Nini Makes

Autumn activity

Big pumpkins at the local farm shop

Life is still in fast-forward around here but I wanted to post a few images from the last couple of weeks before the season disappears like the leaves from the trees.

More pumpkins and squash

The colours this season have been outstanding. The unseasonal warm weather and light wind and rain have given us a longer look at colour on the trees.

A woodland park nearby

This park has beautiful woods and children make dens with branches all over the place.

Late afternoon sunshine filtering through

A mushroom family

This mushroom image is dedicated to Rane who has been very poorly but is happily now on the mend : )

A hill walk

My Aunt Kathy was one of our recent visitors and we had a lovely time together. My camera wasn't really up to the job but this is an image from a hill walk we took together. I'm enjoying getting out and about and learning my way around, there's a lot to discover right on the doorstep of our new home.

Big brother is swinging the piñata

And of course the most important event in our house this season is Gracie's Halloween birthday.

A great big happy 8th birthday to our little pumpkin!

We had a fun day with a small group from her new school. We were lucky with a beautiful warm day so we were able to have a lot of outdoor activity - a treasure hunt in the garden and of course the piñata, it was great fun.

I hope to be back soon with more projects, unfortunately the Christmas pattern will need to be put off until next year, it's more complicated than last year's pattern so I think I've left it too late for people to complete; but there's more to come very soon. I have managed to stitch up the Mouse House pattern, I really should stitch them before offering them up, but luckily it was a piece of cake to stitch.

Mouse House

I think this one is destined for a child's room or a child's bag as the colours are a bit bright.

Lastly, I want to share a link to Rachel's a pretty new blog nest full of eggs. Rachel is hosting a month of re-purposing jars, click over and see her sweet site.

A deadline this week and various commitments at school means very little online time but I hope to catch up with all of you soon. 

I hope your autumn has been warm and wonderful too!

Spinning

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
Tennyson

We are definitely in a spin, ringing the grooves of change around here. Not only the obvious changes, new home, new school but even more.

Gracie has been off school the last two days with a streaming cold. Today she was feeling better which meant a lot of artwork being made. Spin art, water colour painting, clay shape making and letter writing in calligraphy; and that was nearly all before lunchtime - clearly she's ready to go back to school.

This year she has many more options for after school clubs and has chosen all sports: netball, judo, football and gymnastics (not all at the same time.) In the past she'd have opted for the art clubs but says she gets a lot of art at home and "I finally get a chance to play football!" Changing indeed.

She wanted me to show you her special spin art machine, an old favourite that she recently rediscovered. I looked for a salad spinner at boot fairs forever to make spin art with the children but never found one, luckily Gracie received this machine as a gift.

We had a lovely visit back to Kent at the weekend for a big birthday party (happy birthday Tim.) We had a chance to meet up with lots of other friends and I finally got my chance to cuddle baby Rufus and so did Tristan, he loves babies.

And Tristan just returned from two days away at an adventure and bonding session with his new classmates. He returned full of stories and though it was late when he returned we had a lengthy conversation about his time away before he fell into bed for an early start tomorrow. As he was talking I realized that this was a new type of conversation, a little boy wasn't explaining things to me, a more mature little man appears to be emerging. Though I'm not that familiar with this little man yet, I'm very happy to get to know him. Spin on!

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For Lovers of Spin Art

I'm a spin art lover. It reminds me of happy days at the county fair where I could sidle up to a booth and make my own abstract masterpiece in minutes.

Make Your Own
If you've never tried the salad spinner version with children here's how it goes:

Use an old salad spinner and put a paper plate in the bottom of it, the plate should fit snugly. Make it spin, remove the lid while it's spinning and drip paint on the plate. If your spinner stops spinning when the lid is removed then put some big drops on the plate first then put the lid on and spin.

Paint that's slightly runny but not watery works best.

I've also toyed with the idea of rigging up my electric drill to create bigger art but I haven't finished figuring that one all out yet.

Many uses for the finished art
We've used the finished artwork for collage, gift cards and framed art. For the gift cards we cut shapes out of the finished spin art. For instance, we cut lots of petals and created a multi-coloured flower.
For the framed art we lined several finished pieces of spin art up together in four stacked rows to create a larger piece of art.

If I could find any samples of these ideas in our many boxes of junk/treasure, I would show you.

