The Artful Parent

A scone a day: seeking new recipes!

I am a self-proclaimed scone addict. What can I say? I just love scones! Most scones anyway. Some like their scones light and cakey, I prefer mine somewhat dry and crumbly. As those of you on facebook know, coffee and a scone is my breakfast of choice. Even when I aspire to be a daily oatmeal or a green-smoothie-for-breakfast-kind-of-person, I inevitably go back to my scone and coffee combo.

I have a few tried-and-true scone recipes (maple oat nut scones, blueberry scones, cranberry orange scones) but have decided to branch out and find some new recipes. So my plan is to try a new scone recipe a day for a week.

I'm on day two now. Yesterday was this bittersweet chocolate scone from Seven Spoons, suggested by Kirsten, which I made as an afternoon treat rather than for breakfast. Although I'll eat chocolate for the rest of the day, I can't seem to stomach it first thing in the morning. They were super yummy though!

Today was oatmeal currant scones (with orange zest) from epicurious and they were amazing! Even my non-scone-lover of a husband said so. Lighter than what I usually go for but very possibly the tastiest scones I've ever made or eaten.

So five more days of scone making to go... And who knows. I could keep going. This isn't (quite) the calorie consuming orgy it sounds like. As when I make cookies, I bake half right away and freeze half uncooked. They pop straight from the freezer to the oven so I have two days worth of fresh-baked scone goodness for one days worth of effort. Half a scone batch is easily consumed by my family with a couple left over to munch on the next day.

And lest you think I only cook and eat sweets, I made this (amazing!) spinach and chickpeas dish from Smitten Kitchen for dinner last night with a big salad fresh from the garden and roasted red potatoes. And then there are the nights we just have scrambled eggs or mac and cheese... But we won't talk about that.

So anyway, back to the scones, if you have (or know of) any recipes you think I might like to try, please let me know! This photo was taken by Maia, by the way. She sees me taking photos of our food and everything else all day and wants in on the action.

11 fun watercolor projects for kids

Today I'm looking back at the watercolor projects we've done over the past couple of years. So many! Besides just plain painting, that is, which we've also done plenty of. Watercolors are easily one of my top favorite art materials for little kids!

We use liquid watercolors and watercolors in tubes, as well as the good ole cakes. Liquid watercolors are my favorite, but they all work well. For paper, we often buy either the Canson Biggie Jr. watercolor paper or order this paper from Discount School Supply, both of which are relatively inexpensive. You can also use mat board remnants from frame shops (free!) or the matte side of poster board (super cheap).

Here are the projects:

 

Pictured above (clockwise from upper left) are various watercolor resists:

• Rubber cement and watercolors
• Watercolors and melted crayon shavings
• Watercolors over melted crayon drawings
• Contact paper and watercolors

Above are the summery flowers and butterflies:

• Butterflies made with coffee filters and liquid watercolors
• Leaf and flower prints made with saran wrap
• Flower printing with watercolor stamp pads

 

And other extra fun things to do with watercolors:

• Shaving cream marbling
• Watercolors and saran wrap
• Watercolor painting over tissue paper collage
• Salty watercolors

What else? I'd love to hear about other ways you use watercolors! I'm always looking for new ideas to try. As you can see (as if you didn't know already!), I am an art project junkie. New projects and new materials make me so happy!

Body tracing and painting on a rainy day

Why is body tracing so popular with little kids?! Maia just loves it. She loves it when I trace her body with chalk outside. And she loves it when I trace her body on paper inside. So today when I asked her if she wanted me to trace her body (inspired by Lucia's post on body art with her art group), she was super excited.

Last time I posted about body tracing, Maia was really into body parts and drew in her heart, intestines, veins, and arteries. This time her painting was more decorative. We even re-read her book, See Inside Your Body, at her request, but she still focused more on faces and clothes and just painting.

First I traced her body. And Daphne's. And then Maia's two more times. Maia loved it. Daphne didn't.

