Category Archives: art/craft

AGNS and learning to felt

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The boys take a trip to the local art gallery once a month and they love it. They get to view new installations and various recent travelling shows. This October there was an artist in residence who was making a felt waterfall that rotated vertically by a track on the side. The kids loved it, especially turning the big crank to make it go! Below the piece is a mirror which makes it look as though the ‘waterfall’ is crashing into the water below.

The coolest part?

The kids got to learn how to felt, from combing out some sheeps’ wool into thin, fine pieces to actually picking up a nice piece of finished felted sized about 6″x12″. It was very cool to watch. Then they were able to pick – well, I think Xander found the spot – to place the newly-made felt onto the already existing waterfall structure once it was dry.

Gotta try this at home! Not the waterfall, just the piece of felt. Or, at least little felt balls. So fun!

The pics were taken with my phone so not the best but oh so handy!

That’s one of the artists next to Xman. She was very patient with the kids and you could tell she enjoyed showing them the process. It took me back to art college days learning to felt in Textiles class!

Xman feeling drying felted pieces.

Home-made Clay

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This is something that I have been wanting to do for a while but just haven’t gotten around to. The clay takes about 5 minutes to make and it so easy to prepare. The best part, for me, was kneading it and feeling the soft warmth of the mix between my hands. The boys love using the clay to roll out, cut up into pieces, and squeeze through play dough heads (just when I was going to bag up all the play dough toys and drop them off at Value Village!).

I got the recipe from a great book called, “Slow and Steady, Get me Ready“. The book is meant to be used on a weekly basis from birth to age 5. Well, whatever, I say! I had the best intentions with that but perhaps used it three times since X was born. So, I decided to flip through it to find what may be of interest and there are still a great many fun ideas for kids. Who says clay is only for babies, right? I love it, too and so will you (I hope!)

Here’s the recipe:

1 cup Flour, 1Tbsp of oil, 1 cup of H2O, 1/2 cup of salt, 2 tsp of cream of tartar. Mix together in pot over medium heat until it forms a ball. Knead until smooth. Voila! Clay!

You could add food colouring if you like, but I just left ours au natural. I like it that way. 🙂

The ingredients mix together quite easily with no clumping. Then, after about three minutes of intermittent mixing…

Mmm…looks like mashed potatoes – but don’t eat it!

You can roll it out and use a pencil to make a funny face!

 Just when you thought the play dough toys were no longer of interest…

It can even do swirlies! Kewl!

The book says the mixture will keep indefinitely in a plastic bag or sealed container. It’s a great idea, if only I’d made this earlier. I could have used them in the boys’ grab bags for their party!