art party: glitter bottles

Unshaken on the left, shaken on the right.

Nothing is more fun than a glitter bottle! We've made many different kinds over the years, but this type was one of the easiest and least expensive to create.

Materials Needed:
Clear plastic bottles with screw-on lids
Glitter glue (1 regular size tube per bottle)
Fine glitter
Water
Food coloring
Super glue

Once you have your materials ready, you can make these bottles very quickly. Start by squeezing an entire tube of glitter glue into each bottle; this is a good task for kids to practice eye-hand coordination and build fine motor strength. Fill the bottles halfway with water and add one or two drops of food coloring, followed by the fine glitter. Then fill up the rest of the bottle with water, leaving about a quarter inch of air at the top. We screwed on the lids and gave each bottle a good shake to make sure that we liked the coloration, and added more glitter or food coloring if necessary. Once they looked good, we used super glue on the inside of the lids and screwed them on tightly. Now our glitter bottles are ready to be party favors for this weekends art birthday party.

the wedding tree

I got to try a brand new painting project last week. Some friends of my dad's had a lovely mountain wedding ceremony, which my dad officiated. I have seen versions of this wedding tree around on-line and really wanted to give it a try. The cute part of this tree is that the wedding guests make the leaves with their fingerprints. In this case the couple's wedding colors were maroon and yellow, which made for a lovely autumn tree.

Materials Needed:
Canvas
Paints & Brushes
Alphabet Stickers

I made the background with several colors of cream and brown, with a final coat of pearlescent clear paint for the shiny effect. For the tree I used a darker brown, finishing with cream and gold highlights. I placed hearts and spelled out the names of the bride and groom with stickers, then painted the grassy knoll using greens and yellows. After the paint dried, it was just a matter of peeling off the stickers to reveal the hearts and names. The painting was finally done when the wedding guests placed their fingerprints on the tree. I was told that the painting was a hit, and I hope that I can do it again for other weddings.