Perfect Parakeets

Posted on June 6, 2014 by Dana Sheridan

These wrist parakeets are super simple to make, require very few art supplies, and…are amazingly adorable, yes? They’re also tough. Thanks to their sturdy pipe cleaner tethers, these parakeets really stay attached, even on the most active ornithologist. This project can also be modified to be an owl!

You’ll need:

1 toilet paper tube
Construction paper
2 dot sticker for eyes
3 small feathers
3 goose quills
1 pipe cleaner
Scissors, tape for construction
Markers for decorating
Hole punch

If you want to get a little fancier, you’ll need:

A small triangle of self-adhesive foam shape for beak
A selection of color masking tape
Hot glue

We’ll make the parakeet’s body first, and then proceed to perching it on your wrist. Here’s what a completed bird body looks like:

Wrap construction paper around the entire toilet paper tube. Then wrap a smaller strip of construction paper around the top – this will become your bird’s head. Yet another piece of construction paper becomes your bird’s colorful chest (it looks best if you round the top of the chest).

Draw eyes and eyebrows on the dot stickers, then stick them on the bird’s head. Tape (or glue) a small triangle of construction paper to the head for a beak. You can also use a triangle of self-adhesive foam for the beak (it gives the beak some really nice texture). Tape (or hot glue) 2 small feathers on the side for wing, and 1 small feather on top for the crest. The body is done!

To make the tail, gather 3 duck quills together, fan them out slightly, and wrap scotch tape around the points of the quills (if you don’t want to purchase duck quills for the tail, just use more small feathers). Tape the tail to the back of the bird.

If you want to get a little fancier, you can wrap scotch tape around the points of the quills, then cover the scotch tape with color masking tape and hot glue it to the bird’s body.

The final step is to tether the bird to your wrist! Punch holes in both sides of the toilet paper tube. Don’t punch the holes in the center of the tube. Punch them slightly more toward the front of the bird. The reason is this – with the tail in place, the bird actually sits slightly askew on your wrist. It needs to be tethered slightly towards the front in order to sit correctly on your wrist. When in doubt, just plunk the tube on your wrist and you’ll see where the holes need to go.

Thread a pipe cleaner through the holes, sit the bird on your wrist, and twist the pipe cleaner under your wrist to secure the bird in place! Finito!

I mentioned this in the intro, but this project can also be modified to be an owl. You can go with the version below, or you can see our slightly-more-simplified version here.

owl

Let Us Ride

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Dana Sheridan

Don your finery and trot the countryside on a beautiful, ornate steed! And if you happen to see a sturdy little pony named Fritz, don’t forget to stop and say hello!

We read Fritz and the Beautiful Horses by Jan Brett (HMH Books for Young Readers, 1987). Once upon a time, there was a walled city that was famous for it’s beautiful horses. But outside the city lived a plain little pony named Fritz. Fritz wanted to be like the beautiful horses, but no one was interested in a pony with a shaggy mane, fuzzy ears, and a whiskery muzzle. That is until one day, when the bridge is threatening to collapse and the children of the city are stranded on one side. The beautiful horses are too flighty, skittish, and snobbish to cross the river and take the children to safety. But Fritz, being both gentle and kind, is more than willing to help. Now, the walled city is proud of it’s beautiful horses…and it’s hero pony.

You’ll need:

A 2.5″ x 22″ strip of poster board
1 sheet of tissue paper (mine was 19.5″ x 11.5″)
1 goose quill
1 large embossed foil seal
1 pony head template, printed on 11″ x 17″ paper
A 11″ x 27″ piece of white poster board for head
2 rectangles of white construction paper for ears (approximately 2″ x 3.5″)
Construction paper for mane and forelock
2 wiggle eyes
2 black dot stickers for nose
2 strips cut from a manilla file folder (approximately 0.75″ x 9″)
2 small embossed foil seals
A 41.5″ piece of PVC pipe for stick
A 35″ piece of ribbon for the reins
Hole punch
Packing tape
Stapler, scissors, tape for construction
Markers for decorating
Hot glue

If you’d like to make a jingling tassel for your bridle, you’ll need:

1 book (mine was 6″ long)
12′ of yarn, plus a separate 3″ piece
A 9″ piece of curling ribbon
1 jingle bell

We’ll start with your noble hat, and then proceed to the pony with optional jingle tassel!

