Recently A has been very into pretend play - robots, knights, or inhabitants of other worlds. I love seeing how creative he gets and hear about the elaborate stories and worlds he envisions. With his focus on enacting and starting to write/draw his own stories, he has been more of a visitor to our craft projects this past week. That means that G and I have had fun doing special crafts together - he loves having some one on one time and working together. G has that wonderful 3 year old intense focus that I love. It makes for great creative fun.
One craft we have been working on together for several days is finally finished. G had wanted to work with clay, and brought a fresh pack over to me. We decided to try a variation on the texture stones we did a few months back and make jewelry!
We first rolled out our clay (we used an air dry clay, but you could easily use super sculpey) and using metal cookie cutters, G cut out hearts and stars. We smoothed the edges a bit and left them on a tray. We went outside together and clipped leaves and herbs (dill flowers, sage, raspberry bush leaves, lemon balm, oregano, thyme). We then gently rolled/pressed the plant into the clay to make an impression. I then held each piece as G poked a skewer through each one. We let them dry for a few days.
Yesterday we sat down to paint them. G picked a gold metallic acrylic. He carefully painted each piece.
When finished, he handed it to me, and using a moist sponge I brushed some of the paint off to give it a burnished look, and spread the paint around the edges and on to the back. He painted a whole tray of shapes!
After letting them dry we brushed a water based varnish over the top and let that dry. From there all we needed to do was loop a leather cord through and we were done.
We have made 3 into necklaces so far - the boys look super cute in their leather corded stars and I love my sage leaf. They turned out great!
22 comments:
these are fantastic...G did a great job painting...what a fun project to do together. These will make beautiful gifts for sure!!!
Those are beautiful and something I could see my girls enjoying.
They're beautiful! No one would believe that a child made them without being told, and I'm amazed at his attention span to stick with it until he'd painted an entire tray worth. G you're amazing!
better than great i'd say. what treasures.
Thanks!
Sharon - I love that 3 year old focus. He could have painted for hours (or cut with cookie cutters, or pressed, or...). He chats and chats the whole time, just loving the whole process, the DOING. We made soap together yesterday and he was disappointed that it was done so quickly (melt & pour)! :)
That look on his face while he's painting is precious. Those would make great gifts and the process of making them sounds like so much fun.
Wonderful! I would diffently wear these necklaces! G is a cutie and a very hard worker! Don't you just love when they just chat away while they are working!:) Noah made me a heart necklace out of clay several weeks ago, (it's on his blog.) I wear it all the time!
He also made some gold coins, He had watch a documentary on sunken treasures. He used the same gold paint!
How wonderful! The added touch of the black leather and silver beads pull it together beautifully!
That's a lot of painting for a little guy-what focus!
We'll have to try this one,too. Lo's really been into clay as well.
Excellent! They turned out so well! I love the paint color G chose :).
My mom still has a clay smiley face necklace that I made her when I was about five. These kinds of crafts are just pure treasures.
Beautiful. I have some of that self drying clay so we will have to try this. I think they would make pretty Christmas ornaments as well.
Denise, I've yet to see a day (or a post) in which you didn't have a heart in your hand.
Those are really beautiful. It's nice that you were able to carve out some one on one time with your little guy, as well. I can see this project working for children of all ages... moms, too! Thanks for sharing it.
Ya'll are so crafty!! Such an inspiration to me and mine!
so FREAKIN' beautiful!!!!!!
such a *great* idea! we will be trying this next week :) i love the air dry clay since you don't need to bake it on these hot summer days ;)
wow I can feel a need to get creative in the same way - I want one of those necklaces too :)
Jen
You've inspired us again. Now to see if we have any clay on hand because we certainly have a lot of plants to use for pressing. What a great idea! Thanks.
What beautiful pendants! Sorry to hear the little dudes were sick. It is kinda sweet when they slow down for half a minute though. Hope they are up and at 'em again.
Your boys seem like they enjoy a truly rich life! I love hearing about their creative play.
We got some real clay for my daughters this winter and I think it's time to try it again. There is nothing like the feel of real clay. This past time they made lots of mountains with rocks, seeds and beans stuck in them, which is very nice, but VERY hard to find a place for 20 such mountains around the house!
Your pendants are lovely - you should open an Etsy shop! It's nice sometimes to be able to work with one child at a time, especially when the others are happily involved in something else.
i keep forgetting to ask you which clay you used for your project.
xo
These are lovely! We'll be trying them!
Post a Comment