Spring Session 2011- Week Ten

Fathers' Day Goodness

I love our Dad's! Or in some cases Grandpas, uncles, brothers, and husbands. I always feel bad since Mother's Day typically falls during the school year we tend to dedicate a project to them, and poor Dad's day has fallen after school is out so the poor guy gets left in the dust. Well, not this year we are moving and shaking the schedule around so we can create some special tokens of our appreciation for our Father's. Dad's sometimes get the short end of the stick, and I want them to know that we are thinking of them, and trying to honor them this week. It wasn't easy coming up with a good project for Dad this week. I didn't want to give them a generic gift, or anything too girlie. Something useful is always good, and adding a personal touch to it should make it a hit. We decided this week to make our Father's a special card, and keychain with personalized flare on it. We started with hand painting something special on the back of a small, cool laminate sample. Then moving onto drawing with permanent markers onto shrink film. Finally, a nice card. Here are our creations:

Spring Session 2011- Week Five

Love our Mothers

How can I thank you it seems impossible. Always searching for the right gift, the right memento, the right words, but they all seem to fail me. My gratitude doesn't even seem enough. I know I have put you through so much in my life, and it certainly hasn't always been easy. We made it through, nonetheless, maybe a bit more weathered, but your love stayed consistent. You call just to hear my voice. You help when I'm in need. Now that I'm a mother it certainly helps to understand, what you mean, and what it means to be a mother. The words I love you are just words, but they are words that mean more, they shelter, they heal, they fortify, they embrace, they strengthen, and they care. I love that you love me for who I am, and nothing less. Thank you for sharing with me what it is to be a mom, and thank you for bringing me into this world so I can experience how wonderful motherhood can be. I love being a mother, and you gave me that opportunity. As your child I feel that all I have done is take, but what I have taken from you is the best part of me. Mother's Day is celebrated only once a year, but I celebrate you everyday in all that I do and in my heart. When it comes down to it all I have are these words, but as they say words can be powerful.

Thank you and I love you.

What was that you say? Yes a bit sentimental, but it is true. I hope every Mother feels a sense of star power on her special day and everyday, because you deserve it. Bravo to you!!! Now on to what happened this week. Paper daisies, silhouette cards, and cameos are the projects for our beautiful moms. We started on this project a few weeks ago. We took profile pictures of all of the kids so we could get this done on time. The pictures were then outlined in Adobe Illustrator mostly to make it easier for the kids to understand what a profile is. We created the cameos with shrinkable film, and the children picked the ribbon they thought their mom would like best. They also outlined, and filled in their profile/silhouettes for their special mother's day card. Finally, we showed them how to make flowers that need no water (yeah!). All of the projects turned out beautifully, in my humble opinion.

Nature Lover Day Three

Last day of our summer camp crafty craziness. Starting the day with a colored pencil finale. We created many large bouquets of flowers the children could draw from. They practiced drawing with paper and then we gave them a special card that they could draw their own botanical drawing on, and then give to someone special.

Terrariums, terrariums, terrariums, everywhere. This was incredibly fun project. I enjoyed making my example one many weeks before. This is certainly a project for all ages. We tag teamed this project with our pet rocks to put into the terrarium. The kids were able to paint a rock and while that was drying they made up their terrarium. They first filled the bottom with rocks for drainage, and then dirt and 2 or 3 plants into their terrarium. We gave them each a little frog or lizard to place into the terrarium as well (plastic of course).

To end the day and the summer session we created wiggly worm ranches with the children. We love the idea of taking something and turning it into a dessert somehow. So we thought the wiggly worm ranch would make a perfect dessert. I guess this might seem a bit unusual, but to me it screams chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. We first had the kids make a sign for their worm ranch to make it appear official. We then had them do layers of chocolate pudding, and crumbled chocolate cookies. Then on top they put candy rocks and a gummie earthworm. They looked great, and I loved, let me rephrase that, LOVED it. Though to my dismay some of the kids, shockingly, didn't like them so much. I think because the pudding was a super dark chocolate that I made, as well as the cookies that were homemade. It was a chocolate lovers dream, if you ask me, but if I had to do it again for kids I would lighten up on the chocolate, and probably get an easy mix. Partner that with some chocolate wafer cookies. I think that would be more child friendly. Still yummy either way. Next summer we'll know better. That's it folks, next up fall after school craft kitchen!