Monthly Archives: July 2012

Reinvented artwork!

July 26, 2012 By in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: , , , , , , , 17 Comments

If there’s one thing toddlers can produce a lot of, it’s craft. Oh, and nappies, and broken nights and so on – but let’s stick with craft for now.  Most days, whether at nursery or home, Harry wields a paintbrush flamboyantly, producing a range of slightly sticky, partially recognisable masterpieces.  In the last month, we’ve made monkeys, Batman masks, easter chicks (we were a bit late with that one…) and neon flowers, as shown below.  As artist and his devoted mother, both Harry and I are very proud of these, but as they threaten to take over the house I’ve decided that action is called for, and have captured the best in a couple of simple projects which will mean we can clear some wall space and preserve them for a little while longer.

1. A Boxed Memory Game, or ‘Snap!’

Remember those memory games you played when you were really small where you had to take turns in flipping over cards until you found a pair?  For this one, I photographed a selection of Harry’s pictures and made two A7-sized copies of each, mounted the collection on card stock and decorated the backs of each to create a personalised memory game for Harry. A leftover box which had originally contained Christmas cards was the perfect container, so I added a picture of the full set on the front. Job done!  Detailed instructions at the bottom…

2. Thank-you Cards

For these, I photographed individual art projects and printed onto A5 matte photo paper (you could scan them rather than photo them if you prefer) to create flat correspondence cards to thank people on Harry’s behalf for birthday gifts, treats and general loveliness.  I then cropped the image and pasted it multiple times onto a .ppt slide in order to create a matching envelope liner. This works particularly well with black and white and bold primary colours – Harry’s batman mask worked a treat.

Making the memory game…

Materials:

  • A selection of artwork
  • Camera / scanner
  • Paper (to print onto) and card stock (to mount images onto for sturdiness)
  • Pens, glitter or other embellishments to decorate the reverse of each card
  • A storage box; individual cereal boxes, large matchboxes and playing card boxes are all a good size for this.

Firstly, take a picture (or scan) each piece of artwork. Download to your PC and add words if you want to; I chose to add alphabet tags, thinking that one day we may have a full set.  Then print off your images in duplicate; I arranged them in a contact sheet format and printed a large single sheet, but it doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as they’re the same size…

Cut up the individual images and mount on cardstock; they’re going to get a lot of wear and tear!

And finally decorate the reverse of each card – given the amount of time they spend face down in this game, it’s worth spending as much effort on the back as the front! I used monogram ‘h’ letters for Harry, and continued this theme on the front of the box…

We had a lot of fun with this! To play the memory game with very young children like Harry, turn over a single card each and keep it turned up; take it in turns to turn another one over until you find the pair; at this stage it’s more about recognition and being the first to scream ‘SNAP!!’.  When kids get a bit older, you can play it more traditionally, turning the cards back over every time and relying on memory.

Now I’ve got Harry’s artwork stored on my PC, there are lots of other options for display… what do you do with yours? All ideas very welcome!

Starstruck

July 17, 2012 By in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 36 Comments



Stars… don’t you just love them? Folding and cutting stars and smothering them with sparkly glitter glue and paint is surely a right of passage for all children, and is the basis for much homespun Christmas craft. But it would be a great shame if we limited star-gazing to those times only.  I challenge all fully-grown adults to grab the nearest piece of paper (bills, doctors appointments, fines; the more depressing the paper, the more satisfying this will be…), and make a star.  Hell, make a galaxy; once you’ve started it’s very hard to stop…

I made these ombre tonal stars (above and bottom) for Harry’s room, to hang jauntily from Brad the Stag’s antlers, and also to form decorative garlands about the house.  Whipping myself into a snipping & folding frenzy, I’ve also decorated our beautiful but lethal ancient spiral staircase, which seems to be invisible to adult peripheral vision and has caused many a painful encounter for anyone over 5 foot.  With its gaudy bling-tastic stars it’s now quite hard to miss.

Experiment with different colours and textures for very different effects per below.. I embellished with glitter and tiny buttons, and used gift wrap for the bright stars, 216gsm textured card stock for the tonal stars.  Step-by-step instructions below for those who have forgotten everything they learned in geometry classes… no complicated measuring I promise!

