Anime/Japanese Birthday Party

Over the weekend we celebrated Sere's birthday with a sleep over party. Right now Sere is really into cosplay and decora fashions as well as anime. So for her birthday party, she wanted to share these things with her friends.

We set up the food table in the kitchen. I let Sere pick the menu, which consisted of as many foods (mostly desserts) she could think of from anime/manga she has seen/read.

The above are inspired by Najika from Kitchen Princess. she makes something similar in the manga. These are cupcakes baked in ice cream cones and topped with frosting and sprinkles. The chocolate pieces were made prior (along with the eyes for the soot sprite cupcakes). They are based on some of Sere's favorite animes.


We also visited Uwajimayas, which is a rather large oriental grocery store. There we picked up some more authentic Japanese goodies, such as Ramune soda, mochi, and teriyaki crackers (some of which can be seen below).

 To incorporate the feeling of a festival or a festive atmosphere, sere wanted to incorporate edibles on a stick. So we made dipped marshmallows and dango.

                         



We made banana trifles and strawberry shortcakes (seen below). These were based on desserts from Maid Sama and  Kitchen Princess.  We topped them with whipped cream before eating them.

         

And what Japanese party could be complete without sushi?  Candy sushi made from rice krispies, swedish fish and gummy sharks. The sushi rolls are rice krispies, twizzlers, sour ropes, and wrapped in fruit roll ups. I didn't think to take a picture until they had already started eating them.  We also had mini chocolate pies and muffins.

We made the paper flowers on the wall and hung up a table cloth, to add a bit more charm to atmosphere. The lanterns came from the dollar tree. We use them during the summer in the yard as they are battery powered and hang nicely. The pom ropes came from the dollar tree as well. we made little eyes and glued them on, in order to make the black poms into soot sprites.







I had been wanting some apothecary jars for a while now, so I used this as an excuse to make some. They were really simple and easy to put together. I used small bowls and candle holders I had lying around or picked up at the dollar store or freddys for super cheap. Then fit them together the way I liked and hot glued them. Easy. I think they turned out really cute.
They were used to hold candy, the marshmallow and dango sticks and the third we stuffed full of pocky. Pocky is a biscuit dipped in yogurt or frosting. You can usually find them in your local grocery store in the foreign food section.

When we first started planning this party we tried to look up ideas online for food and treats and games, but there wasn't a ton available. So I want to share what we did in hopes that it will help someone else in the future. Because of that I have broken this topic post into two posts. The first being food and second being games and activities. Stay tuned for the second post. :)

Valentine, You're Griffindorable!!

With Valentine's day fast approaching, we are hard at work making our valentines.  As we are pretty big Harry Potter fans here and with the anticipated new Harry Potter movie coming out in November (you can see a trailer for it HERE), Rini decided her valentines this year would be wands.

We printed the valentines on thick card stock and cut them out. Then punched a whole through each one and used string to tie them to the wands. You can get a set of your own awesome Harry Potter valentines at Art by STOWE.

To make your own Harry Potter wands you will need:

• Printer paper
• Hot glue gun
• Hot glue sticks
• Acrylic or craft paints (we used black and brown but you can add other colors too)
• Marbles or gems (to add to the base- this is optional)
• Wooden dowels (this is optional but add support to the wands and makes them more sustainable)

Begin by taking a dowel (if using them) and placing it diagonally across one corner or a piece of printer paper. Grab the corner and place it on the dowel. You can tape it here with scotch tape if you want. Now roll the paper and dowel (as tightly as you can) until you get to the end of the paper. Once there, secure paper corner to the paper wand with a bit of hot glue.

If you aren't using a dowel, you will do the same process, just without the dowel. Start at a corner of your printer paper and roll (as tightly as possible) diagonally across the paper. Once at the end, secure with hot glue.

For both wands, you will need to fill the inside of the wand with hot glue.  If using the dowel, its easier as you have less of an area to fill. Fill both ends (and middle if not using the dowel) of your wand with the hot glue. Be patient as this part can take a while. 

If you wanted to add a gem or marble ot one end, now is the time to do that.

Once your wands are filled and dried, you can use the hot glue to make designs on them. Rini wanted them to look like wood, so we made a wood fiber like pattern on all the wands. You could though build up areas and make larger 3D decorations on wands.

We found that its best to do one side of a wand before doing the other as the glue is hot and doesn't always dry as fast as we would like. 

Next comes the painting part. Take your acrylics and paint the colors and designs you want on your wands. Since we wanted ours to look like wood, Rini first painted them brown. Once the paint had dried, we made a black wash to paint over the brown. The black wash will pool up in the crevices and create a sort of rugged and aged look, making the paper to look more like actual wood.  To make a wash, simply add a little bit of paint to a cup and mix with water. Start with a little water and add more until you get the desired liquid base. For us, we used a 1:2 ratio. 

Once they were dried from the wash, we added our cards and viola,  Harry Potter wands for all.

Happy valentine's Day everyone!

Ice Ornaments

With all the snow storms rolling in lately, we decided to check off some holiday projects we didn't get round to at Christmas time.

