Geeky Valentine's Art - Chemistry STEM Canvases with Metallic OlyFun

Share your love of chemistry and STEM this Valentine's Day with these Easy Geeky Valentine's Art Canvases.

If you think geek as much as I do, you're going to love these are a must make.  My husband and I both majored in chemistry in collage and became chemistry teachers, so chemistry references are right up our alley, so I was really excited when Riley Blake sent me some of this fun chemistry fabric a few months ago.  (It's called Novelty by Becky Marie Designs for Riley Blake).  Fairfield World provided me with the  Oly-Fun™ and Poly-Fil®  and compensated me for this post, but all ideas and opinions are my own.  This post also contains affiliate links for your convenience in locating supplies.

I also got a new Silhouette Cameo for Christmas (thanks in-laws!) and I finally got brave enough to try it out.  Even if you don't have a Silhouette, you can still make this super easy I {Heart} U Canvas without a cutter.

And an extra bonus of this project was I got to go into my husband's classroom and play with all the fun chemistry glassware.

As chemistry teachers we tend to like poking fun at "chemistry" pictures in pop-culture that most of the time they just put colored water into glassware for effect rather than showing "real" chemical in use for an actual experiment...but I might have been guilty myself of just adding red food coloring to water.  Oops!

Quite possibly the only thing  more fun than playing with oversided Erylenmeyer flasks is playing with the teeny tiny glassware.  I do sometimes miss the lab...but maybe not quite enough to return to teaching.

Anyway, you can share your own love of Chemistry this Valentine's Day with this ea
Materials:

• 12 x 12 or other desired size canvas
• 1/2 yard fabric.  We used Novelty by Becky Marie Designs for Riley Blake) and I can't remember the name of the electrical looking fabric.
• 1/2 yard Gold Metallic Oly-Fun™ 
• Silhouette Cutting Machine and associated accessories
• AdTech Hot Glue Gun
• Fabric scissors 
• Scraps of Red Fabric
• Liquid Fusion Adhesive (affiliate link) or similar glue
• Red Fabric Scraps

Sticky Note Art and Simple Stocking Stuffer Idea

Looking for a stocking stuffer for an art loving kid, I've got you covered.  This idea is brought to you by Seth, who LOVES to draw.  You might remember his All-Boy Art Party that we put together for his birthday.  We've finally gotten him to behave at church by making sure we always have a drawing book handy.

I've been going a little crazy trying to juggle getting Christmas gifts ready, filling shop orders, and keeping things moving around here.  I'm hoping to have the next installment in the quilt along done today, but I wanted to share this quick idea.

A while ago, our sticky notes kept going missing.  When we figured out what he was doing, we started giving him his own post-it notes.

You can bet that his own post-it notes and no-bleed pens are going to be in his stocking this year.  We were introduced to these no-bleed super fine point sharpies (affiliate link) by Katie's art teacher this year, but you can browse your office supply store for others.)  I like the no-bleed markers because it doesn't leave impression marks on the books like ball-point pens do.

I just love this art activity for a couple reasons:

1. It encourages him to fill the whole paper.  When my kids are drawing on regular printer paper they draw something in the middle and don't want to fill the paper.  The sticky notes are just the right size for them to fill the whole thing.
2. There's creativity in just choosing the part of the book to copy.
3. He's noticing illustrator techniques and parts of the cover art that he wouldn't otherwise notice.  For instance, he notices that the artist uses lines to show the fir, etc.
4. Fine motor skills practice.
5. Nice, calm activity to help him wind down for going to sleep.

We just realized on our most recent trip at Thanksgiving that one of Seth's favorite cousins loves art too.  I'm really not sure how we missed that connection before, but once we told the boys that they both loved art, they'd alternate between being roudy, loud boys to taking breaks drawing together.  Pure Awesome.  His favorite cousin might be getting his own pack of sticky notes from Seth.

Please show my sponsors some love...

Reindeer - Holiday Frost from You Keep Me in Stitches

Modern Black and Gold Hexies Baby Quilt - Pieces by Polly

Aspen Frost from Sisters and Quilters

The Real Reason for the Season Print - From Prints of Peace

All-Boy Art Birthday Party

  Note: If you're looking for the You Keep Me in Stitches Giveaway click here.

