Self-Portraits

Inspired by a great activity from a great art teacher's site called Art Projects for Kids, the cousins made self-portraits this summer in the style of Chuck Close.

First we traced black-and-white print-outs of 'face shots' through carbon paper onto graph paper.  It isn't easy finding carbon paper anymore, but luckily for us, my parents had some leftover from the 1970s.

The next step was tedious, but creative.  The kids colored each square of the graph paper with a different design, having no two adjoining squares match.  The colors of the squares matched what the kids imagined would be the color of that part of the portrait (for examples, a variety of browns might compose the hair, a variety of pinks would make the lips).

Not only was this a fun activity for a rainy day of Camp Gramp, but the children tell me (now that winter is upon us) that some of them have learned about or seen Chuck Close's work since we did this activity; they can relate to it now that they've experienced it.

Marble Mazes

 

With some scrap wood, nails, and rubber bands, the cousins made marble mazes this summer at Camp Gramp.  Using an old idea from Family Fun, we first made grids on large squares of wood, and then hammered nails at the grid intersections.  I like any activity that gets kids hammering, since hammering is a great skill AND it is satisfyingly noisy!

Once the nails were in place, rubber bands could be placed in any configuration to create a maze. We tested the mazes with marbles to make sure the rubber bands weren't too high or too low.  Then we tried each other's mazes and had a great time!

 The joy of this creation is that the children can remove the bands to reconfigure their mazes again and again.  It will never get old!  Because we planned to keep our mazes flexible, we did not paint them as Family Fun did in their example.  Some of the children did decorate their mazes with markers, though.

Stop-Motion Films

Camp Gramp is a week each summer in which my children and their cousins stay at their grandparents' house, swimming and doing crafts each day, playing games and watching movies each night.  It is a magical time.

Each year I plan a series of crafts for the kids to do, but as they are collectively aging, the crafts need to become more sophisticated. 

This summer we broke the kids into small groups to make Stop-Motion Films.  We started off by reminding them that some films are made this way (Corpse Bride and many of the old Rankin Bass holiday specials, such as Santa Claus is Coming to Town, are good examples).  I showed them a short film I made of a toy moving across a table and explained that a series of photos can be pieced together on the computer to make it look as though an object is moving.

The kids had a great time shooting the films.  Editing the films on the computer, including adding sound effects, music, and voice, took several days.  The youngest group helped me edit their film, but the two older groups did most of their editing independently.  The results were brilliant!  We watched the films on our last day of Camp and put all the short films on DVDs for the families to keep.

Mini Gardens

Who doesn't need more thyme? More 'thyme' for gardening, that is.

This summer at Camp Gramp, the kids made mini container gardens.  First, they each picked a container from Grandmom's potting shed.  She has such a terrific assortment of yard sale finds in there.

Next, they scoured Grandmom's house for tiny treasures with which to make a garden scened. 

Finally, the kids filled the containers with gravel, potting soil, and their treasures.  We planted thyme in the containers because thyme has tiny leaves to fit perfectly 'to scale' with their scenes.

Camp Gramp Beads

If there is one group of things our family has collected over the years, it's beads.  I've written before about our fuse bead collections (now, thankfully, put to good use!).  Today I share with you what we do each year at Camp Gramp with all of our other beads.

While my parents' grandchildren are staying with them for the week of Camp Gramp, the kids have a variety of daily responsibilities:  cleaning their rooms, grooming themselves independently, tidying-up the kitchen and bathroom areas, and completing activities together in a positive way (read: no bickering!!).  We reward these great behaviors along the way by giving out beads.  The coolest beads are reserved for the toughest tasks.

Each year the children collect the beads a little differently. This year we hung our beads on regular shoe lace necklaces.  Last year, we used curly shoe laces and hung them in the bedrooms.  The girls still have theirs hanging up as a fun reminder of Camp Gramp.

Nail and String Art

When we pick crafts for Camp Gramp, we want them to be fun (of course!), to be useful in some way, and to teach some sort of skill during the process.  Nail and String Art is an oldie but a goodie. I have fond memories of my grandfather giving me a block of wood, a hammer, and some nails when I was bothering him in his workshop back in the '70s.  To a child, it is a great feeling to hammer nails, even if it means hammering fingers every once in a while.  It is the perfect activity to teach physical limitations, empowering the child with ownership over the product and the possible pain.  Surprisingly, there were very few injured fingers when we did this activity at Camp Gramp. Kids learn very quickly how to hammer without hitting a finger.

