Summer Samuel Craft Camp -S4

Sewing Sock Cats

Do you want to make a Sock Animimal? What type of animal would you make? What color socks would you choose? What about the eyes or whiskers? My campers answered these same questions while learning basic sewing skills and making their very own sock cats.

Camper age 6 - Cat in the Hat

For most of my campers, this was their first sewing experience, but everyone was enthusiastic and ready to begin. This project taught the campers how to thread a needle, how to make a running stitch and sew a button. Total time to make this project, 60 minutes. The majority of the time was spent in picking the right embellishments for their cats.

Age 5, cat with a tail

Tutorial

To make a sock cat, you need one sock, stuffing, buttons for the eyes, ribbon to separate the head, bakers thread for the whiskers, yarn, flowers and feathers for embellishing. Cut the sock at the ankle, stuff with polyfill and stitch close. This stitching(that closes the sock) will form the ears. To make the head, tie a ribbon or tubing around the upper portion of the sock. Sew buttons eyes and wiskers. Embellish as needed.

I throughly enjoyed teaching this activity, and witnessing my campers creations. Enjoy!!!

 

Summer Camp Samuel -S3

Collage Art

This week my campers were given the creative challenge to design a collage tissue box. Collages are art that is comprised of differnt materials such as, newspaper and magazine clippings, material, or ribbon, that is added to a flat surface to form a new piece of art. The idea for this project came from my mom who did a similar project using elbow maccoroni with her Scouts many years ago. Today, I revamped it by expanding the materials from just pasta to anything small that could fit on box.

To begin this project, each child brought in their own tissue boxes. I provided each table with an assortment of small items that included, pasta, mixed sizes of buttons, ponytail beads, beads, and letter pieces, puzzle and Lego pieces, small toys, bark ribbon and small polymer clay pieces that I had on hand.

Each camper was allowed the creative freedom to design their own boxes. There were no right or wrong decisions. No two tissue boxes were alike. Some campers chose a more scattered design, while others were more precise in their selection of items and placed these items in a pattern or design.

After each tissue box was throughly dried, I spray painted each with a metallic gold or silver. Some tissue boxes, especially if they had a lot of ponytail beads, required more coats of paint than the plain maccoroni tissue boxes.

The campers and their parents were extremely impressed with the results of the tissue boxes. The concept of the end result was hard for some campers to foresee, but I think the awe and delight on their faces made me happy and remember why I enjoy teaching.

If you decide to make this project with your campers or kids, please share the picture with my page, and if you reblog please send them here. Enjoy!

 

 

Summer Samuel Craft Camp – Session 2

Tie Dying TeeShirts

Vibrant TieDye T-shirt - spiral

Session 2 – wearable art, in other words, TIE DYE! Nothing says summer quite like tie dying tee shirt. The campers got wet, messy and everyone had tons of fun, all in the name of art. Here are some sample tees.

Sunset TieDye - Spiral

To make this shirt, the camper rolled the shirt in a spiral, secured it with rubber bands, and used the colors red and yellow dyes. The colors blended together to make orange.

For this shirt, the camper chose a bullseye pattern and used all available dyes.

Important tips when tye dyeing…

1. Soak shirt first
2. Make sure you have plenty of rubber bands
3. Remove shirt from water and ring out excess water. Tightly coil shirt according to pattern choice and secure with rubber bands.
4. Use freshly made dye – the dye will loss it’s affectiveness after 45 miniatures or an hour.
5. For bright colors use less dye, for pastel colors use more water.
6. When applying dye to the shirt, start at one section then move to the next. For best intensity, make sure to completely saturate the teeshirt. Don’t worry there will still be white spots if you saturate it.
7. When you finish, place each shirt in its own ziplock bag, for 45 minutes to an hour. This will allow the dyes set in and not fade as fast.
8. Rinse each shirt with clean water. If water is not clear, the color in the bucket will dye the undyed “white” parts.

 

 

 

 

Summer Samuel Craft Camp – 01

Project 1: Extra Soft Pastels on Black Paper

Each Thursday during the summer months, I am hosting weekly crafting classes. My campers range from the ages of 5 to 9 and includes both girls and boys. My first activity taught the campers how to draw and use soft chalk pastels.

Picture drawn by 8 y/o camper. Dried, glittered and sealed with acrylic sealer.

Supplies:

• Extra Soft Pastels (I used Hardtmuth brand)
• Black drawing paper
• White glue
• Glitter glue
• Twinklets Diamond Dust – optional
• Adhesive spray glue
• Plaid Patricia Nimocks Clear Acrylic Sealer

Age 13, picture still wet

Directions:

The campers were asked to pick 3 colors from the chalks. By using three colors, the campers were able to isolate their design choices while keeping the picture simple. This exercise taught the campers about the color wheel and utilizing contrasting and/or complimentary colors.

Age 5

 

Step 1:

• Draw simple picture.
• Fill with pastel colors.
• Add glue, glitter glue or puffy paint.
• Let dry.
• Optional- spray with adhesive glue and sprinkle on Twinkle Diamond Dust or glitter. Shake excess off.
• Spray sheets with Acrylic Sealer. This keeps the chalk from fading or coming off the paper.