January 7, 2016  by

Layered Canvas Family Project

This layered canvas turned out to be one of my favorite art projects I have done with my kids. It started off as a holiday Advent activity and turned into something we will be doing all year long. The basic idea is to work on one canvas over many days, adding a new material every time. Because it started off as an Advent activity, each material was a surprise, hidden inside of a bag for that specific day. This quickly became a fun game where they would try to guess what the next material would be. If a material didn’t fit inside the bag (like on day 1), I would set it up like an Invitation To Create and surprise the girls that way. Although we tried to do this every day during early December, I quickly realized that it was going to have to be every other day- and sometimes we’d go a few days without working on it. This made it a much more enjoyable experience and helped me realize we could continue on indefinitely! Here is what our process looked like…

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in Art Projects / Creative Projects / Family Canvas Challenge / Holiday 9 comments
December 1, 2015  by

Holiday Family Art Prompt And Advent Activity

One of The Art Pantry readers, Emily Holzknecht, recently shared with me her family advent art tradition. I absolutely love this Advent activity! Emily creates a bag of art materials for each day of the Advent calendar. On Dec 1, each person in the family gets a canvas and they open the first bag of art materials. They use the same canvas each day and open a new bag of materials to add to their work.

This project is sort of like an invitation to create, advent calendar, & art game all in one. I love the idea of building on the same canvas with surprise materials each day.

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in Art Projects / Creative Projects / Holiday 3 comments
August 28, 2015  by

Make-A-Wish Collaborative Art

Last Saturday The Art Pantry team was invited to create a playful family experience for the Walk For Wishes event held at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, Ca. This was a fundraiser for the Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area foundation to raise money in order to fulfill the wishes of kids with life-threatening medical conditions. If you haven’t heard of them, check out the Batkid wish they granted almost two years ago. Incredible.

I’m happy to say that the event raised enough money to grant 13 wishes!

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in Art Projects / Creative Projects / News / Party Ideas 3 comments
July 24, 2015  by

Embroidery Multimedia Art

This summer, my hubby, Aaron, decided to run a small soccer camp for some of the 7-year-old girls that will be on his team in the fall. It’s been a while since I’ve taught art classes and we thought it would be fun to add an hour of art to each day of camp. Then, to top off this already incredibly cool camp, Aaron decided to add in dessert adventures at the end of each day (walking around town, in search of the yummiest treat!).

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in Art Projects / Creative Projects / Party Ideas 10 comments
June 3, 2015  by

Summer Reading Recommendations: Learning At Home

A reader recently asked about my recommendations for books on setting up creative learning spaces. She specifically wanted to know about books inspired by the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. It got me thinking that I should put together a list of my all-time favorite resources- not only for setting up learning spaces, but also for expanding creative learning opportunities at home.

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in Art Projects / Art Spaces / Creative Learning 6 comments
March 9, 2015  by

Garden Wish Flags With The Artful Parent

When I started blogging about kids and art in late 2009, I discovered my first blogger hero, Jean Van’t Hul at the Artful Parent. She was (and still is!) my go-to resource for creative project ideas and living artfully with kids. Her toddler art group was also the inspiration behind my first toddler art classes. Over the years, Jean has only become more inspiring, always delivering countless fresh ideas for engaging children in the arts.

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in Art Projects / Creative Projects / Garden 7 comments
December 29, 2014  by

Art And Play

Do you ever wonder how to incorporate an art space into your child’s play space? Whether or not you have a dedicated space for either, art and play go hand in hand.

These pics are from a space I recently finished in a client’s sunroom. It used to be a dramatic play space for her two kids, but she knew they would use it more often if it was an art studio. My client wasn’t sure what to do when her 3 year old daughter wouldn’t let her move the play kitchen and “market” out of the room.

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in Art Display / Art Projects / Art Spaces / Creative Learning / Indoor Creative Spaces / Portfolio 7 comments
February 23, 2014  by

Wildflower Seed Bombs

It’s almost springtime, my favorite time of year. The sun is lingering around a little longer these days and delicate flower blossoms are popping up along the branches of our bare trees. As we begin to plan for our spring garden projects, I’m also thinking of ways to bring our art activities outdoors. One artful garden project that we love to do is make seed bombs. Seed bombs are small masses of clay, mixed with soil and seeds that will grow in any plot of land with a little water and sun. They are often used as a guerrilla gardening tactic to bring beauty to barren, abandoned city lots. Just toss them on top, no digging necessary!

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in Art Projects / Creative Projects / Garden 6 comments