3D Star Tutorial:

I’m showing the ‘no fancy tools’ method first using just a cup and a ruler… those who can rummage in a draw and retrieve a pair of compasses will find an even easier method below.

  1. Take a glass (or anything round and flat) and measure the diameter; halve this and make a note.  It’s 4.5cm for me.
  2. Draw around the glass, and then measure and mark this distance around the rim, giving you 6 equidistant points.
  3. Join up these marks with straight lines, skipping alternate points, ending up with a star like this in Fig.3
  4. Cut out the star, and fold right-sides together along each of the INNER angles of the star – do this 3 times in total.
  5. Turn over and fold wrong-sides together along each of the OUTER POINTS of the star, giving you your 3D shape – again, make 3 folds.
  6. refold and score again to reinforce the sharpness of the folds, then pop out to make your star.

If you have a pair of compasses, simply set them to the distance you want for the circumference of your star, draw a circle then choose a point at random along the rim. Swing the arms of the compass to mark either side of this where it bisects, and ‘walk’ your compass around the rim to make 6 marks in total – by holding the compass in the original position you won’t need to measure.  Then follow steps 3-6 as above.

These make beautiful gift tags too – just tape a piece of ribbon or thread to the back and then loop over the neck of a wine bottle or onto a gift.  Thread them together to form a garland, prop them up on mantles or shelves, or simply hang a few from a doorknob; be warned though; they’re so tactile and perky that visitors will gravitate towards them and want to give them a good squeeze…

If you try these do let me know how you get on… message me below or even upload your beauties to http://www.facebook.com/katescreativespace and let’s have our own paper constellation…

Happiness is: A Man and his Grill

July 12, 2012 By in Making, Reinvention & Renovation Tags: , , , , , , 50 Comments

It has to be said; I’ve taken full advantage so far of the fact that Harry, at 2, is happy pottering around in a play kitchen and keeping shop, oblivious to the fact that these will rapidly become activities associated with girls, and swiftly abandoned in favour of games requiring bravery, danger and copious amounts of dirt. Still, there’s one form of cooking that seems to unite men the world over, and that’s ownership of the BBQ; a testosterone-fuelled activity if ever there was one.


With that in mind, I’ve repurposed a small thrift shop table into a brand new grill for Harry (see below for the Before pics and stages).  With build-your-own kebabs that double as weapons, a hodgepodge of food made from salt dough and FIMO, and grocery-store paper plates and cups, it’s proving to be a big hit as you can see.  Leftover household items like an air vent, silver spray paint and a cheap baking tray gave the semblance of a gas BBQ, and a hefty dose of imagination from Harry has filled in all the gaps…

This was the starting point; a small wooden table I picked up for £8 at a charity shop.  It looks like it was once a play worktable, but came with no accessories other than a broken shelf, which I repaired and restored.

I painted the surface with black gloss paint and sprayed the legs and shelf silver, before nailing on a louvred air vent for the grill itself.  A sheet of dolls house stone-effect wallpaper provides the backdrop; I used PVA to apply this then varnished for longevity and to ward off wear and tear.

The kebabs are made from a cheap skipping rope; I unscrewed the heads, removed the rope and glued in lengths of dowel which I again sprayed silver (our whole garden has little patches of silver spray across it – I’m hoping my husband hasn’t noticed..).  I used a mixture of painted salt dough and FIMO for my kebab food, wiggling each onto the dowel before baking to ensure an easy fit.  These have been the biggest draw of all for Harry; the art of slipping them on and off, rearranging and – yes – tasting each piece, can be lots of fun.  Here’s a tip; if you ever decide to make a corn-on-the-cob using salt dough, find a good movie and arm yourself with a glass of chardonnay before you settle down to roll a hundred individual kernels…

Finally, how to fill the myriad of pre-drilled holes? Luckily I found this set of four thin-handled cooking implements in our local pound shop, and rolled each in brightly coloured gift wrap before varnishing. Hey presto, now Harry and his father can grill side by side this weekend (it’s a toss up whose food will be more edible!).