And for iPhone and iPod Touch users of course there's an app. It looks fun, not as fun as real paint, but fun enough to amuse yourself if you're unfortunate enough to be on a long commuter train journey with no book to read or sketchbook to fill. Oh and of course there's a Flickr group for art made with the Spin Art app.

If I had an iPhone, I might have to get it just so I could be whisked away to my 10 year old self at the county fair whenever my little heart desired :)

Have a great Wednesday!

Summertime is playtime, outdoor edition

Our warm, sunny days have gone something like this:

A visit to our good friends in Whitstable; hunting for crabs when the tide goes out,

 

...and finding a variety of friendly mollusks instead.

 

Walks on the Downs, photographed by Tristan.

 

Swimming lessons with Zoe, the super-fun swim teacher whose photo I forgot to take.

 

Slipping and sliding in the garden.

 

Having conversations with trees.

 

Making a lot of wishes (hoping for a puppy of course.)

 

Walking over the hills and through the woods to friends who have "The best rope swing in the world!"

You might have thought we sent Tristan away to an extended summer camp, these days he chooses to be behind the camera more than in front of it.

The house is 90% packed up and it looks incredibly tidy, I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't unpack when we get to the other side, it's kind of refreshing having no objects surrounding me.

We won't be online for a while so this is farewell for now, I may find a way to get back here soon but if not I'll see you when I see you.

Thank you all for the good thoughts and well wishes about our move, it really hasn't been too stressful. We're truly excited and have no preconceived ideals or expectations for what lays ahead. We get to live in another beautiful part of the country, make friends that we haven't yet met and enjoy the next phase in the life of our little family. It's all good.

I hope to see you sooner than later,

J x

Summertime is playtime, indoor edition

I've been feeling a little guilty about hubby and I not taking the children anywhere for a holiday over the summer because we're moving house. Then they remind me through their actions that children really just want to play. Of course this is England, summertime doesn't always equal sunshine so playtime often happens indoors.

The image above is from the latest article for The Green Parent. It's their education issue so I created a homemade bingo game children can make themselves. Bingo can be designed to help reinforce learning things like letter forms and sounds or math, even vocabulary. Kids love Bingo, even if they're learning something.

 

I may have mentioned that Gracie is dog mad. Not as in the foaming at the mouth, rabid kind, she just loves them, all of them, even if they act ferocious or are lacking in the cute department. A few days ago she pretended to be a dog - all morning. This included walking on all fours, drinking out of a bowl on the floor and whimpering for attention. We have no dog biscuits because we have no (real) dog and she was very upset to not receive any for performing tricks, so she decided to make her own.

She had to quit her doggy alter ego to bake because, as she rightly pointed out "Dogs don't bake." We have no bone shaped biscuit cutter so we drew a template that she cut around.

 

These are made from the simplest sugar cookie recipe and Gracie loves them. She refused to let anyone have the bone shaped biscuits and saved them for the next day she decides to be a dog. 

 

A house can not be full of moving boxes without children pilfering at least one for their own devices. On this morning (may have been afternoon, pajamas sometimes stay on that long around here) Gracie decided to build a little shop with one. When her brother joined in the shop became a kind of telephone/online ordering service; he then created a cardboard computer and showed her how to make our house phones ring so they could "call" each other.

 

More than a few card games have been enjoyed these past few weeks with friends, Go Fish being the favourite.

And over the last couple of days they've spent hours drawing, tracing and colouring Pokémon characters and demonstrating their "evolution" in an attempt to make me understand the whole game. I'm not much wiser but even more astonished at the amount of details, names, facts and figures they immediately commit to memory regarding the mythological beasts. Must be a way to harness the memory power put into Pokémon and apply it to something a little more necessary, like maybe the times tables!?

 

Still eagerly awaiting a new little babe around here who is running a bit late. Haven't heard from the mummy today, hoping maybe she's in a place where mobile phones aren't allowed and next time I talk to her she'll be holding her little one. Here's a tiny peek at the gift.

 

We move on Saturday rendering me Internet disabled until around the 10th of Sept - drat! Darn that British Telecom! I didn't use such polite language offline.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. Sunny skies predicted for the week ahead... outdoor edition coming soon.

Quick craft

The chores of moving leave me little time to make things, lucky these necklaces take little time. I save special shells, stones and trinkets picked up here and there for projects like these but for the little girl gifts I use charms bought from a local bead shop. 

