Make-It Monday!: Fox Stamp

As a continuation of my stamp-making frenzy last week...I got the idea to make a fox stamp from this post I found via Pinterest.  (*I just looked at the actual post for the first time...I didn't even realize she made her stamp the same way I did!  I thought she carved it out of a stamp-carving block from looking at the Pinterest image!)

I used a hole-punch for the eyes...that's why they're so big and perfect and round.

Real graffiti?  Nope...it's really just a book!

The book is called "Tag This! A Doodle Book".  It has photos of different urban environments that you can unleash your inner graffiti artist on and doodle to your hearts content!

What's-On-My-Worktable Wednesday: DIY Stamps

For tomorrow's homeschooler art class, I'm teaching the kids about stamps and letterboxing. I've made stamps with kids craft foam sheets before, but not the sticky-backed kind. I've always used hot glue. But I can't exactly let 6 and 7 year olds loose with hot glue guns... I'm pretty sure that's a recipe for disaster. And I find regular white glue is useless for anything but paper when dealing with impatient children. So I decided to get the sticky-back foam sheets to make life easier. As for the base of the stamps, I'm using wooden toy building blocks. I have a strange love affair with building blocks, and I can never resist buying a gallon ziplock bag of them for 50 cents from the toy section of my local thrift store, so I have plenty of blocks to spare! I also recycle the plastic spools when my thread runs out. I've used those before to make button stamps.

(I obviously will not be letting the children use X-acto knives tomorrow either!  I will be letting them use the stamps I've made though.)

I can't take all the credit for this project idea.  I got the idea for the buildings from this library book "Show Me A Story".  It's a cute book.  I recommend it.

Mom's Letterbox Journal

Here is a peek at Mom's Letterbox Journal...

The journal itself was made by SoftShellCrafts. Mom bought it at this past spring's Mayday Underground show. I think the map is of part of Michigan.

These are all letterboxes she's found since August...

Labor Day Letterboxing

CJ and I went on our first letterboxing excursion with my Mom on Monday when my parents came out to visit.

Letterboxing is kind of like Geocaching, but with rubber stamps...

"Letterboxing is an intriguing pastime combining artistic ability with "treasure-hunts" in parks, forests, and cities around the world. Participants seek out hidden letterboxes by cracking codes and following clues. The prize: an image from a miniature piece of art known as a rubber stamp—usually a unique, hand-carved creation." - from AtlasQuest

My Mom has really gotten into letterboxing lately. It combines some of her favorite things...rubber stamps, roadtrips, and adventure! She recently found a site, AtlasQuest, that lists letterbox locations online, and you can search for letterbox locations in your area. She did a bunch of them over her vacation that she and Dad took with some friends of theirs. And she did a search on AtlasQuest for letterboxes in the area near my house, and found quite a few of them. We decided, on a whim, to go find one of them when Mom and Dad were visiting us for Labor Day.

Mom searching for the letterbox...

A big part of letterboxing etiquette is secrecy, I guess, just in case other letterboxers are around, so you don't spoil it and make finding the letterbox too easy for someone else. Something my parents and their friends have found is that having a dog is a great "cover" for gallivanting around outside, since it just looks like you're taking your dog for a walk.

Luna enjoyed being out-and-about with us.

Another part of preserving the secrecy is that most people take the letterboxes back to their cars to do the stamping...

*WARNING! STAMP SPOILER BELOW!*

(for some letterboxers, the surprise of seeing what the stamp design looks like is half the fun, so if that's you, go no further!)

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This is what is in the box...a stamp (hand-carved) and the logbook, where you can see the signature stamps of others who have found the letterbox! Some letterboxes will have an ink pad included as well, but a lot of them don't, so it's wise to carry your own ink pad with your signature stamp.

This is Mom's "signature stamp", an Adirondack chair stamp that was hand-carved by Jackbear Stamps, and was given to her for her birthday by me and CJ. A signature stamp is "The stamp letterboxers use to identify themselves, both in the logbooks of letterboxes they've found and for exchanges. Also called personal stamps.".