Half-year review

July 8, 2012 By in Uncategorized 13 Comments

It’s been 6 months since I started blogging, as a result of a drunken New Year’s Resolution to really do something creative this year, which had to complement rather than add to my already deliciously chaotic life.  And so this blog was born, and what an experience it’s been so far; from having my first follower sign up in January (someone I didn’t even know! The shock and awe of it.. who was this exciting person?), to the highs of having thrilling little flurries of ‘likes’ and comments when I post, and coming across kindred souls the world over.  A whole new community and world has opened up, and it’s a very lovely – and inspiring – thing.

My battered notebook in which I document ideas and plans for the blog (above) is now stuffed with clippings and scribblings, and accompanies me pretty much everywhere.  Harry, for his part, loves sitting on my lap and looking back at the things we’ve done as I scroll through the blog and show him our photos.  At 2 and a half, he has the innate narcissism of all toddlers and there is nothing finer than time spent with a cupcake and a glass of milk, watching pictures of himself and commenting on their greatness (‘I sooo funny Mummy!’.)

From being something of a luddite where web technology is concerned, I’ve come to understand a little more about how sites work and how to take good photos, though I still have masses to learn.  Stumbling across other blogs has been an eye-opener and given me great food for thought about design, layout and content.  With that in mind the more astute regular visitors will notice something of a facelift this weekend, to a cleaner, more graphic and simple site that I think is also easier to navigate.  One of the absolute best things in recent months has been people getting in touch about the projects they themselves have tried out from my blog, so with that in mind I’ve also separated out some of the most popular into a ‘Tutorials’ tab on the home page.

I’ll be posting again later in the week with my latest furniture makeover project – a seasonal play BBQ/grill that Harry is even now pressure-testing by flinging mini play kebabs, piece by piece, across the garden (it’ll make sense when I show you the pics, I promise…), but in the meantime I’d love to know your thoughts on what you’d like to see more of, less of, or how you’d improve the site – all feedback gratefully received!  Whilst a blog is in one sense a sort of personal diary, it’s also of course a great conduit for ideas, projects and sharing, and your support, feedback, and reaction has been amazing; so please tell me, particularly if you’re a regular, what’s working for you and what’s not…

See you later in the week; have a great and relaxing end to the weekend!
Kate

Keepers of the Flame!

July 5, 2012 By in Making, Paper Paper! Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 18 Comments

With less than 4 weeks to go until the Olympic Games begin, the torch is weaving its merry way towards the stadium here in London. 8000 torchbearers are helping to transport it along its journey, and having been inexplicably overlooked by the selection committee, Harry and I have decided to take matters into our own hands and create our very own Olympic outfit and torch, ready for a ceremonial lap of the back garden….


For the Olympic tee you’ll need….

1. A plain white cotton tee shirt or vest, 2. Fabric paints in red, green, black, yellow and blue, 3. Ring-shaped objects for stamping; we used Play-Doh lids, but toilet rolls work well too, though they produce thinner rings.  Have a quick look in the kitchen cupboards and you’ll find all sorts of likely candidates! 4. Paintbrushes, to daub paint on your lids for a neat finish, and to fill in any gaps after stamping. Finally, a piece of card to place inside the shirt to keep the fabric flat and in position, and to stop paint leaking through to the back of the shirt. Oh, and wet wipes.  A mountain of them, if your toddler is as frisky as mine. Now you’re ready….

When you’ve finished, fill in any gaps with a dab of paint, using your paintbrush, then leave to dry before fixing the fabric paint according to the manufacturer’s instructions (usually a quick iron under a protective piece of fabric) …and admire your handiwork!

For the Olympic torch you’ll need…

1. A sheet of gold card, any size you like, 2. A variety of brightly coloured tissue paper sheets 3. Paper fasteners or double-sided tape to hold your torch in place.  Simply cut out flame shapes from your tissue, twist them together and fluff them out, then tape to hold in place.  Roll your card into a cone shape and stick or hold with paper fasteners (I found these best as my sparkly card caused the tape to give up quickly).  Put a dab of glue or piece of tape on the bottom of your flame bouquet and push it down into your cone – voila!

This would be a great crafting project to do with older children, who possess the hand-eye co-ordination to have a good shot at positioning the rings in roughly the right place.  Whilst I made this vest and tee for Harry, he experimented flamboyantly with his own Olympic ring design using finger paints and toilet rolls, proving that there’s an Olympic craft for everyone. I expect his hands and face will still be stained lightly red,yellow,blue and green by the time the Opening Ceremony commences…

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