Christmas ornaments 2013

With the Holiday Home Tour (sebastopolholidayhometour.com) taking up a huge chunck of my time, its always fun to have the kids do some ornaments that we decorate school with and then they take them home.  In 2013 I did several:

Angels made from popsicle sticks and music note wings, which became an instant classic.

Wreaths that act as photo frames, made from yarn and pipe cleaners wrapped around a drapery ring.

Handprint reindeer. There are so many great holiday crafts made from handprints!

Christmas Art 2012

It seems like the whole month of November and into December was devoted to Christmas ornaments and decor that got used for the Holiday Home tour decorating the school. Here's a roundup of those items:

 Popsicle stick snowflakes got mentioned in an earlier post. Smaller versions of these got painted white and placed on the Christmas Tree.

 The K-2 class made the old standby of paper plate snowmen. Always a fun project. They decorated the school lobby.

 We also made handprint Santas with red, white and beige paint, decorated with some buttons and cotton.

 The younger kids used popsicle sticks to make triangles that we turned into Christmas Tree frames for a photo. Super easy, but fun!

Snowflakes from popsicle sticks

Getting ready for Christmas already! In fact this project will be decoration for our Holiday Home Tour which benefits the school. We have 6 homes decorated and the school itself. So if you like home tours buy your tickets here!

 On to the snowflakes...This is a multi-stage project and the first step was having the kids construct snowflakes from popsicle sticks..lots of them. I had them use white glue since it allows for them to adjust the design, eventhough it does not dry as fast as hot glue. The fun part has been to see how different the kids approach this concept. In the end there will be K-6th snowflakes, and all grade levels can do this.

After all the snowflakes dried, I spray painted them red. This is  step best done by adults. Smaller snowflakes, I painted white and the kids will glitter them for the Christmas Tree.

We just put them up in the high walls of the School lobby and they really add a graphic punch and some kid-art quirkiness. Love them!

Snowmen from 2011

Another catchup post from the best of last year's projects!

Tissue Paper Snowmen

Paper plate snowmen

Week 12: Pop-up Christmas cards

Our last Christmas project was a card for the kids to give to family.  The cool twist is that these are pop-ups, which can be really cool, but challenging.

I had two designs (snowman and tree), that I printed onto card-stock to make it easier for the kids. I got the idea from a Christmas Crafts book. They just had to follow directions about cutting and then get some help folding. Then they could decorate and glue into some construction paper for final presentation.

Here is the template. Click for larger file to print.

Week 11: Plastic painted ornaments

With the gracious help of another mother, Mary Maxwell, we did some special ornaments.  She had a supplie of clamshell type clear palstic ornaments. They were balls and stars.  We had the kids put a few quirts of acrylic paint into the inside of the clear ornaments. (the less, the better) Then they close the ornment snuggly! and shake it around. The result is a marbled look inside.

The only problem is that if the kids use too much paint, it puddles in the bottom and does not dry.  Otherwise the kids had a blast. Thanks Mary!

Week 10: Music Note Angel ornaments

For the 5-6 grade I did not do the simple snowmen I did with the younger kids. For the older students I did a project from two years ago, that remains one of my favorites.  It is an ornament made out of sheet music formed into an angel.

I made a template with downloaded sheet music, but you can just photocopy some sheet music or download from the internet. I used "Angels We have Heard on High."  Form your sheet music into cones about 3 inches tall with a small hole at the top.

Other items needed:

shiny pipe cleaners

little jingle bells

small flesh colored wood beads.  Use Sharpie to put face on.

Small 2-3" shiny or white doilies

glitter

This is what you do:

1. After cones are built, twist a jingle bell on end of pipe cleaner

2. Insert pipe cleaner up from bottom of cone thru "neck hole" 

3. Put bead "head" on pipe cleaner

4. Wrap pipe cleaner around finger and twist once or twice to make halo and keep bead on.

5. Use rest of pipe cleaner as hook.

6. Glue half-folded doiley to back of cone as wings

7. Add glitter to bottom of skirt and/or buttons etc.

Week 10: Paper plate snowmen

I'm a bit late posting these, but December can be a real bear with spare time. We had three weeks of art during the Christmas season, and there are so many good holiday projects out there, but I usually try to do some ornaments and cards.  This projects is not really either, but is a lot of fun and easy as pie...plate, that is.

I should probably write a book on art projects made from paper plates (or find the books that undoubtedly have already been written!)

This project uses three plain white paper plates. I used a large and two smaller ones. I attached them with the metal brads that look like thumbtacks with wings.  Then it is up to the student to make a hat, scarf, boots, face and buttons out of whatever you have on hand: paper, twigs, pipe cleaners, sequins, puffballs, etc.

Each one turns out different and really cute.

F
For those who finished early, I showed them the classic paper plate dove from my childhood.

Week 15: Christmas villages

Being the last of the three December art classes, I wanted to continue the Christmas feel, but throw in something a bit new.  We did cards, snowmen, snowflakes and some watercolor, but for this project I combined the ever popular "stained glass" theme with some architecture. Voila...Christmas houses and villages.



I wanted to these to stand up in a window, so I had the kids fold a piece or two of brown paper into thirds or fourths-whichever worked best. Accordian fold is the best.  This resulted in vertical sections of paper that they could draw some whimsical buildings.  I had them cut out the roof and window shapes. Then they could glue some colored tissue paper behind the holes for colorful windows.


I love the "scool" and the petstore. This was a Kindergartener, with maybe some help from an older writer?

I did try to emphasize the various types of roof shapes and show them photos of Amsterdam row houses and San Francisco vistorians.

These can really turn out well.  For a more gingerbread look, you could have them do all the detail drawing with white paint, but the black markers look fine too.  I used construction paper which is a bit thin and light.  If I could get any supplies, I might try a stiffer paper stock, but not too thick for cutting purposes.


Funny thing, was that the younger kids had no trouble at all with this relatively complex concept of drawing and then cutting. They had wilder imaginations and I think fewer inhabitions. But they did have trouble with teh concept of gluing the tissue paper on the back of the houses ;-)

Merry Christmas to all and to all an artistic night!!