Daphne has started drawing her first faces and people! I find this developmental stage SO exciting!! Of course, she's still doing lots of scribbling and abstract art as well, which is completely normal. And I have to say I LOVE those, too. But seeing a few of those first faces and realism drawings peep out here and there is just so much fun.
Get your pinning hats on, folks! It's time for a children's arts and crafts Pinterest contest!
Yes. I am inviting you to create a Pinterest board of children's art and crafts activities and giving you an excuse to pin, pin, pin! As if you needed one...
(And if have yet to delve into the wonderful world of Pinterest, perhaps it's time to give it a try.)
To enter the contest, follow the instructions in the image above. You'll be pinning your favorite children's arts and crafts activities from around the web. Here are a few tips if you need some help getting started:
Happy Easter! I hope that you are your family are enjoying a lovely Easter holiday. My daughters were surprised and excited to find that the Easter bunny hid their eggs inside the house today (a first for them) due to the rain.
Anyway, I wanted to share one last Easter egg decorating idea while it's still somewhat relevant—image transfers on Easter eggs. I know it's too late for you to try it this year, but I'm very excited about this one. So pin it for next year! It is one of my new favorites and I'll definitely be experimenting more with image transfers.
We dyed Easter eggs with Kool-Aid the other day when we did the egg frame drawing. Then we took the Kool-Aid a step further and marbled Easter eggs with it! I just love how these look! Fancy and subtle at the same time.
Here's how we decorated these eggs. This is an easy and quick method—so give it a try today if you have yet to dye your eggs! (Otherwise pin for next year...)
Maggy Woodley is the crafty dynamo behind the Red Ted Art blog. This Austrian-born, UK-based mom of two also has a new book (released today!) by the same name.
***Note: Readers will have a chance to win a copy of Maggy's new kids' craft book, Red Ted Art: Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids, at the end of this interview.***
JEAN:
Maggy, Your new book is gorgeous! Plus it’s filled with tons of fun craft ideas
for kids. You must be so proud! Can you tell us a bit about the process of
creating your book?
MAGGY: Thank you Jean. I am
so pleased you like the book (it is quite nerve racking having the first
copies going out to people!).
I have a new morning ritual and commitment. It involves waking up early before anyone else is up and making an amazing coffee drink (how did I live so long without it?!).
One of the activities from my spring crafts eBook is a nest snack that kids create out of peanut butter playdough and pretzel sticks. And then they eat it!
When the kids made these snacks the first time around, for the eBook, there wasn't any Easter candy in the stores yet, so we used pastel-colored marshmallows for the eggs in our nests. Once the Easter candy showed up in our grocery store, Maia started asking to make the nest snack again with real Easter candy. First it was chocolate eggs she wanted
I've been thinking a lot lately about Easter egg ideas for kids. I included a bunch in my spring crafts eBook, both new ideas as well as some of our older faves, but there are others floating around in my head that didn't make it into the book. This is one of those.
Drawing in frames.
I have a bit of a thing for frames. You may remember the DIY frame wallpaper we did last year. Or the various creative drawing prompts we've done with frames. Frames provide a good balance of open-ended inspiration within a defined space. They sometimes seem to inspire kids more than just a plain piece of paper. Or, in this case, an egg.
My post
on Drawing with Kids using the Monart method really seemed to strike a chord. It has been one of my more popular posts lately,
both in terms of comments and readership.
The kids and I have continued with
the Monart method outlined in Mona Brookes' book, Drawing with Children, with
several small lessons and drawing sessions each week. Sometimes we sit down and
do a formal lesson (actually just part of an official lesson since they are
rather long—we're making each stretch out over a week or two) and sometimes
we just have a super informal joint drawing session (although elements from the more formal lessons have a way of sneaking in...).
