Group Craft Monday - 3D Art Canvases

Oh my gosh guys, what a whirlwind of a week it has been!  All good, but so full and busy, starting with dear hubby's birthday, then a flurry of activities at Taylor's school; end of year Kindergarten performance, Special Person's Day, Awards Ceremony, Summer Jam, her first ballet recital and then of course Father's Day.  Honestly, we had a really, really good week.  Father's Day was wonderful and we spent the day relaxing and swimming and I felt proud to spend time with a few of the awesome men in my life.  My kid's couldn't be more lucky to have such great male role models surrounding them.  And today's Taylor's last day of Kindergarten.  My mantra for the day?  I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry.  We'll see how long I can hold up.

Yesterday, we slowed down just a bit and had some friends over for a little crafting with the younger kids while the older kids were still in school.  My friend Miranda had the great idea of starting a regular craft day during the summer to encourage us all to break out our stash of art supplies and try something new for the kids.  It was her day to organize the first one and we made these awesome butterfly collages from Whatever.

source

Miranda came prepared with the canvases already painted which was perfect since our age range was from 1-4, and she brought some larger butterflies that were already cut out from scrapbook paper from a previous party.  Syd, oh my little Syd is the only boy in the bunch of our 9 kids, so for him she had the great idea of creating a solar system themed art board for him, and painted his canvas black.

You can find the full instructions on Meg's site, but really you don't need much more than a small art canvas, acrylic paint for the canvas, a butterfly punch, watercolors & paper.  Super simple project with a great end result!  To affix the butterflies, you can use a glue gun or in our case we just used those double sided sticky pop dots from the scrap-booking aisle.

 You start by letting the kids paint with the watercolor, 

trying to fill as much blank space on the paper as possible.

 Some use paint brushes, some use fingers.  No big deal :)

 Syd focused on trying to paint circles for his planets.

Once the paper is painted to their liking, use a butterfly punch to cut out the butterflies.  

I used a circle punch for the planets and also did some free style cutting for the rocket ship.

Affix them to the canvas with the pop dots in any pattern they want.

 It was so cool to see the different arrangements the kids came up.  Using their creativity to make a "standardized" craft something of their own.  Some used layers of large, medium and tiny butterflies to make their masterpieces.

 Others used just the small butterflies and scattered them about.

I love that this one looks like a flock of butterflies taking flight.

 Layers and layers of winged creatures popping off the canvas

And of course the boy version of this craft ;)

Syd loves to craft so it was nice to tailor this one a little more to his tastes.  Honestly he would have created a butterfly canvas and thought nothing of it, but the fact that it was a solar system project, 

to fit in perfectly with his room, got him very, very excited.

 Once it was done he zoomed his space ship all around the yard. 

 3, 2, 1...

 BLAST OFF!

 On display :)

Now I've got to think of a project when it's my turn to host.  

Anyone have some fun links or ideas they can share?  Something appropriate for 3-6 year olds.

P.S. I'll announce the winner of the Cord & Chain Friendship Bracelet tomorrow!