First, use the markers to decorate a strip of poster board. Circle the poster board strip around your head, then remove and staple. To create the poofy top to your hat, lay a sheet of tissue paper flat on a table.

Gently lift and pull each corner of the sheet to towards the middle, gathering the corners together like this:

As you can see in the above picture, the tissue paper sheet now has 4 “points” sticking out of it. Fold those points towards the center of the sheet as well.

Your tissue sheet is now fully bunched. Carefully drop your hat band on top of the bunched tissue paper, and reopen the bunched edges until they meet the inside of the hat band. Staple the tissue paper around the interior perimeter of the hat band.

Flip the hat over and tape a jaunty feather to the outside. Stick an embossed foil seal over the shaft of the feather to compete the look.

Up next…the perfect pony!

Fold the large rectangle of white poster board in half to form a smaller, 11″ x 13.5″ rectangle. Then, place the pony head template (shown below in red for better contrast) onto the folded poster board. Make sure that the nose of pony is lined up with the fold in the poster board. Cut along the template, leaving the “nose fold” intact.

Next, shape two ears out of the white construction paper rectangles, color the insides with markers, and staple each ear at the bottom.

Then staple or hot glue an ear to each side of the pony’s head.

To create a forelock, make a 1.5″ cut down the fold of the head, directly between the ears.

Fringe a small piece of white construction paper. Slide the fridge into the cut and secure it to the interior of the pony’s head with hot glue. Repeat on the left side.

To create the mane, fringe a piece of white construction paper (use a 9″ x 12″ piece for a long mane, or a 4.5″ x 12″ piece for a short mane). Secure the mane inside the pony’s head, along the neck with hot glue. Repeat on the other side of the pony’ head.

Punch a hole on each side of the pony’ mouth. This is where the reins and tassel will loop through.

Time to decorate! Hot glue two wiggle eyes onto the head, and create nostrils using black dot stickers (you can also skip these materials and simple use markers to draw the eyes and nostrils). If you’d like a curly mane, wrap the construction paper fringes around a marker or pencil.

To make a bridle, decorate 2 manilla file fold strips with markers, and attach them on both sides of the head with tape or hot glue. Add a pair of small embossed foils seals at the bottom. If you have time, bring out the Bling Bin to add some extra flourishes, wind some curling ribbon through the mane.

You can see reins and a tassel in the above photo, but don’t put them on just yet! It’s time to attach the pony’s head to the stick. Open your pony’s head. Lay the stick on one side of the head, making sure that the end of the stick is 1.5″ away from the fold. Use packing tape (not regular tape) to attach the stick to the neck. Use at least 4 pieces of packing tape to make it really secure.

Then, close the head and put a few staples into the base of the head, around the stick.

Thread a ribbon through the holes in the pony’s head and knot it behind the stick. The jingle bell tassel dangling from the pony’s bridle is purely optional, but I have to say the kids LOVED them. I prepped the tassels in advance. To make a tassel, wrap yarn around a book (my book was about 6″ long).

Cut the yarn off both ends of the book. You now have a little pile of yarn like this:

Knot a piece of curling ribbon around the middle (curling ribbon is easier to thread through the opening of the jingle bell)

Fold both sections of the yarn downwards and knot another piece of yarn around it like so

Trim overlong pieces of yarn off the sides and bottom of the tassel and you’re done!

Thread a jingle bell onto the curling ribbon, then thread the curling ribbon through the holes your punched in your pony’s head. Knot securely. Your pony is finished, climb on and ride!

If you’re still not feeling the decadence, may we suggest a cape? Attach a large piece of tissue paper to your shoulders using two embossed foil seals like so:

Then RIDE LIKE THE WIND!

Art at Home

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Dana Sheridan

Over the years, I’ve had parents approach me at my programs and say “I bet you do a ton of art at home with your kids, right?” They are very surprised when I tell them that no, actually, I don’t!

