In the Art Room: Paint Tube Sculptures

 So, a while back I shared with y'all that my students were sculpting art supplies. My first graders made pencils, some of my fourth graders made glue bottles, my third graders made crayons, and my second graders made glue sticks and scissors (which I've not blogged about yet! Stay tuned!). Two of my fourth grade classes made tubes of paint. We JUUUUUUST finished them off this week as I totally forgot about them in the middle of us working with clay, sewing our pizza pillows and end-of-the-year/art show madness. So, without further ado, here they are! 

 For this lesson, we used toilet paper tubes as our armature. We wrapped them with Activa's Rigid Wrap and created the paint with Celluclay. Here's the video tutorial I created:

Instead of having the kids paint the words on the tube, which proved to be a touch difficult for me, they came up with their own names and wrote them on a white label. That was then attached to a black strip of paper which I hot glued to their tubes. 

 Once the tubes were created, we did the 100 Color Challenge to come up with our own unique color for our tube. The challenge was apart of my evaluation. You can check out more of that here:

Once the kids had come up with their color, they added that and their own concoction of gray to the tube. 

 Dreaming up the color names was probably the best part!

 With our art show just two weeks away, I'm excited to see all of our art supply sculptures on display. 

 If we'd had the time, I would have loved for these guys to create palettes and paint brush sculptures too...but the school year just isn't long enough for all the fun!

 For our art show, we're going to have quite the mix of 3D displays: art supplies, super heroes and pizzas! I've tried to think of a way to have them all make sense together...but they just don't and that's okay. 

 I also coulda spent an entire year having the kids sculpt art supplies, it was so fun! 

 I cannot wait to share with you how are art show is progressing. I'm sorry I've been spotty here...it's just the busiest time of the year! You know what that's like, right? 

 To seal these projects, they were covered in Extreme Glitter ModPodge...yes, that's a thing. For the bottom, ModPodge was added and then sprinkled with silver fine glitter.

 The kids and I are thrilled with how they turned out! 

 I'm down to just a few more days of art classes with this fourth grade bunch...which makes me sad. I've taught them since kindergarten...I hope they have as fond of memories of me as I have of them! 

 Thanks for letting me share this project with y'all...if you've given it a shot, I'd love to hear about it!

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DIY: Top 10 Favorite Fall Crafts

Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. So it should come as no surprise that I start thinking about it in August, decorating for it in September and craft for the big day all the way up until October 31st! Today I thought I'd share my Top 10 Favorite Halloween Crafts. These are my personal DIY's...not ones that I've done with my students. I'll be sharing my fave fall projects for kids this week, so stay tuned. Until then, here are my Top Ten!

1. Celluclay Pumpkins These pumpkins were so stinkin' fun to create! You can read all about the process right here. I was inspired by a SUPER expensive collection of vintage Halloween buckets that I so wanted to purchase. But the price was just bananas. Once I took a closer look, I realized I could make them myself with Celluclay. This was the start of my love affair with Celluclay (I'm not ashamed to admit it: I'm addicted to the stuff!) and a whole slew of pumpkins was created. Here's a tutorial:

What I love about Celluclay is that you can adhere it to anything. It doesn't require gluing; it doesn't crack or flake off; it dries with a great texture...my list could seriously go on and on. It's just fab. Which leads me to my next craft...

2. Celluclay Book of Spells More fun with Celluclay was had when I picked up an old jewelry box from the thrift store and made it into a Book of Spells! I covered the entire box with the Celluclay and then built up the skull with additional clay. 

While at the thrift I picked up a stash of bottles that I decided to make into potion bottles. I simply added the clay to the bottle and it stuck!

Add a little cotton to the top for a puff of smoke and potion bottle complete!

3. Zombie Head Planters Easily my most favorite thing I created last fall were my Zombie Head Planters. These guys crack me up! I stuffed 'em full of fake plants so they could be used year after year. 

Oh, look, it's my ex-boyfriend. He always was such a looker.

4. Cheesecloth Bride and Frank The miracles of liquid starch, y'all. I found this figurine at the thrift and covered it with cheesecloth and liquid starch. This gave it a great texture for me to paint. Find out more about how this was created here. 

Or check out this quick tutorial!

5. Bride of Frankenstein Painting My painting pride and joy is this number...I loved creating this painting! It was def a challenge as tonal paintings aren't the easiest but I really loved doing it. I was all set to create a Frankenstein version but I spent so much time on this one, I didn't have time for the other. Maybe some day!

6. Day of the Dead Clay Heads I LOVE hosting Halloween craft nights, it's one of my fave things ever. Here is one craft we created with polymer clay. More details here on our craft night fun! 

 7. Embroidered Day of the Dead This reversible Day of the Dead necklace was a great way to pass the time while traveling. I love embroidery but rarely have the time/patience for it unless we are on the road. 

I love being able to wear this necklace two ways since it is reversible.

8. Dead Head Planters This idea I found whilst pinterest'ing and had to bring it to life. I simply spray painted some planters white and then went to town! More details here. 

9. Pumpkin Marionette This paper clay pumpkin was inspired by more vintage Halloween decor. I simply created the parts of the pumpkin and, when dry, added the wire. I think I might have to make more of these. It's always fun to have a little collection of canvases and clay laying around for painting and sculpting fun! 

10. Witchy Textured Painting Speaking of paintings...the base of this one was actually an old painting of mine where I was playing with texture. On an impulse I decided to paint over it and I love the result for this painting. 

Okay, brace yourself. Not only do I have fall projects for the kiddos lined up to share with you but I've also got a huge blog post of JUST my Halloween ensembles! Stay tuned. 

Love to hear about your fave spooky creations!

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