I was kicking myself today for not shelling out money for a roll of butcher paper. But every time I almost buy it, I look at the price and cringe. Why does it have to be so expensive? So instead, I pulled off some paper from Maia's easel and taped two long pieces together along the back to make the paper big enough.

Maia drew in the features on the bodies.

And painted them to varying degrees. We brought the double-sided paint cups into the living room, using a cake tin as a caddy.

She went to town with the paint!

 

When she finished, she hopped up and said, "These paintings are awesome! Amazing!" Then she said that she's going to sell them (the first I've ever heard her talk about selling anything!) for lemonade money. Apparently we haven't been very forthcoming with the lemonade. Prices range from one to four dollars if anyone is interested in helped the poor kid out.

Painting at the easel with twice the paint

Today was a day for painting outdoors. The weather was perfect, so I carried the easel out to the backyard, added a new roll of paper, and set out some tempera paint.

 

I put the paint in our new, divided paint cups that just came in the mail from Discount School Supply. Not sure if other companies make these or not. I haven't seen them around.

I ordered them to use at the easel because Maia kept asking for more than just the four colors that fit in her other paint cups. She now often has very specific ideas of what she wants to paint and what colors she wants to use. And she knows how to keep the colors, and their brushes, separate (although she doesn't always choose to do so).

These divided paint cups are great because they allow you to use twice as many colors of paint! The only problem is that the plastic on one of them was cracked. Hopefully this was a one-time issue and they are not prone to cracking. Luckily they came as a set of 5.

Maia painted off and on throughout the day and we hung her paintings to dry on the chain link fence with clothespins.

Here's something I wasn't expecting -- Maia is apparently still into painting her body! I love the rainbow circle on her belly and the painted fingers!

Completely unrelated, I just put together a facebook page for The Artful Parent. If you'd like to follow me on facebook just click on the "like" button on the top of the page. I haven't gotten onto Twitter yet, but love facebook. Come on over and say hi!

Gardening with the baby

I've been doing some garden planning, reading, and catching up on my garden notebook (which is where I track what and when I plant, sketch ideas, and tape in empty seed packets and plant markers).

The books are all ones I refer to each year and are some of my favorite gardening books:

• Trowel and Error by Sharon Lovejoy
• The Way We Garden Now by Katherine Whiteside
• The Small-Budget Gardener (new!) by Maureen Gilmer
• Tough Plants for Southern Gardens by Felder Rushing

This is all while being distracted by kiddo number 2, here. She's a cutie pie and pretty easygoing, but still I'm having trouble getting stuff done.

 

My goal most days is to spend as much time in the garden as possible. But this doesn't end up being very much time. For one thing I'm struggling with finding time for gardening while keeping Daphne happy.

I thought it would be so easy -- that I could garden with her in the sling or put her in her baby swing or just set her down on a blanket. But it's not working out that way. I get about 5 minutes of gardening before she's fussy, or I keep watching her to make sure she's not choking on grass or dandelion heads or something. So I end up waiting until Harry gets home and trying to cram half an hour of time in the garden before dinner.

So I'm wondering, do you have any tips for gardening with a baby? Also, I'd love to hear about your favorite gardening books and blogs (to read in all my spare time!).

Lots of felt board goodness

I've been in the mood to look back at some of what we've done here (like the recent post of all our suncatchers and stained glass). So today I'm posting a round-up of our felt board pieces as well as some links to other cool felt board ideas. Feel free to add links to your own in the comments!

Here's what's above:

• A mailman, mail, and houses
• A tree with Autumn leaves
• Make-your-own faces (and snowman)

• Goldilocks and the three bears
• Lots of animals!
• Letters and numbers

There are so many other ideas out there, as well! Here are some I've found and think I'd like to get around to making someday:

• I love these collage-like "scrappy shapes" at One Inch World!
• Here's a funky mermaid felt board on Craftster.
• I like this monster felt board at Inspire Mama.
• Here's a spring felt board on Let's Explore.
• Did you know there's a felt board Flickr group?
• And, if you don't want to make your own felt pieces, there's so much available on Etsy!