I can't believe my boy turned 6 this week!

Seth is in LOVE with art lately.  He and Becca go in his room and "do art" for hours at a little table we have in there.  I can't remember who suggested it, but when an art party came up as a theme for his party, he jumped at it. 

And I was super happy to have a theme with so many creative possibilities and that it was something we want to encourage him in.   We've told our kids they just get parties on certain birthdays (6, 8, 12, etc).  They get a cake and little family celebration (as in dessert right after dinner) every year, but not a lot.  So it's fun to put some extra effort into the parties we do have.

Overall the kids loved it.  And despite the title of the post, we did have girls at the party and they enjoyed the projects too, we just especially found projects that would appeal to boys.  It took a little planning ahead to make sure we had the art supplies on hand, but other than buying the supplies we really did pretty much everything for the party the day before.  (And remember I have my husband home during the summers, so I had him to help out getting ready and helping during the party.)

I'm really not a fan of party favors...at least not the kind where you buy cheap toys so the guests go home with something.  I am a big fan of party favors that serve as entertainment and/or props to the party itself, so the kids got to take home some fun art projects.  I wanted to do some kinds of art projects that used materials and techniques they might not learn at school (where they pretty much stick to paper, crayons, and occasionally tempera paint).

Here's what we did:

Dueling Authors - Get Your Kids Writing

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post because my English-teacher-mom gets a little embarrassed at the number of typos that show up in my posts...a dangerous side effect of writing blog posts late at night.

I know we're all looking for fun ways to keep our kids busy and learning this summer.  Last year Katie's reading teacher let us know that even though she was at the top of her class in her reading skills, her writing was not at a comparable level.  It was okay, but not what you'd expect from such an advanced reader.

We're continuing to work on her writing skills, and we've found it's a lot easier to get her to practice when she thinks it's fun and not really practice.

Scarecrow Sculpture - Book and Children's Art

It's been a while since I did a children's book/craft post...mostly because I haven't been that good about doing children's book/craft activities with Becca...but this is one we did recently and really enjoyed.

I discovered this book last year and fell in love with it, so we brought it home from the library again this year.  It's called the Scarecrow's Dance by Jane Yolen.  It's got everything a children's book should have...amazing illustrations, a fun meter and rhyme for reading aloud, and such and uplifting story.  The scarecrow decided to leave his post and dance around in the autumn night.  Then he finds the little farm boy knealing beside his bed saying his bedtime prayer...praying and thanking God for all the things you'd expect a boy to pray for and ending with the boy praying a blessing on the scarecrow.  After that the scarecrow knows how much he's needed a loved and heads back to his post after offering a prayer of his own.  I just found the book quietly uplifting while not being at all preachy.  I perfect read for fall and Thanksgiving.

After reading it, Becca and I decided to make our own Scarecrow.  We kind of made it up while we went along.  Here's how we did it...

nJoyArt: New Sponsor Spotlight

 If you follow me on Pinterest (my Cakes and Party Ideas Board in particular) , you might have guessed that we have some kind of space party coming up at our house.  Little Brother got his solar system themed quilt (I promise...the post about it with the pattern ARE coming) as well as several other solar system themed gifts for Christmas, which inspired Firecracker to ask for a solar system themed birthday party.

Which led me to searching the for various solar system and space graphics...which led me to this original painting...

Rocket Ship by nJoy Art

...and then this one...

Flying Saucer by n Joy Art

And then by the time I saw this amazing Solar System Print, I knew I wanted it for Little Brother's wall to go with the quilt...it's in the mail...and I.CAN'T.WAIT for it to show up in my mailbox. 

nJoy Art has a lot more to offer than just Space and Solar System art, though, so I emailed Nicola to see if she'd be interested in becoming a sponsor, so I'd have an excuse to show her amazing work off to all of you.

And she said, YES! 

So I'm pleased to introduce Nicola of nJoy Art as the newest sponsor of Helping Little Hands!  (And make sure to read to the end of the post to find out how you could win an amazing painting of your own.)