I started making these simple chains after following futuregirl's sweet bracelet tutorial a while back, remember these attempts to crochet? While I haven't advanced much yet I plan on learning more stitches and how to follow patterns soon. Margie's very fun merfish are on the list for what to try next. 

Only one photo was needed but I had fun taking these images. Gracie chatted away about how she was in the process of abseiling down the side of the house from the balcony when I interrupted her. She pretended to be frustrated but secretly enjoyed it, check out that teenager look on her face in the last one.

Get kids "hooked"

While G showed no interest in making these herself our sweet twelve year old neighbour wanted to learn and is now a crochet addict (I'm hoping she'll teach me new stitches soon.) 

Chain stitch necklaces have my three key ingredients for successful children's projects: they require simple materials, incorporate the child's own design or embellishment and they're quick to make - a perfect first foray with a hook :)

Dragonflies revisited, a tutorial

I love dragonflies and wanted to make them with my class but they're a little young to manage the wirework dragonflies I made with previous classes so we simplified by using recycled plastic to create the wings.

Supplies: scissors • hole-punch • permanent marker • recycled plastic (we used the lids from strawberry containers) • 2 pipe cleaners • coloured tissue paper • white glue • sequins and glitter optional

How to:

First use this wing template, or draw one of your own and trace around it four times onto plastic using a permanent marker. Cut out the four wings then glue pieces of tissue paper on to decorate them. Leave the wings to dry; the glue will make the tissue paper more translucent when dried. When the wings are dry, put a hole in the squared off end of each one with a hole-punch.

Note: I've drawn two wing shapes on the template, a simplified shape to make it easy for younger crafters to cut out as well as a slightly more realistic shaped wing.

Click on this diagram to see it close-up.

• To assemble thread one wing each onto the pipe cleaners. Push the wings about 4 cm down the pipe cleaners then twist the top of the two pipe cleaners together tightly a couple of times just above the wings.       
• Now tightly wrap the long end of one pipe cleaner around the wing two times close to where the wing was threaded and repeat with the other pipe cleaner.
• Twist the long ends together 3 or 4 times tightly under the wings then thread on the two remaining wings and repeat step 2.
• Twist tightly under the second set of wings and continue twisting down the length of the pipe cleaners making a small loop at the end completing a tail.
• Curl the short ends of the pipe cleaners into small loops to create the dragonfly eyes.
• Finish by adding a bit of glitter and sequins if you like.  

There are a lot of great books about dragonflies to be found in libraries, they're fascinating little creatures. Children always think it's amazing that dragonflies start their lives in water and they also marvel at their amazing colour variations. Look out for dragonflies and damselflies this time of year near ponds and lakes, they're a real treat to observe in nature.

If you give these a try let me know, I love to see children's interpretations of these projects, grown-ups too. Get a group of friends together and make several, they look fantastic hanging from the ceiling in one big swarm!

Have a great Friday :)

Ship Ahoy! Father's Day Card

These are the sea-faring cards my class made for Father's Day this year. Like the tie cards, this project is one that can be enjoyed by all age ranges - and although they're all based on the same template the childrens' choice of fabrics and assorted supplies make each card very individual.

As we have a limited time frame to work on projects in the class room we kept the decorating of the ships simple. If we'd had more time we might have added little people standing on deck and strings to mimic ropes for the rigging. 

To make them you'll need these supplies:

Scraps of fabric, old lace or ribbons • cereal boxes or other card stock • white glue • scissors • brown paper (we used pieces cut from old magazines) • a twig or a stick • card stock for the folded card • corrugated cardboard or foam mounting stickers

1. Begin by tracing this template on to the back of a cereal box then cut out the three shapes. The shapes are simplified to make them easy for little hands to cut but if you have limited time like I did, pre-cut the shapes for the children.
2. Glue scraps of fabric to the sails, leave to dry then trim off any excess fabric from around the edges.
3. Glue scraps of brown paper or fabric to the boat leave to dry then trim off any excess brown paper from around the edges.
4. Cut out 6 small squares (about a cm square) of the corrugated cardboard. Glue two squares to the back of each piece of the ship. Spread them apart for balance and don't place them too near the edges.
5. Put glue on the small squares, turn the pieces of the ship over and put them into position on the card. The ship parts will now be set off of the page and allow you to glue the stick for the mast behind them. (Alternatively use foam stickers instead of cardboard squares)
6. Glue the mast on then cut out a small triangle of fabric and glue it to the top of the mast for a flag. 
7. Draw some waves for the sea and write a message inside the card.

