Unclutter your kid’s art: Turn it into a masterpiece!

June 29, 2016catherinemryan

If you’re new ’round these parts, you might not know: Peeper loves art. She loves to paint. She loves to color. She loves to glue. She loves to squish her hands into finger paints and give herself a standing ovation, splattering red and blue all over the walls.

(Ok, that last one is more performance art, but still.)

All those days of keeping busy with kid crafts leads to a lot of saved projects. At one point, the kitchen counter, the wine rack, my work desk, the fridge and the dining room table were all buried under my preschooler’s crafts.

I knew something had to change. I had to unclutter my kid’s art.

Unclutter your kid's art by turning it into a masterpiece! Ten Thousand Hour Mama Read more →

A fashionably fierce sweater craft

June 21, 2016June 21, 2016catherinemryan

Kids sweater craft: Princess and the Pony

Princesses are everywhere these days.

Disney has overrun the toy aisle, Pandora stations and the playground.

Now, I’m not a hater: I adore certain Disney movies, and Peeper’s first movie was Cinderella. But I can’t help but notice that a lot of princesses are, well, passive.

That is not the case with Princess Pinecone, the titular royalty in the picture book The Princess and the Pony.

A princess book with sass

Princess Pinecone lives in a society of warriors. But her parents haven’t quite caught on: They give her cutesy sweaters instead of cool warrior presents like shields, spiked belts or—what she truly covets—a fierce warrior horse.

When her birthday rolls around, she does get a horse—sort of. Princess Pinecone gets big-eyed, doughy pony who farts too much.

But she can’t give a birthday present back, she figures, so she keeps the pony. What happens at the next warrior brawl surprises everyone.

Getting crafty

After reading The Princess and the Pony about a hundred times, I made a book-inspired craft for Peeper. And I’m not the only one: Check out the brute-inspired crafts at the Raising Fairies and Knights Monthly Crafting Book Club!

Monthly Crafting Book Club

Princess Pinecone and the rest of the brutes in the book come to realize that cute can be strong, and you don’t have to be just fierce or just adorable—you can be both.

So Peeper and I created a fashionably fierce sweater craft.

This sweater craft is great for fine motor skills—though if your little is as young as Peeper is, she may need a little help winding the yarn around the paper.

Princess sweater craft

It’s also very open-ended. There’s no “right” way for the sweater craft to look: The process of winding and stamping (and hand-slapping, if you’re Peeper) is much more important than the final product.

After all, process art helps young kids feel more confident, since they don’t “fail” to make their project look identical to the model one, writes the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

So hit up your library for a copy of The Princess and the Pony, then join us for some cozy—and fierce—fun.

Kids sweater craft Princess and the Pony

Fashionably fierce sweater craft

Supplies

cardstock paper
yarn
painter’s tape
paint
cotton balls

Instructions

Cut out a sweater shape from a sheet of cardstock.
Tape one end of the yarn to the “back” of the sweater. Then have your child wind the yarn around the sweater. (You may have to help by guiding her hands or playing out the yarn.)
When your child is done wrapping, tape the tail of the yarn to the back of the sweater. This will secure the yarn so it doesn’t move.
Squirt out as many colors of paint as your child would like. Invite her to stamp the paper with a cotton ball (it’s so cozy, like a sweater!). The more she paints over the yarn and fills up the white space, the more contrast she’ll get.
When she’s done, untape and unwrap the yarn. She’ll see the white lines left by the yarn—giving her a striped sweater!

Don’t forget to try out the other The Princess and the Pony crafts at the Monthly Crafting Book Club!

Princess and the Pony monthly crafting book club

Celebrate summer with messy painting

June 20, 2016June 8, 2016catherinemryan

Art, at its best, is a full-body experience—at least according to my kids. And with summer here (happy first day of summer!), it’s the perfect time to get outside for some messy painting.

On a recent afternoon, Peeper, Kiwi and a few friends did just that. I squirted paint onto plates of shaving cream, and the kids dove in: Within minutes, we were all messy. And within minutes, we were all having so much fun.

After all, we often tell kids to be neat. Use a napkin. Don’t spill. Wash your hands. Keep your hands to yourself.

With the weather warming up, though, it’s a great excuse to play outside. And with a little set-up—and a lot of shaving cream—you can let your kids’ creativity go wild. Come on, color outside the lines!

Summer Fun Messy Painting Play Date - Ten Thousand Hour Mama Read more →

5 Little Monkeys craft {with download!}

May 25, 2016May 25, 2016catherinemryan

Five little monkeys jumping on the bed
One fell off and bumped his head
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“For the love of all things holy I am not reading this book one more time!”

5 Little Monkeys craft process art download I have a love/hate relationship with the book 5 Little Monkeys. After about the sixth time of reading it, all that repetition makes me want to jump off a bed and knock myself in the head.

But the repetition is great for pre-readers: Books that have repeating sequences, like 5 Little Monkeys, strengthens a child’s neural pathways and primes them for learning to read later. For example, all that repetition helps kids add to their vocabulary faster, reports research from the University of Sussex in the UK. And the familiar rhythms of a repetitive book helps that child remember what comes next—a skill that later helps them predict or hypothesize what comes next.

I saw this all in action with Peeper and 5 Little Monkeys. I used to pass the book back to her while we were driving around. After a while, she would “read” the book to herself—including counting down the number of monkeys.

All that repetition really worked!

Turns out the repetitive motion of painting is a great parallel for this story. When I found Raising Fairies and Knights’s Monthly Crafting Book Club, I was in: I wanted to make a fun art project that went along with 5 Little Monkeys, too!

