Thursday 8 August 2013

DIY marbled art tiles

Today I want to show you some marbled art tiles me and Little Miss Moo made this week:
inspired by the marbled plant pots we made at the summer kids club earlier in the week, It is so easy...  

 


All you need is some old nail varnishes, a bucket half filled with water and some tiles...
You can revive your old half empty nail varnishes by adding a little acetone/ nail varnish remover to the bottles and give them a good shake...

Poor a liberal amount of nail varnish into the bucket of water....2-3 bottles in matching or contrasting colours work best... (best to do this outside, as it can get a bit fumy when using this amount of nail varnish)

Let the nail varnish spread to cover the surface of the water...use a stick (or similar) to make swirly patterns in the colours, or be creative when you poor the different colours into the water, making patterns that way...

Then simply dip your tiles into the water, to capture the marbled nail varnish on the surface...

Leave to dry in a well ventilated area.

Makes a great effect, or what?
Looks great when grouped together...I am planning on framing ours!


I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you all about a future series of posts I am planning on running from September....a monthly meet the artist post!
I am fortunate to have a lot of creative friends, and they are all an amazing inspiration to me: doing everything from music to fine art, furniture redo's and making to design, photography to printmaking, crafts to jewellery ...the list goes on..... and I would love to help tell the world about their talents..

The reason I am telling you all about this now, is that there will be a bit of a jump start to these posts:
Tonight me and Mr are going to an exhibition at the IVY in London by our old colleague and family friend ,Schoony.

 

He is amazingly talented and is sure to be the next big thing coming out of the art scene here in the UK, with his work featured in the new Kickass movie...

So, he's agreed to answer a few questions for me tonight, and I'll be posting a feature about Schoony and his work, with photos from the preview show at the Ivy  here on Monday...

So if modern art is your thing...be sure to pop back on Monday!!

xxx
June

Wednesday 7 August 2013

THE NOSTALGIECAT SUMMER KIDS CLUB....

....Session 3: Arty nature

 


 Welcome to the 3rd session of the Nostalgiecat Summer Kids Club... todays session is inspired by nature, and I will show you what Me and Little Miss Moo's friends, Ellie, Scarlett and Caleb got up to on Monday: We made some "flower paper", marbled some plant pots we planted some seeds in, we made a beautiful "flower box" and flower-sun catchers for the window and we had fun making a large leaf-rubbing and watercolour banner...
All these activities work well for both indoors and outdoors...

Here's what we did, and how we did it:

FLOWER PAPER MAKING


 

We started off by making some "flower paper"....


YOU WILL NEED:

Paper/tissue (any non-glossy paper will work, so recycle what you've got)
White glue
Boiling hot water
Flat Wire mesh (we used a mesh splash screen from the £shop)
Cloth/ tea towels
Glitter
Dried flowers (See my microwawe flower pressing tutorial for how to make these)
 Rolling pin
A large bowl 


The first thing to do is to shred the paper...we used toilet tissue, as it will break down quicker....


Pour over some boiling hot water and leave to soak for 15-20 minutes...


 Then poor the mushi paper-mix into a blender, add 1-2 table spoons of white glue....


Blend until you get a smooth(ish) mix...


Ellie, Caleb, Little Miss Moo and Scarlett thought my blender was very noisy...


Spread the mushi mix out on the wire mesh, over a bowl, then squeeze out as much of the water as possible...flattening the paper mix in the process...
Place a tea-towel/cloth on top, then flip it over to transfer the mush onto the tea-towel, taking away the wire mesh...Place on the table, then cower with another piece of cloth, and keep pressing, and flattening the mix to get out the excess moisture....


Change the tea-towels/ cloth, then using a rolling pin, flatten the mix....


 Remove the tea-towel on the top, and add some dried flowers and glitter... 


Replace a tea-towel on the top, then use the rolling pin to press the flowers and glitter into the paper mush, thinning and flattening as much as you can in the process....


Ellie did a great job flattening the flower paper...

Leave the paper on the tea towel to dry out...
I tried speeding up the process by putting it on the oven on low, but it actually took 2 days for the paper to dry out properly...


Then I cut out round circles of the paper, using a cookie-cutter and a scalpel...

 
 ...so that the children got one  flower paper disk each...

 MARBLED FLOWERPOTS



Whilst we were waiting for the tissue paper to soak and dissolve in boiling water, we went outside to make some marbled flowerpots...
I got the inspiration for this project from henry happened.