Ice Ornaments were high on our to do list because they're fast to make and convenient.  They sit overnight and are completely ready for use by morning. And best of all, there's very little clean up. You can find tons of examples of these all over the web. Pinterest is a great source as well.  We used the instructions over at It's The Little Things, though we couldn't quite get our coloring to work like hers.

Here's the run down on how to make them.

Supplies:
* Water
* Natural debris (like leaves, needles, flowers, etc.)
* Food Coloring or natural food coloring (if you'd like to dye them)
* Containers to create them in
* String or yarn
* Scissor for cutting string
* Cookie cutters or other solid objects for making holes

And that's pretty much it. Now take your containers and put in a bit of water. Add your natural elements and dyes. You can also add your cut sting to the mixture, making sure to leave enough out for hanging and tying. Or, you can use the cookie cutters or another object to place in the center which will create a hole for you to use to tie the string through later.  To get them  out, simply run the outside of the bottom of the container under warm water and they pop right out.

Here's what we learned:

If you want your objects to be in the middle, add the water, freeze it, then add your objects. Now add cold water on top and refreeze. This will put most items in the center. Small needles though are tricky as they like to float.

Food Coloring will stain containers and came off on our hands when we took the ornaments out of their containers.

Place containers in the freezer. The containers we put outside under piles of snow and the ones we left out in the open still haven't completely froze. It's been 2 days. If it's freezing where you are, then it shouldn't be a problem. But you may want to pop a few in the freezer, just in case. There's nothing more disappointing than having the weather warm up before your ornaments were ready for hanging.

Yarn Block Printing

As it's February and National African-American History month, I thought I would post about one of the many famous African artists whom I adore. This project was done with my art class, but could easily be done at home as well.

William H. Johnson (whose bio you can read here)  painted the piece Going To Church. This piece was created using a technique called silk screening, which is basically a type of block printing done on cloth.

That got me thinking; I had been wanting to do a printing project, so this seemed like a good fit. One problem, I couldn't find the supplies I wanted anywhere. For those of you have better luck or an art store located by them, this would be a great project for Mono Printing using scratch foam. I realized after the project that scratch foam is basically like the Styrofoam containers you get take out food in sometimes. So you could cut those, clean them off and save them until you have enough to do the project. Which I love cause it cuts down on cost and is reusing materials. :)

So I had to come up with something else. That is when I came across this post at one of my new favorite blogs.  And viola. We have our project!

Block Printing

Supplies:

•  Yarn - (I had this at the house, but you can get yarn pretty cheap at Joann's during their sales. It can range from .99 cents to over 5$ depending on type and size of roll. We used both thick and thin yarn. I suggest the thin as it seemed to work better.)
• Wooden Blocks - (I got mine at Joann's, 3 for 1.99. You can scour yard sales though and pick up ABC blocks, which would be fun and allow for letter blocking as well. Building blocks can also be used if you have some of those. Or if you have the means of sawing, you can make your own. We also used wood circles.)
• Paint - ( I used tempura colors because they wash out well. Most block prints use ink, but for kids I think tempura paints work well. They can be found at Fred Meyers/Kroger's/ most art or craft stores and usually are about 3 to 4 $.)
• Paint Brushes - (these are handy in case you mix colors or just to paint the yarn)
• Paint Palette - (We used paper plates - one per table group to save on waste. You can use plastic palettes also if you have those.)
• Paper Towels - (something to dab off extra paint and to clean up any messes.)
• Paper - (I used card stock. It holds up well with tempura paints. You can use anything, just make sure that its thick. Printer paper probably isn't a good choice for this project.)
• Scissors - (to cut the yarn)

Addition supplies you may want:

• Smocks/Aprons - (to help kids stay clean)
• Newspaper - (to lay down in order to have less mess for clean up. You could also do your printing on Newspaper instead or with card stock.)

Instructions:

 

For this project we revisited secondary colors. I gave each table group the choice of which secondary color they wanted to use and then asked them which colors made that color. We had briefly discussed the colors at the carpet during our project discussion.

In our project discussion we talked about the artist and his work. How it was made using silk screening techniques and what they are.  One of the kids pointed out that the piece wasn't lined up properly because there's a chunk taken out of the sky where the tree should have been. :) I hadn't noticed that. It's amazing what they pick up on.

For the yarn you can either pre-cut it or do it when you pass out the supplies. Everyone should get a block, a piece of yarn, a paper towel, and paper. You can decide if they share paint palettes or get their own. Same with paint brushes.

Have kids wind their yarn around their block in whatever manner they want.  Then have them tie the string ends together or tuck them under the wound strings. Just be sure that string is tight.

For younger kids, its easier if they paint the string with paint brushes, instead of stamping. I had my class use the stamp method for the most part.

After they have paint, have them use a paint brush to mix it into the color it is supposed to be. Then they can paint or stamp their yarn block. When pressing the block to the paper, its best to be firm but not to slam it. We learned this the hard way. ;) Paint everywhere.