You may also know what a proponent of process art I am. So I didn’t want to create a craft that had a clear expectation of how the craft should look in the end. Instead, I created a project that let Peeper do her own thang while staying true to the spirit of the book. And with my hand-drawn download, you can, too!

5 Little Monkeys craft process art download 5 Little Monkeys craft download Read more →

Toddler DIY: Coffee filter bouquets

October 5, 2015June 11, 2016catherinemryan

Not long ago, we learned our next-door neighbor was sick. She had surgery and was recovering quickly, but I wanted to send over something to show we’d been thinking of her.

Naturally, I wanted to involve Peeper. We set to making a paper bouquet of coffee filter flowers.

Lessons in empathy

Peeper is still too young to understand why we were making the bouquet, and thank goodness. How wonderful to be unaware of things like cancer, anesthesia and prognoses. But it’s important to instill the value of doing nice things for others, so we made our own thinking-of-you package instead of buying a bouquet or card at the store.

One of the nice things about these coffee filter flowers is you almost definitely have the materials on hand. What’s more, it’s ridiculously easy and simple enough for even toddlers to do.

What are you waiting for? Even if you don’t know someone who’s ill, you do know someone whose day would be brightened by a hand-made flower or two. Read more →

Painting birthday party: Making a group easel [tutorial!]

July 13, 2015October 31, 2016catherinemryan

Peeper loves to create, so when it came to planning her second birthday party, I knew I wanted to incorporate art. Thanks to getting almost no sleep and leaving most of the party prep till the morning of, I had to scale back some of our painting plans, but one activity made the cut: the group DIY easel.

Peeper and her friends got to paint alongside each other in our front yard, and each kiddo took home a piece of art (or several!). Peeper’s painting is now hanging on our wall above the dining table.

The setup was surprisingly easy—and cheap—and we’ve left it up in our yard for now. Peeper continues to use it, and when we do decide to take it down, we’ll recycle or reuse all the pieces for projects later!

Want to get in on the artistic action, too? Here’s how to make an easy group DIY easel for your kids to paint their own outdoor masterpieces. Read more →

Super easy DIY baby shower gift: Fingerprint tree [tutorial!]

July 8, 2015May 7, 2018catherinemryan

This DIY baby shower craft is an easy, personal gift your loved one will treasure forever. Here’s how to make a fingerprint tree for guests to “sign.”

A while back, a dear friend from high school had a baby shower in anticipation of welcoming her first child. She and her husband live in Chicago and there was no way I could zip over for the party, but I wanted to send something special for their baby shower. I didn’t want to just get something off the registry; I wanted to make something by hand (but that was easy and didn’t take up hours of time). Enter: the fingerprint tree, a gorgeous, thoughtful and easy-to-make DIY baby shower gift!

The fingerprint tree doubled as a gift and a guest book that baby shower guests could “sign” with their fingerprints. To me, the tree shows this little baby that her family came together to celebrate her even before she was born.

That’s the best thing about this DIY baby shower gift: The fingerprint tree lets this new baby know that she is being born into a world filled with people who loved her—people who would always be there to support and encourage her.

The baby shower craft is super easy—basically all you need is paper, ink and a sharp X-Acto knife. I drew the tree I used, but you could also print an image from the Internet and cut that out (or trace it onto nicer stock).

Here, then, are instructions to make a DIY fingerprint tree for the next baby shower you attend! Read more →

Handmade change jar: Watch your savings grow! [tutorial]

July 3, 2015June 3, 2016catherinemryan

Eric is really, really good about saving his change. I tend to spend mine, getting way more excited than is warranted when I get to use pennies at the store, whereas he empties his pockets at the end of the day to watch a jar fill up with dimes and quarters.

Not too long ago, the peanut butter jar we’d been using was too full to accept a single more cent. I took it to our credit union—and walked out more than $135 richer.

Aw, yeah.

The problem: I could not go back to using that scuzzy plastic jar. It was dirty, it was ugly and I didn’t want it sitting on our mantle, no matter how much money it held.

So I enlisted Peeper’s help! Together, we made a brand-new/upcycled change jar so we can (ahem) watch our money grow. (Get it?)

Here are the instructions so you can make one, too! Read more →

What is process art? Letting kids craft whatever the eff they want

May 26, 2015February 28, 2018catherinemryan

Toddler process art clay — Process art: When a honey dipping stick becomes a ceramics tool

For anyone reading this blog, it should be no surprise that Peeper loves her some art. Most of her hands-on time is very open-ended: I set her up with some paper and crayons or a paper plate full of paint, then let her go wild. (And by wild, I mostly mean become speckled green, black and orange in art supplies.) I thought she was just intuitive; turns out she is loving her some process art. But what is process art?

It turns out that free-spirited approach to crafts is good for kids’ creativity. “Process art is more important than end product,” writes Rachelle Doorley, artist and author of Tinkerlab: A Hands-On Guide for Little Inventors, on her blog. And focusing too much on what kids make, and especially what projects are meant to look like, is stifling.

Doorley also polled a whole slew of educators, artists and parents on what they wished they’d known about kids’ art and rolled it up into a fantastic blog post. Just about everyone agreed that art is all about the doing—and encouraging kids’ creativity—not about what gets done.

Nature painting: Process art for kids

March 31, 2015May 5, 2017catherinemryan

Lately, Peeper is fascinated by combining complementary things. “Together!” she cries, popping a bite of cheese and hot dog into her mouth, or “Pomegranate on top!” while balancing a seed on a forkful of peas and tofu.

Her enthusiasm makes me think of the scene in Ratatouille when Remy discovers how two tastes together can pop like fireworks or melt together for a transcendent out-of-body experience.

The other day, I followed her lead. Peeper loves art, and she loves the outdoors. So voila: nature painting!

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