YOU WILL NEED:

Terracotta plant pots
Nail varnishes (use old ones, revive them by adding a little acetone/nail varnish remover to the bottles and shake)
Big bucket half filled with water

+
soil and seeds for planting later....


This one may be best to do outdoors because of the fumes from the nail varnishes...
Poor 2-3 bottles of nail varnish into the water...choose some nice, contrasting or matching colours...


Let the varnish spread out on the surface of the water...use a stick(or similar) to gently swirl the colours together....


Dip the terracotta pots in, on their side, and gently rotate to pick up the varnish....


.....watch the beautiful effect the nail varnish makes...


Ellie had a great technique, twisting the pot into the water...
If needed, re-dip to cover the entire pot....adding more nail varnish as needed...



Put aside, and leave to dry!
In places, the varnish will be quite thick and lumpy, so leave to dry for at least 1 hour...


The marbled plant pots are now ready for planting in...


A bit of soil/compost, and some pansy seeds....


....and a little water...


The kids got to keep their own marbled plant pot, and now they've just got to wait for the seeds to start growing...



CARDBOARD FLOWER BOX AND SUNCATCHERS



Whilst we were waiting for the varnish to dry on our marbled flower pots, we finished making our flower paper (above) then we made a beautiful flower box and some sun catchers for the window...
I got the inspiration for this project (and the next) from artful parent, a great blog dedicated to children's art projects.


YOU WILL NEED:
Small cardboard box
Scissors(knife)
Transparent contact paper
Flowers and leaves


Cut out the sides of the box, leaving approx. 1" around the edges (as in the picture above)...
Attach sheets of contact paper on the inside of the box, sticky side out....making sticky windows in the box... 

 
  
Let the kids place flowers, leaves and petals onto the sticky back plastic...one side at the time, then cover with another sheet of contact paper....


...and there you have it: a beautiful flower box...


Little Miss Moo was absolutely fascinated by the colours  of the flowers against the light....


And we had a look at how it looked when placed (temporarily) on top of a lamp in a dark room...


...beautiful...


Scarlett and Caleb had fun putting their heads inside the box to have a closer look...

We also made some lovely flower sun catchers out of the squares we cut out from the box (waste nothing...) so that the kids could take a piece each home...


Scarlet makes a beautiful picture....


As with the box, we stuck on some contact paper to one side, then the kids placed flowers, leaves and petals onto the sticky side....


Ellie created a beautiful display by ripping the petals of the flowers before placing them on to the sticky back plastic....


Then we covered the flowers with another sheet of transparent contact paper...
Caleb was very pleased with his....


And Little Miss Moo loved the way the colours of the flowers come up when the light shines through...


LEAF RUBBING AND WATERCOLOUR BANNER



We finished of the session with some fun messy play, making a leaf rubbing and watercolour banner.. 



YOU WILL NEED:

Easel paper roll/large sheet of paper
Leaves
Crayons
Watercolours/ paint
Brushes and water


Spread the leaves out in the middle of the table...


...cover with paper.(use a bit of sticky tape to hold in place)
 Then show the kids how to bring out the shape and details of the leaves by rubbing the sides of the crayons over the paper....


 Scarlett said she would rather try to draw the leafs....

Next, we tidied away the crayons and the leaves under the paper, then we got out the paints, and I explained how, if the paint is watery enough, the wax in the crayon marks will resist the paint and make a lovely effect:


And so, they went to work...


Little Miss Moo and Scarlett just painted the same spot over and over until the paper broke...(never mind...they had fun, that's the main thing!!)....


 

.....but Ellie got the concept straight away , and Caleb was so gentle with the paint that they got some beautiful results...
 

We really did have lots of fun, and I got to recycle some paper, a cardboard box , the (dying) flowers I got for our anniversary last week and my old nail varnishes....not bad hey?
I  hope you feel inspired to try out some arty projects with your kids...
Please visit my pinterest board kids crafts and fun for more great ideas of things to do with your kids over the holidays...

Let me know what you think about todays kids club, or maybe you have a great idea for something to do with the kids over the holidays that you would like to share: Please leave a comment below...

And don't forget to visit my post:  a celebration , and leave a comment at the bottom of the post, to be in with a chance of winning a set of 3 of my lace print plates...
Due to a technical glitch my end with the comments section, I have decided to extend the deadline for this competition, so the draw will now take place on Saturday 24th August  and the winner will be announced on the following Monday....

Thanks for looking!
xxx
June
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