Our 'Artypops Easter Holiday Art Workshop' was a rip-roaring success....

     

Tuesday 9th April saw us in a fab new venue here in our village of Overton, Berrydown Sports Pavillion.  We had a superb day of making, doing, dancing, running and playing.

The activities we settled on were:

1.Painting Monsters & Animals onto beautiful pieces of driftwood.

2.
Beading necklaces.

3.
Making our own people key rings .

4.
Crafting Clay Birds avec feathers!

5.
Drop & Draw! Huge sheets of paper to draw around ourselves...if we have time.

Our day was packed full of creativity.  'Drop & Draw' was fantastic fun, an example of which was upon the call, we instantly dropped and awaited instructions - one of which was to draw the face of the person nearest to you - brilliant fun!

All the babes had a fab day and thank you to all the parents for your lovely letters and comments expressing so.  More workshops coming soon.

Samantha

Easter craftables for the babes in a flash!

Easter?  Really?

Now far be it from me to be Mrs Minus, I love the celebration of Easter as each year I find it's so needed after the long hard winter...daffs, colour, flowers, smells (and occasional sights!) of the sun....freshly cut grass and the Springish pastel colours that pop up everywhere.  Gorgeous.

No, my problem is  that my head is still in January somewhere.  With that in mind, my Mum and I went shopping on Wednesday to do try and get prepared for family staying and perhaps more importantly, the children at home for TWO WEEKS?!  huh?!

All it took was a good food shop, bit of planning with Mum over coffee & muffins and hey presto I'm home with a clean car, boot full of nosh and 24hrs to kick the house into some sort of order for the holidays.

Day 2 now of the Easter break and we are on our way to having a brill Easter with the mega thrill of seeing lots of lovely pals and family that we never get to see enough.

Easter activities in a flash?  There are plenty.  So far mine have been too wrapped up in everything other than needing to be occupied - if it ain't broke and all that!

This morning though, I boiled up some eggs..am ashamed to say with the egg still in...yeah right, egg-blowing etc, etc...sounds great but my babes would break the delicate shell in a second...with that in mind I thought that being smelly would be better than heartbroken so...

Boil and cool.  When cold, gather a smidge of glue, anything that you can add that you have around...sparkles, gems etc.  A couple of marker pens here are a must...and of course some googley eyes...bonza....happy babes with smelly eggs.

Position, photograph and enjoy for 24hrs then slide into the bin without the children noticing...everyone's a winner!

Happy Easter everyone x

'Crafting BEAUTIFUL BIRDS' from Clay, with lashings of jewels & sequins and lovingly finished off with smothers of PVA...VERY excited about this one!

This activity proved to be an absolute winner!  

The children LOVE working with clay.  I have just had my third lot delivered - have gone from 2kg, to 5kg to now 12.5kg as its so in demand!

This activity is called 'Crafting BEAUTIFUL BIRDS'.

You will need:

Airdrying clay

Beads/sequins/Sparklies

Feathers

Googly eyes.

PVA Glue

1.
Take a palmful of clay and begin to mould into a bird shape.  It doesn't have to be brilliant but we googled some bird shapes and worked from those.

2.
Applique is the way here.  Enjoy every moment of applying all your sparkles.  Glitter might work really well here too.

 3.
Once your bird is looking lovely it's off to the airing cupboard with it.    24hrs in the warmth is all thats needed.  If you don't have a warm space pop it on the radiator and leave well alone for a day or two.

4.
When your bird is dry, you need to cake it with PVA glue.   The glue dries clear so don't worry about layering it on.  Once again, leave to dry overnight.

5.
When your bird is dry, she is ready to enjoy.

Much love, Sam x

'Artypops Easter Art Workshop for Children'. April 9th. 4 Spaces left!

Let's make...'Dreamy Dream Catchers' Perfect for a rainy afternoon in with the babes..

'DREAMY DREAM CATCHERS'

Perfecto for rainy afternoons indoors, another gem from the wonderful Marion Sweet...now retired childminder after some 20 years and all round general superstar in all things make & do-ey!  I adore her. 

Righto:

Gather all the materials that you can muster, Marion have tried to use all things that we might have around the house.

You will need:

A paper plate with the centre cut out

Colour felt tips

Tissue papers and shapes

2 circles of sticky back plastic which is slightly bigger than the cut out shape in the paper plate

Thread

Beads, etc

Blu tack

Pencil

1.

Decorate the back of the plate

2.
Place one of the sticky back plastics on the circle cut out.

3.
Put the shapes and tissues onto the sticky back and then place the other circle of sticky back in place.

& turn it over...et voila!  Looking gorgeous.

4. 

Take some blu tack and place at the BOTTOM of your plate.  With the blu tack in place, take a pencil and make 3 holes through the blu tac and the plate (this adds weight).

5.

Take your thread and place 3 lengths into the holes and make them secure.  Hang anything you wish onto the threads, beads, feathers, etc.

6.

Repeat again to make a hole at the top of the plate so you can hang your dream catcher and tada...we are there with a BEAUTIFUL Makey-doey!  Well done you!

Much love

Samantha Barnes, but much more Marion Sweet..(well done again Marion!)

Quick...am on the run but l@@k it's the Easter Art Workshop flyer!! Yay x

Yesterdays' February half-term children's art workshop...what a ball!

It's Movietime!!  

(Scroll down after the movie)

Isn't that just the nuts?  We had the most wonderful day yesterday.  30 children, lots of doing, making, drawing, colouring, dancing, story-telling and cake eating!!

Thanks to everyone for making it such a brilliant day.  Creativity in everyday life is SO important.  We can suppress it for years and years then rediscover it when the time is right.  Our confidence is low and it grows when we begin to practise it again.  

When we are children, our natural state is to launch in and get messy.  As we grow we somehow lose the abandon to explore life through art - this is a huge shame.  The good news is though that it comes tumbling back whenever we want it to, we just need the keys...and the keys are....(are you ready?) the keys are.... allowing ourselves to do it.  accepting that it might take us a while to get 'good' (whatever we deem to be good) and simply allow ourselves to actually do it, to pick up a brush, a pencil and just 'do'.  

It's peasey...I promise!  Come on one of my workshops...that's my favourite bit... working with someone that hasn't done any art for a gazillion years...let me hold your hand...literally!  

Much love

Sam x