Karate chopping gingerbread men Christmas Ornaments

My daughter is a yellow belt in karate and she wanted to make ornaments for her instructors for Christmas. I used a gingerbread man cookie cutter and salt dough. After I baked them and let cool, I painted their Gi's and belts with acrylic paint. I love them so much...I almost hate to give them away!

Mr. Owl, How many licks does it take to get to the candy cane center of a candy cane?

go to this website to get the easy instructions on how to make this owl

I used Sculpey clay

(Ultra Light?? something like that, but I am sure the regular Sculpey would work just as well)

and then baked...and then let cool...and then painted with acrylic paint...

My Christmas tree loves it!

solargraphy has taken over my mind...for real. I can't sleep.

This is the "negative" and the "positive" solargraphic image I made yesterday. I put my tin can camera loaded with b/w photo paper on a tree stump in my front yard and got a solargraph of the sunrise. The "negative" is what comes out of the camera, the "postive" is what I get when I invert the negative in photoshop (after I scan the negative).

A very dizzying art project

I have gotten a little behind in my posting, sorry about that- I am sure you are on the edge of your seat waiting to see the photos from al the supah-fly art projects we've been doing. We have had some of our "regulars" out on vacay, so I tried to include everyone in this project in 2 different sessions.

One of the kids did not want to paint his. I like it this way too.

From a 3 or 4 year old. I can't remember how old O is. Sorry R.

J's

E's

C's

I's. (and when she added those vertical lines, I was unsure about what it would look like. I love them !)

N's (totally different from all the others...no color mixing)

V showing us that she is left handed and that she loves to paint!

Anyhoo, We dropped some India Ink on white watercolor paper and blew at it through a straw (and then we all got a little lightheaded, so if you do this make sure to take breathing breaks). After our design dried completely we used watercolors to fill in the spaces between the ink. It made a very nifty abstract effect, and the kids seemed happy with the end results.

disclaimer: I did use a little photoshop on those project photos. I like to soften the edges a little, turn up the contrast in the colors, and make them look more layered. I think all of these would look really neat if printed poster sized and framed!!! Wal-Mart does it real cheap, and I will def get my own kids projects printed like that.

Goofy class and messy countertops...egads! (pics from flag project and Trees of Life project)



daddy helping



concentration





Trees of Life project...Gustav Klimt inspired



goofy class and messy countertops...



Tree's of Life...(made by children ranging in age from 5 to 37)




playing it cool. yo



                                                               





Rocky meets The Karate Kid



Woot! Woot! Flags are finished!!...and we also made beautiful "Tree's of Life"

I wanted the salt dough flags to be done in time for July 4th...so they could be displayed in the chirren's homes...or given to someone in the military....you get the idea. Anyway, the flags were painted with acrylic (the blue and white) and tempera (the red) paints -and after they were dry, I sprayed them with a clear coat glaze. (then I put the red strings through the holes and tied knots to keep the string in place. ShaaaZaaam! Project complete. I asked my kids if they liked the project...they both said "yes!"

The completed projects...those 2 on the bottom right show
what the salt dough looks like when it is dry but not painted.

Tip of the Day: Salt Dough Clay is.....salty. It is for kneading...not eating.

I would love to have a caption for each photo...but I haven't figured out how to do that yet...I think I am going to have to upload each pic individually to caption each one. Anyway, you get the idea...the chirren helped me make the salt dough and then made their flags...we will paint them soon. I will post pics of that part too... of course....

Sooooo.......I had my first art lesson playdate with some of my shorter friends, and as far as I could tell....it was a success. We made a rectangular shape out of the salt dough clay, and then made it look like the United States flag by making lines for the stripes and a section for the stars. After they dry, we will then paint the flags with red, white, and blue paint. For my own experimentation I tried tempera and acrylic paint to see which worked better, and I guess both worked well for the stripes, but I had issues with the tempera bleeding and mixing (even after it was dry) when I put my white "stars" over my blue background. Once the paint was dry, I sprayed the flag with a clear glaze to make it shiny! For the kids projects, I poked holes in the top of their clay flags before they dried so that a piece of twine can be used to make a nifty hanger for it.