I became an uncle :)

Hello again!

On 9th July, I became an uncle for the first time when my wonderful sister gave birth to the beautiful Madeleine Rose.

Immediately, the new parents were inundated with all sorts of clothes, bibs and nappies. However, the request for me was to purchase a name sign for Maddie's new bedroom. I thought I'd go one better and create her own sign from scratch using the metled crayon method that I used before for this project.

Equipment

Canvas (I used A3 size)
Crayons
Super glue or a hot glue gun to assemble the crayons to the canvas
Heat source (I used a hairdryer which did the job nicely)
Stencils for lettering
Black paint or Sharpie to fill in letters

Here it is up on the door. I'm hoping Maddie will enjoy it for years to come. I'll make an artist of her yet!

Zapotec Weaving Mats

Hello! 

It has been far too long since I've updated this which is a shame. Although I've been involved in the Art Club this year, the projects haven't really suited blog posts.

However, all that has changed with our recent Aztec Day at school! I wanted to do a really fun art activity that wasn't already being covered in the boys' art lessons (sun god, masks). I came across this lovely post about art from Mexico on Ms Gram's super blog.

Things you need:
A4 black paper or card
Coloured strips of paper of different widths
Scissors
Glue
Hole-puncher

1. First of all, the strips of paper were placed on the floor so they could easily be reached. The boys were then given their black paper that already had an even number of hole punches on either side.

2. Using a strip at a time, we showed the boys how to fold the paper twice and then cut patterns and shapes into it, similar to how you fold and cut snowflakes before revealing the result. We talked about layering the strips on top of each other to create different effects and choosing complementing colours.

3. The boys then glued their strips and designs onto the black paper to make it look like a weaved rug.

4. The final step was to tie a very simple double-knot through each hole to give the rug that authentic ruffled look.

Check out a handful of our beautiful results below!

Great job 3B! A wonderful way to close what has been an amazing year.

~DB