Kids craft project- Custom nameplate activity for kids, Part Two

Kids craft project

Piggybacking from my other blog post, if you haven’t read about the salt painting name plate activity, you can click here.  This time I wanted to a do name plate that was sort of vintage looking.  Once again it involves glue and tracing.  

I went to Ikea and bought 2 Ribba square shadow box frames.  I love this frames, so versatile. That have a very sturdy back which is perfect for this art project.  Open up the frames take out the brown back and have your kids write their names. Make sure they write on the opposite side of the hanger.  They can make mistakes, start over and try it as much as they want.

When they’re happy with their names, get out the glue and have them trace over their names. Wait for the glue to completely dry, you’ll know it’s dry when it’s hard and translucent.

Then take some aluminum foil and attach it the board so it covers the dried glue.

Gently rub your fingers over all the hard glue surfaces and you’ll start to see their name form around the foil.  Be careful not to press too hard or you’ll make a hole in the foil.  After you’ve imprinted your design, get some black shoe polish, and gently swirl around and over the name, being sure to keep it on the foil.  It’ll have some neat swirl patterns that only adds to the character of these name plates.

If you’d like to add small intricate details, you can take a blunt pencil and carefully add some lines or dots on top of the foil.

Let the shoe polish dry and then place back in the frames.  

Jacob on top, Nicholas on the bottom- I love how his little 'N' is backwards and he wrote his name going from bottom to top, in true 4 yr old fashion.

I love this kids art activity for several reasons:

1. My kids want to put their name on everything

2. It’s gives them a chance to be super creative with it

3. It’s a nice multi-layered approach and the end result looks nothing like how it begins.  And if you know anything about what I do as a photographer you can understand why I like it!

4. It looks so freakin’ cool when it’s done!  I bought two more of the RIbba frames and have hand molds from each kid, hanging next to each of their names in my stairway.

Now I want to see what else I can create with this!

Winter Kids Activity- Freezing Bubbles

Winter Kids Activity

Winter is here and every mom is faced with the same problem: boredom.  When the weather is nice the answer to the "Mom, I'm booooooored" complaint is usually the same, "go play outside" but now we're in the heart of winter and our go-to answer isn't so reliable anymore.  So here's an activity you can do outside even when it's cold out (in fact it only works when it's cold out!) and will mesmerize both kids and adults!  I know what you're thinking, you don't want to participate in cold weather activities.  But this doesn't require you to
A) get wet or
B) climb up sledding hills
You don't even need to leave your house or wear boots.  You do, however, need to bundle up!  If nothing else, you show your kids something cool, get their brains working and then you've earned that cup of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows.

What is freezing bubbles?  It's exactly that, you blow a bubble using regular plain old bubble solution, the same kind we all have laying around our houses from last summer.  Blow a bubble when it's cold out, and watch it freeze.  It's magical when it starts to freeze because you can see the snowflake patterns the ice crystals make on the surface.  You can actually SEE them being created! When it freezes, it can stay that way for just a few seconds or minutes, I had one stay frozen once for about 15 minutes. Then when it pops it looks more like a tiny explosion happened and kind of resembles a cracked eggshell.  

Here are some helpful tips:

1. Outside temperature should at least be 20 degrees Fahrenheit (the colder the better)
2. Pick a day when there is no wind or pick an area that is sheltered from the wind (in my video I'm in an alcove on my front porch)
3. When blowing your bubbles, first trying blowing them onto flat surfaces.  Once you get the concept down, try experimenting with your kids and make observations and predictions about which types of surfaces will work best.  You might be surprised!
4. If you blow a bubble and it pops right away don't try again on the same spot, it works best on dry surfaces.
   
   Here's a video tutorial I made to help show you how to do it ; )
    

Since I am photographer and I clearly have a love affair for abstract contemporary art and my macro lens... here are some photos of bubbles that I froze on different colored metallic paper.  My light source= front porch light.

If you try it at home with your kiddos (there's still plenty of winter cold temps left!) share your photos. I want to see what you make and all the different surfaces you try!

Having trouble- drop me a line!