Having seen this craft a few years ago in Family Fun magazine, all those memories came back to me and I was determined to one day fit this craft into Camp Gramp.  As usual, things don't always go as smoothly as I hope, and this year I was particularly busy during the week before Camp Gramp started.  As a result, on the day of this craft, my father was busy cutting the wood while I was still searching his garage for appropriate nails.  We weren't so well prepared.

But children have a way of surprising everyone.

Even with my extreme lack of preparation --I had given very little thought to how I'd explain the directions; I had no example to show them; I just kind of threw some string, a baby food jar full of nails, and some hammers on the grass and gave a quick speech about making a clock shape with the hammered nails-- the kids took easily to this project.  Even the youngest, age 5, made two of these!

The children didn't seem to need much direction at all.  Each came up with a creative way to wrap the string.  Some wrapped one color in a 'spider web' and then wrapped another color on top to form an initial letter.  Others made circular patterns.  Some made stars.

The finished projects are displayed in their bedrooms.

Red, White, and Blue Pretzel Rods

Keep celebrating the USA colors all summer long!  The theme at Camp Gramp this summer was "Stars and Stripes" so for a snack one day, the kids made these pretzel rods.  We melted a large bar of white chocolate in a double-broiler (a bowl of chocolate in a larger bowl of really hot water on the stove top). Then we dipped the pretzel rods into the chocolate, using a spoon to spread the chocolate evenly.  While the chocolate was still wet, we sprinkled red and blue sugar on the pretzels and rested them to cool on parchment paper.  I wrote names on the paper so that we'd know which was which when it came time to eat our snack.

Camp Gramp Key Chains

During the week of Camp Gramp, the kids do many crafts.  We try to make the crafts meaningful and useful, so we spend all year in search of the coolest things to make.  This key chain  (found on Ucreate) ranks right up there.  It is useful, and the process teaches the kids how to use a sewing machine. All that is required is a few straight lines of stitching, so the kids are exposed to using the machine without the frustration. (I can't be the only crafter who has to get the sewing machine manual out every time I start a new project!!)

The kids and I started the week with a field trip to JoAnn Fabrics (try taking seven kids into that store...see what happens) so the kids could pick out two long ribbons and one short ribbon.  The longer ribbons were mostly cut to order, so we got each cut to a quarter yard.  A quarter yard was more than enough for one key chain.  For the shorter ribbon that wraps around the key chain in the last step, I encouraged the kids to share spools of thin ribbon.  That required some artistic juggling, but we managed.

First step: sew together the two fat ribbons, using one line of stitching down each side.

Second step: insert the metal key chain (also found at JoAnn Fabrics, in the purse craft section) and sew the ends of the newly stitched fat ribbon together to form a loop that holds the metal key chain.

Third step:  pinch the loop of fat ribbon together, about a quarter-inch above the metal key chain.  Wrap the thin ribbon around this area and sew it securely with two straight stitches along the edges of the thin ribbon.  (This part was tricky for the youngest crafters--due to the thickness of the many ribbon layers-- so I had them depress the sewing pedal while I maneuvered the key chain through the machine.)

Each crafter now has a key chain made to order!

Camp Gramp Batik T-Shirts

Every summer I take all of my parents' grandkids to their house to spend the week for what we like to call Camp Gramp.  We swim, go on trips, watch movies, and do crafts.  The kids pitch in by doing a big chore each day to help their grandparents (weeding is a biggie) and by rotating daily chores such as setting the table, cleaning the bathroom sink area, and under-the-table crumb patrol.

We make t-shirts each year to wear on our day trips. In the past, we've done tie-dye and bleach pen designs. This year we made Batik Shirts. 

Making the shirts took about two days.  First, we drew designs on plain t-shirts with gel glue.  White glue tends to run too much for the look we wanted. We used white shirts, but any light color would work.  It is important to put a plastic grocery bag or other barrier inside the shirt so that the glue and paint do not go through to the other side of the shirt.

After letting the glue dry for a day, we painted over the design with watered-down acrylic paints.   To get light colors, add more water.  For darker colors, add more paint.

We let the painted shirts dry for a few hours.  Then we soaked them in warm water and gently rubbed off the glue.  Some of the paint does run out of the shirts at this point, but once they dried in the sun again, the painting was made permanent.  The area where the glue had been is now the color of the shirt (white, in our case).