Sea creature collage

sea creature collage

You must be wondering why my girl has suddenly done up a sea creature collage since we covered the Sea/ Ocean unit (you can view our activities from the link) last year.

This was assigned as her term break homework by her kindergarten so one day while her little brother was taking his nap in the afternoon, I got her to work on it.

To make it easier for her, I had bought some stickers which she could use in the collage (I decided on stickers because the collage could not be larger than A4 size) so she only needed to do up the background plus any other small features she wanted to include. I didn’t actually intend to blog about this but because the outcome turned out so beautiful – and she did it 100% on her own – I couldn’t help but want to write about it!

I demonstrated on a separate piece of paper that we should divide the paper into the sea (blue) and the seabed (yellow-ish). She painted hers while I did up mine and in the end, I felt that hers turned out nicer than mine (I’m ashamed, but I still have to admit it). She was very bold with her colours and strokes – I suppose this confidence was built up from her weekly art lessons at HeART Studio! She chose blue, white and black for the sea and yellow, red and black for the seabed. Although she used such extreme colours, I’m surprised how she made them work for her – she managed to blend everything nicely without the paper turning all black or something.

After she was done with her painting, we let it dry. Meanwhile we discussed how she’d use the stickers and if she wanted to add any other details. When the painting had dried (we sped it up with the hairdryer), she stuck on the stickers and because she’d mentioned she wanted to include a treasure chest (there’s one in our Ocean toob when we played with our Ocean themed sensory bin), I googled a picture of it and got her to practise drawing on another sheet of paper first before she added it in her painting using oil pastels.

Practising how to draw a treasure chest then drawing and layering it on the painting using oil pastels.

Again, she was very quick in replicating what she observed and just after drawing the treasure chest twice, she drew it in her painting, chose three shades of brown she wanted to use and blended everything nicely in. I pointed out that there were some details (like lines) on the treasure chest and she added that in. Finally she added in some jewel stickers and the icing on the cake was the gold glitter glue for the gold coins and silver glitter glue for sea currents.

And that’s my happy little girl with her completed work! I’m so glad that she’s matured so much to complete a painting all on her own!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you enjoyed this post, please share your thoughts in the comments or share the post with your friends by clicking on the social media buttons below. Do hop over to my Facebook page where I connect with my readers and I would love to have you following me on Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram too 🙂

bleagh 2

Posted in Art, Homeschooling | Leave a comment

3M Scotch Expressions Tape – Make Amazing Tea Party

A couple of Saturdays back, we were invited to a crafty tea party and no one says no to such a party, especially where gorgeous tapes are involved!

Before we had any hands-on experience of using the newly launched 3M Scotch Expressions Tape, I went about checking out the exhibits which showcased examples of how the tapes could be used.

3M Scotch Expressions Tape

This, however, really caught my eye!:

After the introduction to the tapes and our craft activity for the day, we got our engines started!:

The eventual outcome!

On our way to the car, we dropped the ‘head’ of the ‘fairy’ into a puddle of dirty water so we went home with only the wings attached. Actually the craft didn’t include having a fairy head – it was something my hubby added in on a whim with the plate that was supposed to be containing his food. You see, this is how it’s actually supposed to look like:

Yup, she’s the fairy!

There were so many designs of Expression Tapes to choose from – we were so spoilt for choice!

The taping fever didn’t stop and continued well into even the next day, and she wasn’t satisfied until she had decorated the other two Ikea chairs at home.

Ok, I lied. Even after she finished those two chairs, she was still asking to tape some more. “WHAT ELSE can I tape, Mom?” That question continued to ring in my ears for an entire week.

Can you tell how happy she is???

Here’s how the chairs looked like after the makeover the kids gave them. I thought they look pretty cool!:

Whether it’s the 3M Scotch magic or washi tape, I have to say that the Expression Tapes are of good quality and you can peel them off surfaces without leaving any marks. This is particularly great for kids as you know, they don’t stick long tapes very evenly and may have to re-do it a few times and well, kids can be very fickle-minded so they would likely want to change their tape’s position. The added bonus is that you can even write on them, which makes it great for labelling say, party cups or a stretch of activity on your calendar.

Need more inspiration or want to find out more? You can visit MyActivityRoom.com and have fun with various creative projects using the 3M Scotch® Expressions Tapes, or upload and showcase your own imaginative works! It’s a site with many inspiring crafting ideas that are achievable with just tapes and post it pads, I particularly like the Book Monster, Sticky Puppets and Ice-cream Sticks Puppets!

I’ll also probably using these tapes for homeschool activities so keep a lookout for it! 🙂

Disclosure: I was invited to attend Scotch 3M’s Make Amazing Tea Party and gifted with their beautiful tapes. No other compensation was received and all opinions are my own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you enjoyed this post, please share your thoughts in the comments or share the post with your friends by clicking on the social media buttons below. Do hop over to my Facebook page where I connect with my readers and I would love to have you following me on Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram too 🙂

bleagh 2

Posted in Reviews, Toys and educational products | Leave a comment