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Butterfly Nature Craft for Kids

April 23, 2023 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

What is a better way to celebrate that spring is here with young kids than to do a craft together!? This butterfly nature craft is a perfect opportunity to have fun, get outside, encourage the imagination and teach new vocabulary with your young artists.

This multi step project allows you to prep a little and the artists to paint, explore, and design. It’s fun and I’m pretty sure it can keep your artist happily entertained for a WHILE! Let’s dive in…

The first step is to collect some cardboard.

Grab a cardboard box and cut it into a fun shape. We did a butterfly in this sample, but you could also keep it simple with a rectangle and turn that into a picture frame!

Divid the cardboard into sections with rubber bands.

Simply slip rubber bands onto your cardboard image to create some natural divisions in the design.

Painting comes next!

We kept it pretty simple with including only 3 tempera paints for our sample and a q-tip for each color. One thing with creating is we can control the mess by how many supplies we put out. Don’t be afraid to put out less.

It allows artists to experiment and try new things. Simplicity breeds invention. For example, we didn’t give purple paint. In the creating process, colors can be combined to make new colors and purple can be created with the colors we provided.

This paint project allows your artist to learn some new vocabulary.

  • They can paint by doing lots of dots to create a pointillism look. The goal is to collage each section of the butterfly with color to fill the whole image.
  • They can practice painting semetrical so the sides are identical or not- it’s up to their taste!

While the butterfly dries, your artist can go on a scavenger hunt.

Can they pick, find or cut small nature clippings like these:

    • dandelion
    • grass clipping
    • leaf
    • feather
    • stick

Once the butterfly is dry, your artist can stick the little nature clippings into the rubber bands on the butterfly.

This butterfly nature craft can be done or you can explore with more details and textures.

We added some circle stickers to help hold the natural elements in place and allow another texture to be in the project. Kids love stickers, right!? You can’t go wrong with stickers as a detail.

It is our hope that in each step of the project your artist can create, play and imagine the possibilities! There’s even a good chance that on the nature scavenger hunt, your artist starts playing organically outside. It’s a win-win.

If this craft sounds fun, but you don’t want to do all the prep- you are in luck. We have a few kits listed in our online store. You can jump over there and see if they are still in stock!

Have fun and get out and enjoy the blooming plants this spring season!

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Celebrate Earth Day 2023 with your artist!

April 18, 2023 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

I love teamwork. (**stay tuned to later in this post where I share Earth Day Craft kits for $1). In celebrating, Earth Day 2023 we can practice working as a team.

It can sometimes be overwhelming to work with others. We may feel like we get lost in the discussion or like we could handle things better, if we did it on our own. Yet, we have all been there, when the overwhelm and stress sneaks in from trying to tackle something too big solo.

We need one another.

There’s big issues like our planet that we literally can’t take on by ourselves. We need everyone working together as a team to help preserve our earth. This Saturday, April 22 is Earth Day.

Earth Day is an annual celebration that honors the environment and raises awareness of the need to protect the Earth’s natural resources for future generations.

These are all little changes to our habits, if we collectively do together, they can leave a big wake of change. Just imagine the possibilities! One of those above ways may be easier for you than the others. Lean into it!

For me, recycling and reusing trash is one of my favorite ways to give more life to already created objects. We can do so much with tools and resources that come into our home daily-rather than just tossing them out!

One of my favorite materials to recycle into something new are soup cans!

As an art instructor and mom, I know one of the easiest ways to have a conversation with a child, is to have a project that goes along with it.

It opens the door to have a tangible, physical element to refer back to.

Save your cans and use them in a craft with your artist this week to talk about Earth Day 2023!

If you need help, I have some pre-prepped cans with paint + yarn as a kit for just $1 each this week in honor of Earth Day. Snatch up your kits today!

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How to Support your Teen’s Creative Endeavors

April 4, 2023 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment


Watching my kids create has always been something I love. Before they could even hold a paintbrush, I was letting them play with paint. We would smash a footprint on something and I would turn into something else. We have all turned a handprint into a turkey around Thanksgiving at some point in our lives. As our kids grow and their interests change, their creative process may change. Teen’s will experiment in new creative endeavors, and I believe it is just as important to be present in these efforts, as we were when they were young. We can support our teen’s creative endeavors!

It may look different in the how we support.

When kids are young, some simple ways to encourage their creative efforts may look like…

  • Listen to their stories
  • Hang up their art
  • Watch the amount of screen time they consume
  • Make boredom possible, so they have to tap into their imagination
  • Provide supplies from paper and drawing materials to blocks or legos
  • Plan a project with steps
  • Get them outside to explore the woods and dirt
  • Be present in showing and demonstrating.

When our kids were younger, I had these frames that I could easily switch art out of. It was a constant changing museum in our home.

As they began to grow, they would have their own projects and ideas.

Once they start dreaming up their own ideas, you begin to become a little more of a questionnaire than the one leading the charge. Asking lots of questions gets them processing. Not all their ideas will work, but by asking questions and letting them start to play with an idea, allows your child to figure out on their own if something will work or not. That is embracing the process and letting them grow as confident decision makers.

I will never forget how Caleb painted a cityscape at our studio. It led into us hosting several cityscape sign workshops. He even lead one! Letting his idea develop into something that then inspired other artists and peers was pretty special.

I have to believe that supporting his creative endeavors at this new stage helped encourage him to keep experimenting and doing art.

We all remember when we started feeling like our art wasn’t good enough.

Do you remember that moment that you stopped creating for the process and fun of bringing an idea to life? You started creating and working towards a finished product only if you knew it would be amazing and it would be useful? So many stop creating because of the pressure they feel in creating and lose the freedom to tinker, learn, make mistakes, develop and take a risk.

