3D "I Love You" Hand Craft (And our Favorite Books about Love)

It's already February and I haven't yet put up any Valentine's Day Crafts this year.  Oof! What kind of kid crafter am I?

I've just been so caught up in what's happening in our country and world that I haven't fully had the heart or energy to embrace doilies, flowers, chocolate, hearts.... basically anything Valentine's yet.  But today I'm turning a new leaf.  Here's my first Valentine's day craft of the season... these 3D "I Love You" Hands.

(They're not quite hearts and flowers and pun-ny sayings.. but it's a start, right?)

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Gorgeous, Kid-Made Birthday Banner (And my dream job...)

A few weeks ago, we invited a few school friends over for a play date.  Since having a baby less than a year ago, I've been a bit (ok... let's be honest... VERY) nervous about having people over.  I'm always pooped and don't really feel like entertaining.  (Ever feel that way too?)  But, I pushed myself to try and that's how I found myself with 5 kids running around our fairly small home.  The kids played with toys and ran around outside... and surprisingly a lot of time was spent inside, painting and making art.

What?

You read that right, friends.  Our teacher's birthday was coming up and I invited the children to help me paint her birthday banner.  Once the kids saw the papers and art supplies on our table... they got right to work, creating the beautiful birthday letters below.

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DIY Paper Chain Christmas Village

Last week I saw stores with Christmas villages already set up and ready to go.  Anyone else love seeing these tiny scenes on display?  There's something magical about seeing things in the miniature.  Today I'm sharing a fun Christmas Craft that you can do with the kids this holiday season.   Make your very own Paper Chain Christmas villages!

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40+ Projects that combine STEM with Art!

Seems like everyone's talking about the importance of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) these days. And hey, I get it.  We live in a highly technological world that's rapidly advancing in all sorts of new ways.   We want our kids to be be creative and adaptive problem solvers.

But maybe you're like me and you deeply love arts and crafts.  They're your jam.  And maybe you're unsure how to dive into all this STEAM goodness.  Hey, I get that too.  Hopefully today's post will help.  In this post I sharing over 40 ideas for arts and craft projects that also happen to incorporate STEM ideas.  Yup.  Here are some of my favorite artsy crafty posts...which also happen to have a little STEAM-y oomph to them!

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Family Watercolor Hand print Art

I'm always a bit nervous about transitions in life.  And having a new baby has certainly been a humongous transition for our whole family.  Diapers, giggles, crying, baby snuggles... we're still trying to find our new groove as a family of four.  So I came up with this hand print art project to do with my eldest son.  Despite all the crazy chaos that this stage of life brings, I still wanted to celebrate our family.

Family Watercolor Hand Print Art  

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Tape Resist Dinosaur Bone Art (And our favorite 10+ Dinosaur Books!)

I love it when an art and science combine to create a beautiful and easy kids STEM project. When I was growing up science, math, and art were always treated as fairly different topics.  And I get why they taught us that way... it's easier and we get to dig down deep into each one.  But I wish that my kid self also experienced how all three things topics were linked.  Don't artist use math and science when making art?  Isn't there beauty in math and science? Certainly!  And so my inner nerd and artist gets very excited when my son and I do a project that touches on what seem to be different areas.

Ok... but I digress.  Recently my son and I visited our local natural history museum's dinosaur exhibit and marveled at the size and design of t-rex bones.  (Gosh.  Those are some ferocious creatures!  So glad they don't live today.  Eeek.)  So, inspired by that visit and this awesome human skeleton tape resist painting idea, we made our own very beautiful and scientific tape resist dinosaur bone skeleton paintings! 

Tape Resist Dinosaur Bone Paintings 

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Watercolor Painted Paper Fans

I've recently been looking into making more Chinese New Year crafts together as a way to celebrate the upcoming holiday.   With my current infatuation with  watercolor crafts, we recently made these watercolor painted paper fans together.

Watercolor Painted Paper Fans

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Colorful "Stamp and Paint" Heart Art

Ever try out a project, expecting one thing and then getting something completely different?  That’s what happened with a recent art adventure.  I loved this stained glass art with toilet paper rolls and never had a chance to try it out.  It seemed so easy.  Stamp, wait, then paint!  Boom.  Easy and colorful kid art!  Well, my preschooler and I've started making Valentine's Day Crafts and made a Valentine’s day version….with unexpected results! 

Colorful “Stamp and Paint” Heart Art

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3D Paper Plate Christmas Trees!

If your kid (1) loves Christmas crafts and (2) painting.... then these Paper plate Christmas Trees are the craft for you! They're so easy to make and provide the perfect "canvas" for little kids to express their creativity and holiday spirit!

3D Paper Plate Christmas Trees

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Vibrant Chalk and Crayon Splash Art

I'm always on the hunt for easy and unique art projects to try out with kids.  And today's project pretty much fits the bill!  Children usesidewalk chalk, crayons, and a splash of ink to create vibrantly colored, glowing artwork!

Vibrant Chalk and Crayon Splash Art!

