Salaric

Spiral snakes are very easy to make and can be hung up around the place as jungle or halloween decorations. When I was little my Welsh grandmother used to make a variant of these for Christmas (less snaky 😉 ).

Draw a circle and cut it out – pre cut circles save a lot of hassle when doing this project with small children.

Draw a spiral and then add snake makings and face to it – this can be done with pens and pencils or with stickers or ink/paint stamps or even embossing for a more subtle patterning.

Then cut around the spiral. There are many templates that you can by or find for free download on the internet but I find free hand ones work just as well 🙂

To add string either punch a whole and tie the ribbon or thread onto it or use tape. They will dance and move in thermals air currents.

I had my second and final week of running Centre Arts in Cheltenham – and boy did we pack alot of stuff in! We had crotchet, knitting, weaving in the circle, mini pompom making, a fantastic turn out for my story tree, weaving paper to make bags and baskets, creating cards, bookmarks and hanging plant pots. We learnt two different types of stitch in bead work and my cake baking improved drastically with feedback on what worked and what didn’t 🙂

These ones even got mistaken for being an art display!

Recipes and decoration how to for the cakes is here.

Here are some pics of what we got up to 🙂

And of course more cake pics.

My little girls loved it all too and proved time and again that kids really can make a noise with anything!

I spent the last week doing craft and writing with people at Centre Arts. And boy have we crammed it in!

We made cards, Olympic torches and medals, decorated volcanos, made leaf garlands, sock puppets, upcycled skirts out of old t-shirts, beaded rings, made hair bands, pom poms, created cardboard looms and wove, knitted and crotcheted, plaited/braided, worked on story ideas and comic book sketches, we made pencil pots, templates and phones.

Here are the photos 🙂

And of course we had CAKE! The who to of which is on my cooking blog.

Jeany has really enjoyed this week and has even been looking after the plant! The baby too has been tiring herself out 🙂 The kids and adults who have come along have all enjoyed themselves 🙂 I shall be running it again next week starting on Tuesday!

The next two weeks from Tuesday will see me running Centre Arts in Cheltenham. Apart from the wonderful art work which deserves a visit in it’s own right! There is information about the excellent courses they run during term time and drop in craft workshops run by me 🙂

Tuesdays I will be doing paper craft and beading

Wednesdays I will be doing Fun with Fabrics

Thursdays is Story Time for the little ones at 1 and creative writing for adults 3-5 kids are welcome as I have lots of stuff to keep them occupied

Fridays is yarn craft and the knitting doctor

Saturdays is Upcycling and Junk Art

There will also be cake and drinks 🙂

We turned this server box into a halloween play house for our child. Any large cardboard box will do.

First off Al claimed inside the box and tapped up the bottom so that the house would have a floor – there where two reasons for doing this – 1) so that it would be a contained play space and 2) to give the play house more structure integrity. Also you can use tape to make a larger structure out of smaller pieces of card if you do not have a large enough box.

Using a stanly knife we cut the door and window – scoring one side of the door so that it was still attached so it could be opened and closed – similarly the window was cut so that it would be a shutter using a pre-existing whole a thumb whole to open and close them.

We then put tape around the edges to reinforce and to cover up the rough edges of the corrugated cardboard.

This was the base – we then made it tall enough for our child to stand up in using more card and the hot melt glue gun.

We then decorated the inside and out with them which will be covered in another post.

This play house lasted a couple of years and finally died being used in the garden as a Wendy house when I forgot to bring it in and there was a storm!

I have been making a giant papier mache coral as a piece of textural science art for the Exhibition In Braille which will be on this weekend (Sat 24th September 2011). The idea is that it represents the tree of life and at the end of each zooid or polyp tube is an organism made of different things such as wood, polymer clay, textiles, metal, stone and so on. There is a series of pictures in relief around the base that cannot really be seen but must be felt – these represent the scientific theories of Life’s origin and subsequent evolution. There is also a molecular sand made up of beads which will fit in the pockets built into the sand part of the sculpture and a series of poems which will be played along with it for people to listen too whilst feeling the piece.

Last year I decided to write a poetry book with my little girl – it was halloween themed and unfortunatly did not survive the half term holiday! She gave me poem ideas and I wrote the poems and then drew pictures on folded card which we stapled together.

I drew the pictures with felt tip and went for a child like style.

You can see the poems here I am hoping to produce it as an actual book to buy etc… for news on that go to Orange Monster which is my illustration and childrens books blog. This year I did something else for her using the same book concept 🙂

I made this card for mine and my husbands 5th wedding anniversary. I used a card blank from The Works and selected three hearts from a collection of paper shapes cut in different papers. I went for the sort of black, blue, purple feel as they are his favourite colours. I attached these with sticky pads. I also had some wedding stickers which come out as silver out lines which I used one the out side and inside. These stickers are good as you can get writing and things – though peeling them off of the sheet without stretching them can be an issue – they also don’t always say everything you want so I had to write in some of it using a black fine liner pen.

I then composed a poem which I carefully wrote out on the inside of the poem – about our last five years together. I really wish I knew how to do calligraphy but I don’t so it was again just written with my fine liner.

This framed picture of her foot print was my little girls valentines presant to me and my husband. It is framed with cardboard and has a parcel ribbon (the stuff made out of a sort of papiery plastic) as a loop on the back so you can hang it up 🙂

The making of Visual Poetry (VisPo) or Concrete Poetry as it is also know is a contentious subject but it is a fun activity and I like making cards out of it to send to people.

Here is a picture of my friend cutting up magizines in a coffee shop to stick onto card and things to construct his poem. I took along, card, card blanks, pritt stick, foam letters, letter stickers, magazines and scissors.

This also works well as a childrens’ workshop. You can cut out images and words or just letters to make up the words etc… It has endless scope.