One of our jobs as parents is to keep encouraging the process and supporting their creative endeavors as they grow.

As Caleb has grown, his love for basketball and shoes has only grown as well. He started drawing shoes, designing shoes, filming shoes and even painting his own custom shoes.

What began as an interest slowly grew into a hobby, and now it is a full blown business.

As Caleb’s dedication to this interest grew, we saw him investing time and his own money into it. Those are all signs that this is something that really matters to him.

My encouragement to you is to not necessarily buy the next piece of equipment the minute an idea is born from your growing teen, but keep asking questions and grow in the interest as they do.

We helped loft Caleb’s bed, so he would have more work space. It didn’t happen over night, but one step at a time.

Caleb says on his website, “I did my first custom a couple of years ago and loved doing it. Back then I had a cheap battery powered airbrush and a couple of colors. I’ve been working hard to upgrade my skills and my gear to professional grade tools. Every sneaker is an exciting new opportunity and I’d love to create some for you. Hit me up on the contact page or check out my Instagram.”

I still love to watch this kid of mine create.

Now, it’s not as much of me setting up a creative project and inviting him in. It’s more of me wandering to his room and watching him do it. The how we support our teen’s creative endeavors can change, but not the why.

A lot of the ways you support your young artists still matters as they grow.

Let them hang their art. Be present in the journey and listen to the stories. There are new ways to encourage their creative endeavors as well. My two biggest encouragements would be one, help invest in the equipment if you can. It can be lofting a bed, sharing your computer and camera, or even buying a stencil machine and spray gun. You can always get creative in how you give it. For example, wrap it up as part of their birthday present. Caleb got one of his paint guns as a Christmas present one year. 

Find a way to connect your interests together.

It’s important that your teen feels supported in their creative endeavors to feel the freedom to keep developing. The second way I think it is important to encourage your artist is to combine your interests and theirs together. Find it. It might not be obvious at first. That’s ok, keep looking. My latest way to connect Caleb’s interests and mine is taking the pictures he took of his shoe designs and turning them into greeting cards.

I have been on this greeting card creation journey, and what a fun way to connect his art with mine for a new card design. Not everyone may want a pair of custom shoes, but they may know someone who is a shoe fanatic and would appreciate a fun card so I listed them in my store.

We can support our teen’s creative endeavors.

The heart behind encouraging your artist, growing teen, and child is that you want them to believe that their ideas matter and the world needs what they got. Maybe those interests turn into a job someday, like they did for Caleb. We just don’t know, but the beautiful impact of embracing this creative journey together is you grow a deeper connection with someone who matters most to you.

I am going to be sharing more ways to connect with yourself and those you love most real soon. If you are interested in learning more, join my newsletter today so you are the first to hear about it! 

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Imagine the Possibilities with me!

March 29, 2023 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

Imagine the possibilities with me for a minute! What is a way you LOVED to create as a kid?

  • Love playing outside and building forts with sticks and mud pies?
  • Come alive cutting and gluing paper?
  • Enjoy the heck out of painting free and big?
  • Play with blocks or legos for hours?
  • Was rearranging or redecorating your room the normal?

Chances are the way you enjoyed creating as a kid you will still enjoy today!

I know for me, growing up in a family of nine kids there were always DIY projects going on.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about how expensive raising nine kids must have been for my parents. As my kids grow, it feels like it just keeps getting more expensive. Our oldest is learning to drive, and we all remember when we first caught wind of a brand we liked. Not just any pair of shoes always works anymore. I know my parents had to be thrifty to make our world work because I was so blessed and never went without. Being resourceful has been modeled for me.

I remember when my parents expanded our house. With nine kids, we outgrow the size house we had. The addition brought saw dust and scrap wood components to our lives. To this day, I still enjoy working with scraps.

Art doesn’t have to be expensive. We all have little things that we can reuse. For me, wood scraps has always been something I used, so to this day, I save them. The texture, possibilities of small pieces, and options of several things coming together to make something new is something I have always loved. Wood is a great material for all of those things to happen in the creative process.

Now, it’s no secret that I love to create in LOTS of ways. But, for many of us the ways we created as young kids can still be enjoyed years later or maybe the way we choose to create changes as we change.

Do you remember how you love to create? Has it changed?

Let me encourage you to imagine the possibilities.

Imagine trying that childhood creative process again that you loved so many years ago. Or, if you know of a new way you love to create imagine how you would feel if you took thirty minutes to do that activity this week?

We both know that your heart, mind, and soul will be better for that time of being FREE and using your hands.

I miss encouraging others in their creative process. It’s been a year, since we decided to close our art studio. So, as I was playing with some wood scraps, I dreamed up a kit with a lesson that I could share with all of you. If you need an extra nudge to get creative and imagine the possibilities, join me for this LIVE class one week from today. I will walk you through using these wood scraps to create a playful wood mobile. There will be a replay video, so if you miss the live. You can watch the tutorial replay back at a more convenient time.

Snatch up your kit to let me encourage YOU and your creative process. We will paint. Playing with order and design will definitely happen. Yarn will be wrapped. Of course, we will celebrate options and diversity. It will be so fun!

My hope for those that snatch up this creative kit (and for you on your creative journey) is that after playing with new materials and tools you feel a little more empowered in believing in yourself, knowing you can make good decisions, and trusting that how you think matters.

The creative process is a window into what’s going on inside us.

We find that inner discovery in playing, and pulling out of the expected. Keep playing. Keep creating. You never out grow the need to create.

 

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