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3 Easy Preschool Robot Art Ideas

Does your child love robots?  My preschooler loves them!  We regularly speak in robot voice and robot dance around the house. So today I'm adding to our growing list of Preschool crafts and activities with these 3 easy robot art ideas!

3 Easy Preschool Robot Art Ideas

Paper Plate Dia De Los Muertos Skulls

Happy Dia De Los Muertos! This year my preschooler and I celebrated this beautiful holiday with two crafts.  A couple of weeks ago we made sugar skull artwork from sugar cubes.  Recently we made these super easy Paper Plate Dia De Los Muertos Skulls!

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Easy and Colorful Paper Plate Snakes

Sometimes the easy and classic preschool crafts are the best.  Today I'm sharing a super easy paper plate craft for all reptile-loving kids.  We're crafting some beautiful paper plate snakes!

Watercolor Paper Plate Snakes

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Make Sugar Cube Sugar Skull Art with Kids!

Looking for a fun Day of the Dead Sugar Skull Craft to do with the kids?  How about this sugar skull process art activity?  Different, everyday materials are combined to create a piece of unique and lovely artwork!

Sugar Cube Sugar Skull Art

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Gorgeous Accordion Fold Fall Paper Leaf Banner

Today we're continuing with the theme of easy fall crafts.  Couple of days ago I shared this really beautiful Sewn Leaf Art project that I made with my preschooler.  Today I just wanted to share this gorgeous folded paper leaf banner.

I came up with the idea after reading some fall-themed books with my son.   Seeing all the beautiful colored leaves in the books made me miss the fall leaves back on the East coast.  And then it hit me- why not make our own?  Bring a bit of fall to our forever-summer state.   And so, my son and I got to making and painting together.  The results came out so beautiful that he insisted we hang the banner up in his room to spruce it up.

Make Monster Sculptures with kids!

Looking for a fun Halloween activity for preschoolers?  

Why not set up a monster-making factory in your dining room?  Yup.  This fun art and craft activity is a great way for kids to be creative and gear up for the upcoming holidays.  (Hooray Halloween!  Woo-hoo!)

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Living in Southern California, I have a tough time appreciating seasons.  I mean, we’re still in the 70s-80s here.  The leaves are green…. I'm still wearing shorts and sandals.  It just doesn’t quite feel like fall.  So this monster-making activity really helped us get into the fall spirit.

Hyper Colorful Painted Paper Plate Flowers!

Lately I've been enamored with paper plate crafts.  We always have a ton of cheap, white paper plates lying around and they're the perfect canvas.  A couple of days ago my son was sick and we stayed home all day.  Fortunately, we kept ourselves busy with Lego, lots of book reading, and two paper plate crafts.  We had such fun painting, I thought I'd share our crafts here.  Here's our first paper plate craft-

Hyper Colorful Painted Paper Plate Flowers

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So what do you think?  I'm in LOVE with how these flowers turned out.  Really, really, gorgeous.  And, (even better), they're really easy to make and paint too!  

Make Tricycle Circle Artwork with Kids!

When I set up today's preschool art activity, my husband thought I was crazy.   Really.  He thought I finally inhaled too many craft paint fumes, fell off my rocker, and floated away to la-la land.

To be fair to him, it really WAS a giant art activity.  But I was still surprised by his reaction because he's already seen me do messy activities  (like making jello brains), slimey activities, and fairly large scale art activities (like this GIANT DIY scratch board).... so really, in the grand scheme of things, what's the big deal with making....

GIANT TRICYCLE ARTWORK!

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Make Colorful Watercolor Peg Doll and Beaded Necklaces

I recently purchased a box of Liquid Watercolors (affiliate link) to try out.  I'd seen so many beautiful projects by other fellow Rockin' Art Moms  that we just had to try them out too.

And guess what?  These paints totally lived up to the hype.

Here's why liquid watercolor rock- The colors are beautiful and vibrant.  These watercolor paints are also SO MUCH EASIER to use than the typical pan watercolors.  My preschooler doesn't typically enjoy painting with me because he struggles with getting enough color on his paint brush.  I think he really enjoyed today's project because it was easy and the colors came out looking fabulous!

So here's our first liquid watercolor project- Tada!  We used our liquid watercolors to dye some wooden beads and peg dolls to make these lovely, family necklaces!

Let's Make Colorful Watercolor-Dyed Peg Doll Necklaces!

 

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Easy Kirigami Fish Craft

Howdy! For those of you living above the equator-- how's summer so far?  I'm slowly recovering from illness (hooray!)  Our days are packed with swim classes, trips to the library, play dates, and night time walks.  Is it just me, or is summer just as busy as the rest of the school year?

Lately, I honestly haven't had the time (or energy) to craft.  (Do you ever feel that way too?)  Well, in case you wanted a quick, summer craft to do with the kids, I'm sharing this easy kirigami fish craft today!  I've always enjoyed paper cutting and folding crafts, so I thought this was a really great way for young children to get creative with scissors and paper too!

Let's make some Kirigami Fish!