Materials

Vegetable-Dyed Easter Eggs

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This post was originally shared in April 2011. I’m trying to make a move away from synthetic food dyes and wanted to use natural, homemade dyes this year. Not only are these colors absolutely healthy for human consumption, but the process of making them is a wonderful lesson in creating art materials from scratch and [...]

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Easy Art: Air Dry Clay

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Material: Air Dry Clay Have you ever noticed that kids don’t need a lot of bells and whistles and fancy stuff to get creative, have fun, and feel on top of the world? Yesterday we foraged some cardboard boxes from a neighbor’s move because 4-year old Nutmeg has a vision of building a space station. [...]

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Why We Would Be Lost Without Tape

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Are you a “Tape House?” We love tape in our house, and it gets used for just about everything: taping up wax paper sandwich bags, taping labels to things, taping art table creations together, taping up marble runs, taping up whimsical installations. A roll of clear tape is a fixture on the art table and [...]

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Creative Challenge 7: Magazines

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Today I have something extra cool in store for you. Kiwi Crate and I are bringing you a super-star line-up of rockin’ kid-friendly bloggers for a no holds barred invitational kid-centered magazine challenge, and an extra-special Kiwi Crate box giveaway at the end of this post. Each of the 20+ bloggers spent some time tinkering, plotting, creating, and [...]

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What’s One Word to Describe Your Child’s Art Materials?

I posted this question on Facebook yesterday, and I loved reading the responses so much that I thought it would be worth sharing here. The comments were surprising, fascinating, and fun, and I’d be delighted if more of us join this mini conversation. In case you’re wondering, the first idea to pop into my mind [...]

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Materials Challenge: CD’s + Paint Pens

This month has been crazy busy, but a few days ago I was actually able to wrap my head around a creative project ahead of time and set this table up *the night before.* Gasp. Do you ever do this? It’s been a while since I have, and I always feel like I’ve embraced my [...]

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50 Art Materials for Toddlers

About three weeks ago I asked my Facebook friends to consider a list of essential toddler art materials, and I received some wonderful responses and additions to the list. Thank you to Linda, Di, Miranda, Sally, and Tina for sharing your thoughts with me. Fifty is a big number, so don’t fret if you can’t gather [...]

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Blending Chalk Pastels

We started with a box of chalk pastels and construction paper. I happened upon this amazing box for $5 at an art studio sale. They’re wonderful, but really, any chalk pastels will do. I’m not  inclined to recommend construction paper because it’s not at all archival, but its toothy nature makes it a good substrate [...]

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Drippy Slimy Gak

Late last week we made a batch of slime called Gak – see this post for the recipe – and it’s been a huge success with my almost 3-year old. On day one, N experimented with various ways of interacting with it (rolling, stamping, cutting, pulling), and was excited to introduce her dad to Gak the next [...]

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