Chalk One Up (review)

  A few weeks ago we visited a sidewalk art festival.  My kids enjoyed seeing what people had drawn on the sidewalk as much as I did.  They even saw a few artist still in action which helped to solidify that they were drawn by people and it was possible for them to do the same thing.

I am  not sure what the theme was but they were able to pick out familiar things to them.  It was definitely a family event as there was something for everyone to see. Musicians depicted as well as cartoon characters.

I don't know about you but when I was a child growing up sidewalk chalk was cut and dry. You had a package of a few colors and that was it.  Now the kids have so many options available to them that our neighborhoods should never be boring again!

We picked up this bucket full of sidewalk fun for hours.

  The bucket has 4 stencils.  They are made of a nice durable plastic and easy enough for little ones to shade in for a picture.

  A variety of egg shaped chalk pieces.

Look, creating that rainbow just got easier with this 3 in 1 chalk holder.

 Multiple colors and styles of straight chalk pieces. All thick and easy to grab for all fingers. Of course they have yet to make chalk indestructible; see the red one.

4 colorful chalk grips.  One for a few different shades or one for each child.

The grips I thought were neat because if your child hates to get chalk on their hands, needs a little extra help holding them or for that genius artist in your house to fine tune their artwork with precision.

Talk about a bucket of endless possibilities.  The age is 4+ and I would say that any age would enjoy the different tools and colors available to them.  The bucket is nice in itself that everything does fit back nicely and readily available for next time.

I picked this bucket up at Walmart.  I was not paid nor was this a free item.  I am merely sharing my opinion of a great outside activity item for your child.  All opinions mentioned are solely mine. 

Pinterest Challenge Day 8

  With so many options available to you on Pinterest it's so hard to choose what to do next.  I enjoy trying new meals be it entree, snack or desserts so I look at those and save a lot of them.  The second area I look at is the teaching, learning for kids.  I work a lot with my kids and am constantly looking up new ways to teach them something specific and new ideas to reinforce what they have learned.  Last area is arts and crafts more so for them than diy projects for myself.  Crafts that I can make or that they can make is fun to watch the progress.  Usually these crafts look easier than DIY projects, are quicker and I have most everything on hand.

  Today I am sharing another project from that second area.  I had shaving cream, a pointed device (toothpick, or broken off qtip (we used skewers)) paper and food coloring available so that's a green light for creating more art.

  Spray your shaving cream on the surface.  Even it out so you have it completely smooth.

Drop random drops of food coloring across the surface; even dropping different colors, different amounts on original drops.  Next use a pointed device  to make desired patterns.

             

We stuck with fireworks with one child and the other child working with the other side of the tray did more of an abstract pattern.

  Place your paper over the landscape when your done swirling the colors.  Pat it nicely to ensure all paper has made contact with paper and color have set.

Remove paper and wipe the shaving cream off and behold the beauty.  I must admit I didn't think it worked when I pulled the paper off but when I cleaned that shaving cream off it was magically.  There is not a clear precise picture maybe because I left the paper on to long, too much color, shaving cream was melting.  It would be worth another try to see the results.

  You could make your own stationary.  I have used nailpolish and had great designs but this is so much cleaner.  I would even like to try it on material and fabric.  I wonder how it would work out.  It's food coloring I almost think it would be permanent but maybe it would need something to set it.

  Overall easy, cheap project to make with the kids and if your a great artist I bet you can make some awesome pictures as well.  This is a great project for kids of all ages which as you can see my two even had to share their surface as my shaving cream was limited.  So much for supplies on hand.

Definitely a #pinterestwin and even the kids declared this a fun project!

12 Days of Elf

  Today I am woke up by my daughter to tell me she hugged the elf so hard he told her to let him go.  She was over the moon happy with the gift he brought her.  I just had to hurry up and come downstairs so she could show me.

  She is so funny because then she just leaves.  Of course she comes back with elf item in hand.  We go back downstairs to properly display elf with his goodies!

We managed to get breakfast in and dressed before diving into the arts of the day.

With two to choose from and two kids involved I am fortunate to not hear who was getting which one.  They came to an agreement of which one was going to whom.

The kids got busy painting their ornaments and did I say they were so happy with their goodies?

   I have said before nothing beats the individual technique and style of each child.  One child figures using a brush was just too slow a process!  The other child took her time.  It would be interesting to provide a object for her to paint and watch the process and she learns to control the brush and paints bigger objects.

They did a great job and thanks to Elf we have some new ornaments on the tree and they now officially have their very first created by them ornaments for their future tree.

Thank you Elf! One point for you today!