I hope you try it out, my class really enjoyed putting these together and we'll definitely be making a few up at home for daddy and the grandpas.

But he's only ten...

Alright, almost eleven, but still our little boy. 

What do you do when it's his first school trip? 

You help him pack his bag and you check the list to make sure everything is in there. And then you check the list again and maybe just one more time.

Then you make a last minute luggage tag because all the cases have mum and dad's name on them, not his own. He's never needed his own because we've always been there.

And you make sure his iPod is charged because music always makes him happy.

Then you watch him get in the coach and see that he is braver than you are because he's calm and content. And you make sure they've driven down the road before he sees the tears in your eyes.

Then you wonder how to get through the week missing this piece of you.

And you do the thing that makes you calm and content too: sit and sew, enjoying the sunlight flooding the room when the forecast called for showers.

I hope your room is sunny too :)

Nature inspired

Gracie really loved helping me with this project for an upcoming article, I'm lucky to have her as a filter to test projects on. She's so patient with being photographed too, although I do now pay her a modeling fee because it takes a lot of time and I need to keep her sweet. 

Read how we made this painting and about tips for mixing paint colours in the Aug/Sept issue of The Green Parent. Thanks to Dianne for our nature walk and raiding leaves from your beautiful garden.

I'm looking forward to lunch with friends today and hoping for a sunny afternoon. It's been a short week here but busy, a lazy afternoon is welcome.

Hope you have a sunny day too!

Simply abstract

 

By Joshua

It's funny how the first time we pick up a pencil we are abstract artists. Then somewhere around the age of 3 we start to form images from our own observation, though these images are usually still imagined. We draw what a dog looks like, without actually looking at it; or a house, or our family. Usually the sun will be hanging out in the corner somewhere.

Maybe our early abstract images aren't meant to be abstract at all. They're the presumed scribbles of an untrained hand that grips a marker awkwardly. But maybe that very young person sees a dog, or a house or his family with a sun hanging in the corner of his picture.

I like to introduce abstract art to my class of 5 and 6 year olds by showing them the art of the Russian painter, Wassily Kandinsky, often called the father of abstract. I show them the progression of his work. Earlier, colourful Post-Impressionist pieces like this, and this; through to art with less distinguishable features like this.

Lastly I show them his vibrant pieces with harder edges and a lot of geometric forms and we look at how Kandinsky used bright colours and contrasts throughout his career. 

The fact that the same artist has painted the two images below astonishes them. The fact that they can make this kind of art too delights them.

"Murnau: Top of the Johannisstrasse" and "On White II" both by Kandinsky

This is how we make our Kandinsky inspired pictures.

Supplies: Water based paint, card stock, geometric shapes cut from cereal boxes, a pencil, large and small brushes

 

1. The children choose from a variety of shapes then trace around them on to card stock.

We choose four or five because more shapes will take longer than we have during our class time.

 

By Angus

2.Then the shapes are laid out so they overlap to create interesting combinations. (You can see the shapes here on a painting by Angus. He chose eight shapes and ran out of time but I like the combination of lines and blocks of colour as it is, also very Kandinsky.)

By Tilly

3. The shapes are then filled in with paint using bright colours and contrasting darks.

 

By Amy

The children did a brilliant job, they understood how to use light and dark colours for contrast and how to combine the shapes to create interest. Amazingly, this year most of my class is only five.

The children had limited time and they only had large round brushes because I couldn't locate the smaller ones. In the top picture by Joshua, the shapes disappeared due to the brushes, but he still had a lovely result due to his free use of colour.

We also had 30 in the class this week instead of 15 so they worked very independently!

A few notes:

• I share this project because every child in my class enjoys it. Those that are afraid to draw as well as those that are confident with every task and medium. They enjoy the freedom of abstraction and the use of bold colours.
• This project is fun for everyone to do anytime, children and adults alike and not just for school.
• With more time children could create their own shapes to cut out for templates.
• The bold colours of these pieces look especially good scanned and reduced for use as cards.
• This site has a lot of information and links to original Kandinsky art.

I hope some of you try this one, you'll love it.