Nicola has almost 100 different works of art listed in her shop, and nearly all of her pieces are the original works of art, with a few prints available.

Here's just a small sampling of what you'll find. 

Melted Crayon Art Tutorial: LOVE Letter Tiles

I've never really been big on decorating for holidays, other than Christmas.  We've always lived in such small spaces that I didn't want the extra clutter.  I had every intention of leaving our Silent Night painting up until we move sometime around April...but then inspiration struck.  The Nativity painting came down and these went up. 

I stumbled across this graphic on Remodelholic...

...and I thought...wouldn't that look great with melted crayon dots instead of sprinkles?!?  (A little less messy too.) 

And I LOVE how it turned out.

Painted Fabric Nativity Scene Tutorial

I've got a whole tutorial for this project in this post...but first you've got to hear the background (or you can skip down to where it says "Materials" in large print.)

Our family enjoys lots of different kinds of Christmas decorations (Santa, snowmen, gingerbread men, etc), but for the decorations I spend time making, I prefer decorations that focus on the Nativity.  Last year at Christmas, I fell in love with this Nativity Painting that Dana from MADE showed as part of her holiday decor.

Mouse Paint (Book and Art Project)

Here's another great preschool color book and art project for you.  As we've been doing more painting projects, lately, I've realized that Little Brother and Sweet Pea excel at covering a surface with paint...but maybe not so much at coming up with a deliberate form to their art...so this project was perfect for them.

Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh is a great book for preschoolers because it's so simple.  Little Brother thought it was hilarious that the mice climb into the paint, and Sweet Pea LOVED the cat...of course.  Basically the mice explore color through paints, but they have to leave some of the paper they live on white to hide from the cat.

For the art project, I had Little Brother draw pencil lines to divide is paper into different sections. 

Each time I gave him a new color, I had him choose which section he'd paint.  He stayed (mostly) inside the regions he'd painted, and we left one part white where the mice could hide.

For Sweet Pea, we mostly did the drop and smear technique, so her colors stayed (mostly) in each areas by where I dropped the paint for her. 

Then we let them dry for a day, and the next day we read the story again and glued a cat silloutte (recognize that one from Little Brother's shirt and the cats in the window?) and 3 cotton balls for mice.  Little Brother was able to remember the story well enough afterward to tell Daddy about the story and his painting when he got home...and Sweet Pea loves her painting because she made it and it has a cat on it.

I'm linking to:
 

Sunday Family Walks

Firecracker gets what is called "Tic Tac Toe" homework.  She's given a Tic Tac Toe grid with 9 possible assignments and has to do 3 of them to make a Tic-Tac-Toe.  We tend to have her do more than 3 of them because she has fun with them and a few of them are a bit too easy.  Anyway, one of her assignments a couple weeks ago was to draw a picture and tell us about it.  We had her draw the picture, tell us about it, and then write about it too.

As you have probably guessed, we often go for walks on Sunday to spend time together...usually just before bedtime to help the kids get some energy out after church and naps and dinner, and helps everyone be happy during that last cranky half hour before stories and bed.

There are a lot of things I like about this picture, and I just wanted to share.  What does your family do together on Sunday?

Counting Cockatoos - Book and Activity

Anyone with toddlers and young children probably have at least a half dozen "counting" books that have cute and interesting pictures, but are pretty much the same as the next one.  I went looking Ship Shapes by Stella Blackstone as recommended by Christianne at Little Page Turners because it looked like a great book for doing some shape activities.  Sadly, our library system didn't have it, but I did discover Counting Cockatoos by the same author instead.  It's a "typical" counting book, with a fun twist.

Kids' Fall Trees Art

I saw a "Fall Trees" project from Gail at That Artist Woman a couple weeks ago.  (I LOVE her site because the projects she does end up looking like art and not just a "craft" project.) I thought they were so pretty and figured I could do all the background and then just have the kids add the leaves.

Then I had a bit of an epiphany about really young kids and art projects.  You can get a nicer finished project if you only have them do one concrete step at a time.  I know...I know...you all knew that already, but it just barely dawned on me.  So I thought we'd try out my new strategy with this project.