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Fourth of July Preparation -with kids!

June 27, 2022 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

Do you love to celebrate the seasons with your artists by creating? Letting your artists help “decorate” is such an empowering, confidence building gift to invest in your child!

It is also such a fun way to talk about the upcoming season, by creating together. We designed this project to be all about the process! So, you can have fun being together, as you do all that!

Splatter, drizzle, squeeze, and pour paint to create your one of a kind Fourth of July centerpiece. Use it to hold candles or stick silverware in it for a utensil holder in the buffet line. There’s so many possibilities, when we use our imaginations!

What started as a phone call from Matt saying, “hey, do you want any of these old bricks?” led to such a fun process art paint project! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

If you don’t have any old bricks on hand, I know you can get some at a hardware store for less than $1.00 each. Here are some basic supplies to get you started. Please feel free to use what you have, or if you are local, you can pick this kit up in our shop as well.

Supplies:

brick (with holes)

paints

paper cup

stirrer (like a popsicle stick)

pipette

tea light candles (optional)

Once you have all your supplies out, you are almost ready to have some fun! You might be able to tell that I laid some paper down before I started painting. This project can get a little messy, so protect your surface. I also used washable Tempera paints. That means this centerpiece can’t stay outside for forever. The rain will wash our beauitful colors off, but it also means if paint splatters somewhere unwanted, it will come off too. Once you are set up, you are ready!

1. Splatter

Every kid loves to splatter paint. Use the popsicle stick or any stick you might have to scoop a little paint up and flick it onto the brick. It creates fun splatters of globs and some strains of stringing paint. I love the mix of amounts that get placed and that you can’t really control the outcome. It’s freeing!

2. Drizzle

This is a little bit slower of a technique then the splatter painting. As you scoop up the paint with the stick, you let it slowly fall off the stick, so it creates like a drizzle effect as you move your hand around. This has a bit more control as you can determine how much paint falls in a particular area before you move your hand -thus, moving the paint! I tired to aim for the areas that the dark blue paint didn’t get splattered.

3. Squeeze

Pipette’s are such a fun little tool to paint with! You can also use a small syringe, baby nasal aspirator, or pool toy that does the same technique of sucking up liquid! I used a small paper cup with a little water in it to pour some of my paint in on top. I then used the pipette to stir the water + paint mixture to create a more runny, liquefied paint. The pipette then sucked up that newly created paint and I got to spray it wherever I wanted.

Again, this can be a more controlled painting step then the splatter paint. It depends on how high in the air you squeeze the paint. Play around with squeezing it low to the brick verse about 2 feet high. Talk about aim and the different effects the height had.

4. Pour

How often do you just get to pour paint!? It’s not something that happens a lot as it can be considered “wasting”. I would argue that it is also a freeing step that gives a different look and teaches things like spacing, managing, and control. Pour a little paint and watch it drip down the sides of the brick! it can be mesmerizing!

5. Dry

This might be the hardest step! After layers and layers of paint, the newly created decoration is going to take some time to dry. It might test your young artist’s patience. That’s another valuable skill to invest in! Try to not touch the brick, while this important step happens. It helps if the brick sits in that hot June/July sun to dry more quickly!

6.  Decorate and enjoy

Once your newly created centerpiece is dry, you are ready to enjoy it! Place tea light candles it for a fun decoration or use it as a utensil holder in the buffet line!

We know your artist will get so excited explaining how he/she made it to all your Fourth of July visitors!

Have fun and embrace the process! The best part is this was hopefully a really fun memory with your artist. The second best was it was also really cheap. Throw the brick out after the holiday and create a new one next year! There is no need to store it.

Just get creating memories and fun!

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Easy Patriotic Decor

June 21, 2014 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

inexpensive_summer_decor

A must-do event during summers in Georgia is the Stone Mountain Laser Show. It’s quite the cultural event down south and I’ve been going to it since I was a child. Anyone that has been a part of the Laser Show tradition knows that the grand finale is a rousing rendition of Proud To Be An American with plenty of Americana and tons of fireworks. This year we stood with mouths dropped open as the show wrapped up void of the traditional finale!? How could they leave out the show stopper? I left feeling jipped and like my kids had been robbed of a part of their childhood.

Since this event, I decided I need to ramp up the patriotic decor and compensate for Stone Mountain’s total lack of good judgement. Ok, so I’m being a little dramatic, but I did make some pretty sweet patriotic decor out of recycled items around the house and I thought you’d enjoy them.

I’m going to first show you how to make some fabric scrap flags, and then a few ways to create things to help display them. I started by gathering a pile of scrap fabric and felt. I have a hard time throwing out little bits, when there are projects like this one that just needs a little bit. So, I was thankful I had some scraps on hand that worked perfect.

red_white_blue_crafts

I cut out a few flag pendents. You might remember this technique with my fabric arrows. I cut the flags out on a piece of fabric folded in half, so I had a fold that separate two sides. This worked perfectly to glue my stick in the middle and then glue one side over to create a clean and front back on my flag.

scrap_fabric_flags

fabric_flag_tutorial

felt_flagsAfter I made one, I made a few more and made sure to have two different styles cut to add a little variety and fun.

4th_july_table_decorThe flags were so cute left like that. I decided to embellish two of mine with some materials I had left over from my Christmas Spoonful Lab. Aren’t these leftovers fun? 🙂

4th_july_flagsI love how easy these flags were to create, yet what a fun little embellishment they can make! I see these helping to decorate a food spread. For example, how cute would they be sticking out of a of big bowl of popcorn!?

inexpensive_July 4th_decorI displayed my flags by simply adding them to a few recycled crafts. I took an old beer bottle and literally just wrapped a piece of fabric around it. I used some jute rope to hold the fabric in place. This was much easier than trying to peel off the beer label or heating my hot glue gun back up to glue it place. I love how it turned out. I also used a little white acrylic paint and painted a recycled refried beans can. I used a little sandpaper to scratch it up to look a bit more rustic, and it was done! A few of these cute cans would look great holding silverware on a party food table. The possibilities are endless! Have fun creating and using your imagination!

What other trash could you turn into patriotic treasures?

**Thank you to everyone who entered my Albion gift card giveaway! Our winner is Brittany T. D! Congratulations! I will be in touch. If you are bummed to not have won and would like to purchase a suit, use code spoonful15 for a 15% off discount before July 1 on their site!**

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