"Letterboxers stamp their discoveries in a personal journal, then use their own rubber stamp, called a signature stamp, to stamp into the letterbox's logbook." (well, or vice versa, like Mom did!)

I'm not sure CJ and I would like to be hard-core letterboxers, (some people get really involved in this hobby!) but it seems like a fun activity! It's one of those things we could do on one of those "It's awfully nice out today, lets take the dog and go somewhere!" kind of days! According to Mom, there are at least 30 in the Medina area. And I think fall is a great time to do this type of thing! It may even be a cool activity for the Homeschool Art Class!

If you want to learn more about letterboxing, I'd encourage you to poke around AtlasQuest and/or Google "Letterboxing".

Art Lesson with Little Kids: Button Paintings

This week it was the little kids' (2-4 year olds) turn to do the Button Painting project...

While waiting for the watercolors to dry before stamping the button design, I had the kids put stickers on their paper and use the watercolor over them. Then I had them take the stickers off to reveal the white design.

I ended up stamping the names on them myself, since the kids' attention spans were pretty much gone and they were more interested in moving on and playing/reading books in the living room. (I accidentally stamped Shea's name on Liam's paper, but caught my mistake and fixed it as best I could. Whoops!)

At one point Joy came in from playing in the living room, and insisted on helping me stamp Shea's name on her paper

I particularly liked Joy's starry-sky looking painting. (the shape in the middle was from a handprint sticker)

The kids always love coming over for art!

Art Lesson with Older Kids: Button Paintings

I had all 3 "older" kids (5-7 year olds) this week for art class. This was our project...a button painting (like the one I did here).

(The 2 with no names at the top-lefthand corner are mine). i think Ava's (in the bottom right) may be my favorite. (Shhh!...don't tell the kids I said that! I'm not supposed to pick favorites!) It's not as squared-up and structured as my example and like the boys' were...the buttons are kind of willy-nilly...but that may be what makes me like it. The buttons look like they're all spilled out across a table. I may do one myself like that. I'm really liking this project and have been inspired to do a couple ATC's/ACEO's using watercolors and the stamps.

It is interesting to now see the dynamic of having 3 kids in the class. I'm starting to see the differences in how the kids work. One follows directions well and finishes the steps quicker than the others, but is very talkative and easily distracted. One is quiet and very focused, but doesn't always follow the specific directions I give, whether they weren't listening or just forgot. And one has an active imagination and gets focused on making up stories of what they're drawing and enjoys drawing little details, and in their excitement, sometimes forgets what the original directions were. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, but they all did very well. And I didn't mind the kids who didn't follow the directions exactly, because their work turned out well anyway. And the bottom line is...art is about having fun, right? (well, the point of the art CLASS is learning too) I have to walk a fine line between having expectations, directions, structure, and rules...but at the same time, reassuring them that mistakes are okay and that sometimes mistakes make a piece of art turn out even better. (I got a lot of "I can't make a perfect circle!"...even after I said that their circles didn't have to be perfect! LOL.)

For the main project, I showed them my example and told them to make 5 circles with the watercolors, in whatever colors they wanted. After the watercolors dried, I had them use my Button stamp to stamp the button design onto the circles. The I had them use alphabet stamps to write their names on their papers...which I thought looked pretty cool with the overall design.

I originally had planned this project for the little kids, due to its simplicity and how it looks cool no matter what. But then I thought the older kids would enjoy it as well! (and they did!)

While we let the watercolors dry, they worked on some new How-To-Draw worksheets I'd made. One for how to draw a boy, one for how to draw a girl.

They were all very quiet and focused while they were drawing...

I have to be prepared for what to do if a kid finishes before the rest. I've debated between letting them go to the next step of the project or having them wait for the other kids to finish. As of now, I've been having them wait, but giving them scrap paper and letting them doodle until the rest of the kids are ready for the next step. (any art teachers out there have some advice for me?)