very different skylines.

This project gives you a lot of flexibility. Skylines can be tied to geography as well as different periods in history. A roman era skyline would be quite different from a modern Paris one for instance.

Materials Required:

white paper or black construction paper

black paint (optional)

white paint

newspaper or other assorted papers

colored Mylar or regular foil

glue stick

scissors

pencil and ruler

pencil crayons

There are two ways to do your night sky. You can paint it black the way we are doing here or you can just start with black construction paper.

The next step is to construct a draft of your skyline. Using some white paper or newsprint that is exactly the same size as your background sky, start drawing out your skyline. You want some high points and some low points. You want a mix of structures with different architectural elements.

Have the kids make use of their rulers to get all those straight lines.

You want to be able to cut a skyline from one end of the paper to the other. Here I've marked it out in black marker. This helps the kids to see what they have going on in their skyline.

Remember this is just a draft that we'll use when we splatter our stars in the next step. It doesn't have to have a lot of detail.

When you are happy with it cut it out from one end to the other along the marked out skyline.

When I place it on the black background it looks like this.

Here is a second one we made that is supposed to be a medieval castle scene.

For the next step you may want to go outside or in the garage. At school if the weather is bad I'll use a splatter box. Essentially a box with three sides to splatter into. (see Owl post for an example)

I've taped the skyline draft down on the sides a bit to keep it from moving.

Splatter on white paint with a dry paintbrush. we tried to make a lot of stars as it gives you a better skyline.

When you remove the draft skyline you can see the outline of your city.

Now you get to add detail to this skyline. You can use some newspaper which works well especially the classified section, it kinda of looks like a building with windows already.

Use pencil crayons, your colored Mylar or foil for windows reflecting some light. You could add a moon if you wanted. Some architectural details, street lamps, etc. I've had kids add people walking at street level with cats on fences. Use your imagination.

I have done this with grade 2 up to grade 6. They all love the splatter part and the details seem to get more elaborate with each class. I've had alien skylines to the great pyramids.

You can also use gel pens if you wish. I have tried chalk and pastels put they tend to smear too much on the black paper. Pencil crayons tend to work the best.

Use a glue stick to stick on the different papers and foils.

We added quite a lot of detail in this one.

We are still working on the castle so it didn't make into this post.

Give it a try.

We'll see you next time.

gail