And that's pretty much it. It's more interesting if they turn the block one way and then another, so the image isn't the same through the whole paper. It's also more interesting to add focal colors here and there. So maybe a few squares of  a primary color to spice up the secondary colors. You could also turn this into a complimentary color project quite easily by having the few splashes of color be from the colors compliment.

Clean up for this project can be a bit cumbersome...you have been forewarned.  :)

Tennis Ball Painting

A while back I bought a new container of tennis balls and set them aside for when summer came. Today, wanting to hit the courts and play a few rounds with my kids, I went to pull them out. However, they weren't where I thought I had left them. After looking around I eventually found

them. They were a bit worse for wear as they appeared to have been gnawed on and were slobbery. My Sherlock skills tell me that our Great Dane found them to be rather appealing. So today's plans ended up being changed.

Instead of hitting the courts, we used the tennis balls (minus one that we let the dog keep) as paint brushes....sort of.  Here's what you will need to replicate the project:

• Tennis balls
• Paint (we used acrylics)
• Very small Screw Eye Hooks ( I got mine at Fred Meyers-the smallest size they had)
• Yarn or some sort of string ( you might use thing rope as the yarn frays and breaks after a while)
• Canvas or Canvas Boards or something to paint basically
• Some place to hang your tennis ball
• container for your paint
• Paint Brushes (for painting tennis balls or adding details to your canvas)
• Scissors (for cutting the yarn)

Once you have everything ready, you are going to screw in a small screw eye hook into each of the tennis balls. Then tie the yarn to one of the eye holes in the screw (like the image on the left).


Once that is finished you can take the tennis ball and yarn out to where you want to hang it. You need to make sure that the string is long enough after you tie it for the tennis ball to hit your canvas. I figured this out the hard way.  It also needs to have room to swing. We tied our tennis balls to the monkey bars on the play structure.


 And used an old trike to hold the canvas. It worked pretty well.



Now pour your paint into a container and either use paint brushes to paint your tennis ball or dip the ball into the paint container. It's fun to experiment and see what different types of marks you get when you apply the paint differently. We used a different tennis ball for each color so as to not mix the colors until they were on the canvas. However you could paint rainbow tennis balls or mix colors on the tennis ball. We also only tied one at a time, but it might be fun to tie several up and use all at once.




 The last step is the most fun. Pull the string back and let it go! The tennis ball will fly into your canvas and create one of kind marks, lines, dots and splatters. :)

This process can get pretty messy, especially for younger artists. So I would recommend using paint clothes or old clothes, that way when they end up covered in acrylic paint you won't be upset or stress over trying to wash it out. Or you can have kids wear an apron or art smock to protect your clothes.

I personally didn't mind paint getting on the lawn or the old trike, but if this is something of a concern for you, you might think about putting an old sheet or tarp under where your canvas is.











You can also hold the tennis ball and drop it onto a canvas laying on the ground (like the image to the right) or throw it at a canvas that's secured (and not just propped up). The possibilities are endless!

 

As always, we would love to see any variations you may have on the idea or your beautiful works of art.
Happy creating!  ;)

 

 

Exploring How Water Moves

 With the temperature in the high 90s lately, I thought we could use some fun outdoor cooling down activities.  However our sweet doofus of a dog and high energy cats make a lot of activities unavailable to us. Case in point, last summer our dog ate the water balloons and the cats, who were running from the dog, leaped onto the inflatable pool. Next thing I know there's 2 cats and a dog sitting the middle of what used to be a pool. So this year called for something different.

At the preschool I had been working at, we did an exploration of how objects move in water. I had thought this unit should have started with the question, how water moves? So I decided to find a way to watch the movement of water.  Levi, loves water. He can sit and watch water move for hours. Well, maybe not that long, but far longer than I can.  So I thought why not let him show us how water moves.

I handed him the hose and the next part was sheer magic.  Levi created a water slide.  The simplest action made into a days worth of fun and exploration.  And I found myself thinking, why hadn't I thought of that?

The water slide then became rain as the girls took turns spraying the water high into the air while the other two, not with the hose, held umbrellas and waited for the water to cascade down upon them.

The kids' ideas for using products we already had and creating a new spin on them inspired me as well. So after lunch I pulled out the marble tracks.  We filled up a series of different sized buckets and containers and I placed a series of different sized cups by the track. Then I posed this question to the kids, How do you think the water will move through the marble tracks? Do you think it will make a difference if you used different cups to pour the water in?

The kids set out building their track for the water. Levi, who was more interested in pouring the water on the track made the process a bit slow, but eventually we had our track built.

 

The kids changed the track several times. Eventually we put a dash of food coloring in the water buckets to watch how the colored water would meld together to create different colors.  It was a great experiment and lots of fun. And best of all, it kept us cool during the hot day.  :)

Typography Made Easy

I love Pinterest! I find some of the coolest things there. My current find is this amazing free typography program at tagxedo that allows you to neat pictures out of words (hence the typography).

I made one for each of the kiddos and then one for my coffee themed kitchen. :) Pretty neat if I do say so myself.

The program allows you to choose your own words, shape, color and font. Try it out. It's highly addicting.