Cheap but lovely bracelet...

Today's craft is again courtesy of the dollar store.

They have a wonderful little kit with a complete set of beads and clear stretchy string to create lovely floating neckalaces and bracelets. You can make multiple pieces of jewelry out of one set. The beads are really pretty and come in different color schemes. My children are obsessed with purple and pink so naturally that is the color scheme we chose to buy.

This project does require parental supersvision and depending on age your child may need some help.

I used this project to reinforce teaching patterns and sorting.

We picked pretty large beads and smaller filler beads and began laying them out in our pattern.

The largest prettiest bead goes in the center and we create a mirror image pattern to each side of it.

Choose one more "pretty" bead to be your center for the back of your bracelet.

Measure a piece of string around your child's neck or wrist to choose the appropriate length. Leave yourself a little extra room on each end to tie the jewelry closed at the end.

Then proceed to have your child carefully string each bead. You may want to tape the opposite end to the table or hold it for your child so the beads don't slip off the end. I found tyeing a knot didn't work because some of the beads had holes larger than the knot I could make in the skinny string.

When you feel that the length of beads is getting close to fitting the right size for the child's wrist or neck check it against them and see if you need a few more or a few less beads on the the string.

When you get the right amount tie a double not in the string and snip the excess off with scissors.

The best part is that the string is stretchy so no clasps are needed and the jewelry is easy to get on and off.

Dollar Store Crafts

Well if I keep posting articles about crafts you will inevitably notice how often I talk about the dollar store. And not the store that charges more than a dollar, but the one that actually charges $1.00 only per item. I have found this to be a very affordable place to purchase crafting supplies for my kids. Children are hard on paint brushes, paint, and most tools used for projects. You don't want to waste a lot of money on something that could potentially be ruined. Instead of getting mad at the kids if the paint colors mix you can just let them have at it and if they get ruined you're only out a dollar. Don't get me wrong I am not big on being a disposable society. I prefer not to waist or pollute. But I also don't want to freak out when the paintbrush gets ruined because it was rubbed into a frayed mess and ruin the fun my daughter was having. (By the way the paint set and brush are in a kit together so it's ultra inexpensive). Sometimes we get multiple uses out of the set and other times we don't. The point is my child gets to be creative without me reprimanding her in the process or micro-managing her every move.

One of my favorite things to get is a pack of glitter glue pens. The set includes a number of colors and has two of each shade. Glitter does not get dusted all over the house because it is contained in the gooey glue. My child is then free to glitter as she pleases and I wind up with a very minimal mess to clean up which is a good thing because I hate cleaning, but love a clean house.

Today's project was a straw beach hat. She glittered and stickered and then said she made it 'special' for me. Now I have a fun silly hat to wear in the garden. And yes, I will wear it because I don't care how crazy I look when it comes to presents from my kids.

This wonderful hat cost...yes, it's true...only $1.00!

The foam craft stickers that cost so much at other supposedly discounted stores come in a container for this wonderful price as well.

Now I may have stressed that I like to give my child a lot of freedom in her art. From the above you can see that this project was rather unstructured. This is not always the case. Learning to follow instructions and a plan is valuable too. There are many occasions where our projects are more challenging and I set out guidelines to follow. Children need time to be free and time to be challenged and instructed. A healthy age appropriate balance is what I am striving towards. At this point in the game we are at a Kindergarten level and a lot of leeway is given to encourage creativity and imagination. When it costs this little you can feel a little easier about letting the reigns go and allowing your child to create on their own. You may wind up with a lot of projects that only your child feels proud about, but that's okay. They learn each time they try and all we have to do is praise their effort, and sometimes wear a silly hat.

Birdhouse Fun

I thought I would share some of my recent crafting projects and ideas. The ones that came to mind today are some birdhouses I painted with my daughter.

Now what you might not know about me is that I am an artist. I have been painting and drawing for years. When I finish a project I want it to look appealing.

My daughter on the other hand is not. At least not yet. She prefers a more haphazard design when painting and generally no matter what medium she uses it amounts to scribble. At her age I was already drawing fairly decent people and making my own paper dolls and dresses. I find it very frustrating to let her do anything artsy without micro-managing the whole process. However she has no fun if I do that and it winds up being my project. So, I decided from now on to I keep my hands off her projects. She needs to be free and learn to create and express herself through her own art, whatever that may look like. All I can do is make my own the way I like it and hope she picks up some more refined taste and technique when she gets older. If she is happy and having fun that's good enough for me!

I gave my daughter and my nephew some small birdhouses, paintbrushes, and paint (all from the dollar store) and let them have at it.

Then I proceeded to paint the slightly more expensive birdhouses from a local craft store. First I spray painted them with a white base. Then I picked out some fun summery colors for accents.

Basically all you do is paint swirls, squiggles, stripes and dots. Keep alternating colors to make it pop!

Mine probably cost about $6.00 to make and the kids about $1.50 each.

Now if you're like me then a scribbly color splashed birdhouse doesn't seem like the most attractive decor. However the kids had put lots of love and memories into those sweet little birdhouses and they deserved to be on display. They made them especially for me. After trying to find the perfect spot for them I discovered 3 of them fit in a row in the window panel beside my front door. Perfect! They look so cute!

My birdhouses while prettier and more precisely painted, were filled with much less love and were a bit stuffier than the children's. I did loosen up a little from their influence and left the brush strokes a little rough giving them a  more distressed weathered look. Then I tucked them around the potted plants on my porch.

This is my favortie one:

It reminds me of raspberry lemonade!