Glitter is Glamorous with Girlfriends

Isn't glitter glamorous? Especially when it's covering my kitchen floor, tables, and all exposed body parts (sarcasm)!  Kelsey and Sydney picked out these fabulously inexpensive 3-d wood cutouts, glitter included for 79cents a piece at Michaels.  We invited our best gal pals, Grace and Libby (and their mommy, Kelly and lil' sis, Ememline) to enjoy in this glittery experience.

 Suggestion: cover work space with newspaper... and lots of it...maybe we should have spread something under the table as well...next time (what? next time... uh, I DON'T THINK SO)!!!

 Libby's technique was to shake the bags of glitter back and forth as quickly as she could (while Kelly and I hoped some would stick to the cutout girl.)

 Kelsey thought it was best to shake some glitter on the girl then scrape the excess glitter from the table, over the edge hoping that the glitter would fall into her hands (and not on the floor as most of it did) to use again.

 Sydney shook her glitter here, there, and everywhere.

 Grace, the most practical of the bunch, strategically shook her glitter in various spots on the girl.

Suggestion: Keep a vacuum, or two, nearby... all in all this actually was quite a fun and fanciful activity (all sarcasm aside)!

Glittery Girlfriends

Paper Puppets

Kelsey was inspiration for these puppets.  She randomly requested to make one using the leftover favor bags from her party in June.  We picked out items from our giant Rubbermaid container of art odds and ends.  The possibilities are endless...

 Sydney used lots of glue for her puppet!

Kelsey is really big on making things realistic so she wanted hair, two eyes, a nose (she even made two nostrils with glue), lips and then decorations for the shirt.

Children of the Corn

Last fall we painted with Indian corn... a super cool texture! Anyway, we didn't do any fun art projects this time around but having them husk our dinner corn was fun enough!

Wood for the Water Closet

Time to rave about our latest Michael's find... 39cent wooden "restroom" door hangs...and yes I am mounting them on our downstairs Water Closet door as soon as they dry!

Interested in the definition of Water Closet?

Lovely Ladybugs

DAY ONE: After a simple explanation of the life cycle, I read some lady bug facts.  We then watched the video of the ladybug taking flight (super cool!) 
facts & slow motion video of one flying
simple illustration
ladybug anatomy

Then, we looked at a ruler to see how tiny ladybugs are.

Tennessee ladybug on finger shows actual size of insect -
photo © Lindsey T on Flickr - use permitted with attribution

Next, I did a Venn diagram and we re-discovered facts of ladybugs, comparing them with what we already knew about people.

After, we prepped the components of the ladybug.  At Michael's we found a 99cent 12-pack of various sized circles.

Kelsey painted the circles for abdomen, Pronotum, and head black. (Fun Fact: Ladybugs can pull their head into their Pronotum, just as a turtle does it's shell.) 

She cut my pre-drawn outline of wings from waxed paper. (Fun Fact: Ladybug wings are so thin that they are seethru.) 

She cut then painted the Elytra (wing covers). 

Black pipe cleaners were cut, with assistance for the antennae and legs. 

 

DAY TWO: Together we assembled her ladybug.

Kelsey glued on black buttons for the spots and eyes. 

 

 She holepunched and thread the pipe cleaners so the legs and antannae would be moveable.

 She glued on the Pronotum. (Do you get the feeling I like that word?)

 We attached a popsicle stick to the head and glued on a piece of cardstock so the head could slide up and down from the Pronotum.

 

We have to head to the store for brass brads so the wings and wing covers will be moveable, too. *See how the head can hide under the Pronotum? 

 (How many times did I use the word Pronotum in this entry? hee hee!)