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Crayon-Watercolor Batiks

Crayon_Watercolor_Batiks
When I was in third grade, my school was lucky enough to host a week with an artist in residence. She worked on a different project with each grade level. The fifth graders, as I recall, got to cast things in bronze, which was exciting enough that most of the school got to go down to the parking lot to watch. And as fascinated as I was by the fiery liquid poured into molds of apples and Happy Meal toys, our class project-batik flags-was, I thought, the coolest thing on earth. It was fascinating, magical even, to watch the lines we had drawn on our fabric appear when the flags were dipped into the various tints of orange dye. I kept my flag for years, even after my little brother half destroyed it trying to use it in his fort.

While I’m not quite up to attempting a batik project with my own kids yet, this crayon and watercolor art gives a similar result and makes for some fun afternoon painting. While you’ll get better results on watercolor paper, a good thick drawing paper will work well too.

Things you’ll need:
Watercolor or heavy drawing paper
White crayons
Watercolor paints
Paintbrushes
Water and cup

Things to do:
1. Find a good work surface that you aren’t afraid to get a little wet and painty. Lay out your paper and have your kids draw heavy lines all over the paper. Encourage them to make patterns, grids and swirls. You want to end up with lots of small areas bordered on all sides by crayon lines.
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2. Using your water and paintbrushes, have the kids brush across the paper, either covering the whole thing in one color or painting each section individually. Using different strengths of the same color gives a more batik like result but let them decide which colors they want. The crayon lines will stop the paint from bleeding beyond the lines, which gives the batik look.
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3. Allow the paint to dry and enjoy your new art!
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Personalized Mouse Pad

Personalized_Mouse_pad
My husband recently made the switch back from a laptop to a desktop, which meant the return of all those parts and accessories that you often don’t deal with when you work off of a laptop. Among these accessories were a mouse and therefore, a mouse pad. And because I have a hard time leaving anything just plain the way it came, I decided to give his boring mouse pad a makeover.

For his mouse pad I chose to use the first letter of our last name, but don’t limit yourself to letters. Any image you can cut out and that will fit on the pad will work. You could also use plain craft acrylic paint, but fabric paint has a better elasticity and will not change the surface of the mouse pad as much as craft acrylic paint will.

Things you need:
Fabric covered mouse pad
Fabric paint
Printed image
Freezer paper
Foam paintbrush
Scissors or Hobby knife
Iron

Things to do:
1. Trace the image you want onto your freezer paper. For this project I printed out the letter g” in 400 pt. type and American Typewriter Lite font.
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2. Carefully cut the image out from the freezer paper. Remember that you will be using the paper as a stencil, so pay more attention to the edges that remain than the ones you are cutting out.
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3. Iron the freezer paper, shiny side down, with a low iron. The plastic coating on the back of the freezer paper will stick to the fabric without leaving a residue behind.
4. Sponge the paint onto the revealed fabric using a dabbing motion. Set aside to dry.
5. Peel the freezer paper off and set the paint by ironing lightly over the image.

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