The reason is this. I have a very active son. And I mean active with a capital A. He decided he was done napping when he was 13 months old and celebrated this decision by vaulting out of his crib. I have a younger daughter who puts everything in her mouth. Absolutely everything. So art supplies were not the best match for our active, mouthy little household. My one experiment with crayons resulted in eight decorated walls, and my son referring to my daughter as a “great artist” with something akin to awe in his voice.

This winter, however, I decided that everyone was a little older (and hopefully, a little more careful) and we were ready to try again. I put together a little art studio, in a little house, on a little budget.

I decided that the studio would be in our kitchen, since we already had a second-hand table parked there that had previously served as a train table for my son. I purchased a couple $4 art caddies from Michaels craft store:

Inside the caddies are scissors, a glue stick, a hole punch, markers (regular and thin), a tape dispenser (for a good one, see this post), and plastic shape tracers purchased 3 years ago.

We had been using 3 drawers in the kitchen for toy storage. I moved the toys elsewhere and set up art storage.

The top drawer holds crayons, colored pencils, and regular pencils. The middle drawer holds construction paper and patterned paper. The bottom drawer has sketch pads and white paper. It might seem like overkill to have these supplies divided into three drawers, but I wanted the kids to be able to segregate the supplies easily and put them away on their own (it worked too!).

The final art storage area is located in the bottom of our pantry, which is right next to the art table. Again, I didn’t pack the pantry full of supplies because I wanted the kids to have plenty of room to access the supplies and put them away on their own.

I stocked a canvas bin full of clean recyclables: empty oatmeal containers, cereal boxes, tissue boxes, toilet paper tubes, paper towel tubes, plastic retail packaging, tea tins, etc. Every now and then, I replenish the bin with new stuff. In many ways, it’s a small-scale version of the recyclable program I run at my library. Here’s the canvas “art bin” in action:

Tucked next to the art bin are containers with Playdough…

Watercolors (not tempura or finger paint – not quite going there yet) plus extra brushes

And a miniature version of the Bling Bin, which contains odds and ends like pom-poms, pipe cleaners, a pair of unused shoe laces, ribbon, clothespins, feathers, craft sticks, even those little hook thingees that come on new pairs of socks.

Also in the pantry was the biggest splurge – a huge roll of easel paper for floor projects. But a 40% off coupon really helped knock down the price. In fact, I used Michaels 40% off coupons for all of this stuff, slowly acquiring supplies and stashing them in the basement until the big reveal on New Year’s Day.

So, how did the art studio go over? That morning, my son spent 4 hours in the studio, creating things. He made a roadway with easel paper, a jet pack, a rocket, a drawing of a haunted house, a train map, and a train bird feeder, which he promptly asked me to hang on the porch. These days, he’ll head to the art studio to manufacture his own toys to play with. Here’s a shot of that snazzy train bird feeder. Look at that fancy tape work!

My daughter favors Playdough, coloring, and using pom-poms from the Bling Bin in various scenarios around the house (ice cream store, grocery store, some sort of complicated sports game with vague scoring parameters). Often, she can often be found scribbling away at the art table with multiple markers at once. She says this is a drawing of a playground. Can you guess what her two absolutely favorite colors are?

This past holiday weekend, we stepped into the studio to create some snazzy submarines with spinning propellers (toilet paper tubes, drinking straws, cereal box cardboard, and plastic medicine cups).

And, continuing with the nautical theme, we also made these boats out of tin foil (that’s sailboat on the left and a rowboat on the right). Then we floated them in the bathroom sink.

In short, the studio was a success and I didn’t need to invest in something big like an easel, shelving, or even new storage bins to make it work. In fact, I was surprised and delighted to learn that many of the containers and art supplies were already lurking in the house.

Oh, I can still fantasize about my dream home, where a whole room would be dedicated to art. It would have big windows, a sink, a tile floor, a drying rack, a patchwork sofa, a drafting desk, decorative mobiles hanging from the ceiling, and walls adorned with the cheerful work of my genius children.

But right now, I’m happy with my little kitchen studio, and so are my little artists.

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Perfect Parakeets

Let Us Ride

Art at Home