Not to overwhelm you with ideas or anything...

Here's what I think. People are either felt board people or they're not. It's not like painting. Everyone likes painting. If you're into felt boards, you'll probably like this list. If you're not, just ignore it.

So, are you a felt board person?

Newspaper collage for Earth Day

In honor of the upcoming Earth Day, Maia and I made collages using recycled materials: newspaper and mat board remnants. I was inspired by one of the projects in MaryAnn Kohl's Good Earth Art: Environmental Art for Kids. Her project involves painting a background, then gluing on an image (fish, boat, building, etc) cut out of newspaper. We already had the crayons out and were in drawing mode, so went with it.

Maia drew a picture on her mat board with crayons first.

Then glued torn bits of newspaper to her drawing/collage. She said her picture was of a cherry tree and cherry blossoms with yellow cherries all around them (This kid is excited about our cherry and plum trees!).

I wanted to get in on the newspaper collage action, too, so worked on my own. I skipped the drawing stage and just started collaging.

This was fun!

I'd love to hear what you're family is doing for Earth Day, whether art projects, activism, planting trees, or whatever.

Some felt animals

Thank you for your patience and kind words. I'm still having a hard time getting any sort of time on the computer (or extra time, period), but I have some now so I'm going with it.

I finally made some animals for Maia's felt board, per her request. I used templates I found online a while back. I'd give you the link but I can't even find it anymore. Sorry. I'll tell you how I made them though.

I thought it would be easiest to draw the animal features on, so first I ironed on some Wonder-Under to the felt since you can write easily on fusible web but not directly on felt. After ironing on the Wonder-Under, I pulled off the paper backing and used the templates I printed out to cut out the animal shapes.

I used sharpies to draw on all the details.

Here's the finished zebra.

And here are all fifteen of the animals, as arranged by Maia. I realize that this is rather an odd mix. Only two farm animals. I guess I need to add a few -- maybe a horse, sheep, and chicken, to start. And perhaps have separate sets of animals.

Tomorrow Maia and I are planning to create some trees, a water hole, and grass so her animals have some sort of habitat to live in.

Blogging break

Just a photo today. I may need to take a blogging break for a few days. I've lost the cord I use to download photos (somewhere en route from the beach) and I'm also having trouble getting five consecutive minutes on the computer at the moment. I'm so tired at the end of the day that I fall asleep with the baby, instead of writing up a blog post!

I'll try to be back early next week.

So many kinds of stained glass!

You all know how much I love suncatchers and stained glass, right? I was looking back through some of the different kinds we've done and thought I'd pull them together in one post. Many involve clear contact paper and colored tissue paper; others use waxed paper and crayon. All are easy and fun for a child to make!

I'd love to learn about other kinds of kid-friendly stained glass as well, so please comment or add links to your own posts!

Frank Lloyd Wright inspired stained glass: Contact paper, colored tissue paper cut in geometric shapes, and a sharpie to outline the shapes. One of our favorites.

Nature suncatchers: Freshly collected flowers and leaves sandwiched between contact paper.

Name suncatcher: Balled up tissue paper used to spell a child's name.

 

Stained glass hearts and stained glass leaves: Wax paper and melted crayon shavings, cut in seasonal shapes.

Stars: As above, but in frames.

 

String suncatchers: String, ribbon, and contact paper.

 

Tissue paper suncatchers: Colored tissue paper sandwiched between clear contact paper. Very easy and fun!

Oiled drawing stained glass: Vegetable oil rubbed over a crayon drawing.

 

Tissue paper stained glass: My favorite so far for the finished result! This one uses liquid starch, tissue paper, and wax paper.

Valentine's stained glass: handmade tissue paper heart doilies sandwiched between contact paper.

Easter egg suncatchers: Ribbon and tissue paper balls between contact paper.

Any others?