More Bottle Cap Fun

I have been inspired very recently by Kathy Cano-Murillo, "The Crafty Chica". Her spirit and sense of fun, not to mention her great ideas, have been so helpful to me.

She recently posted a great project for Bottle Cap Magnets. This is a winner of a camp craft. Cheap, easy, and hard to mess up.

I made a similar set today, to try it out, and here they are:
I attached the cute little graphic (I got these from Jelly Bean Lab, an Etsy merchant, and printed them on my computer) with ModPodge to the back of flat backed glass marble.The whole marble then gets glued to the inside of the bottle cap. I filled in the open area with glitter glue, and then embellished the glue with tiny li'l seed beads.

A good magnet goes on the back, and these'll dress up any old boring refrigerator.

I love it when things work out!!!

Polymer Clay Pens

I love crafts that are useful. Here's an old favorite of mine, that fits the bill perfectly!

Click here for HGTV tutorial.

Marbleized Paper

In my first summer teaching Arts and Crafts, we offered paper marbling to our campers. It remains one of my favorite crafts, as it truly appeals to all ages. Below is a clip from Martha Stewart on marbling, you can see how much fun it is.

She uses a gelatinous water thickening agent and acrylic paints to cause the separation of liquids that creates the funky marbleized design. We have used marbling dyes that can be ordered through enasco.com. They are oil based, so there is no need for any thickening agent.

In a group setting, we use one pan of water shared between 3 to 4 campers. They agree on a "color palate" between them. They each take turns dipping paper in the solution. You can marble nearly any kind of paper. (We've used blank stationary).

Enjoy!

Paint your own Pottery - Plaster version

With the popularity of "Paint Your Own Pottery" studios in the last few years, we had every reason to seek out a similar activity for our groups.

Unfortunately, we hit one big stumbling block...money.

Bisqueware, the unfinished pottery pieces you'll find in these stores, is very expensive. To provide these ceramic lovely bowls, vases, boxes and figurines wouldn't be cost effective. Not to mention, they also require a second firing in the kiln, which, if space in your kiln is an issue, might be a problem.

That's why I was so happy to run into the nice people from Millie's Plaster Craft at a recent convention. They offer plaster molded pieces, at a fraction of the cost of bisqueware. They simply need to be painted with acrylic paints, and sprayed with an acrylic glaze.

Instant gratification in just 45 minutes. This project appeals to ALL ages, boys and girls alike, and the final product will look great hanging up in a bedroom, kitchen, or family room.

Wow, SAFE Candle Making

Our utmost priority in all of our creative projects is SAFETY. I love the idea of candle making and we have done traditional candle dipping in the past, and truly, it is one of my favorite standard activities.

Beeswax candles are a wonderful alternative to the traditional candle making, and of course we are not working with heat, so they are an incredibly safe and simple and a perfect immediate gratification project...

Oooh, and dig the pretend sushi candles!!! Cool Beans!

Collage with Resin and Found Objects

We haven't worked intensively with resin, but we used a wonderful product last summer called Envirotex lite. It added a sheen to a couple of our projects that was astounding and simple. I'm ordering decorate your own trays from Oriental Trading, and a bunch of fun objects, beads, cool papers, fabrics, and we're going to do a version of the project below. I'm VERY excited about this one!

Paper Lantern

I searched high and low for a paper lantern to decorate, and what do you know...Oriental Trading strikes again!!

Link

Carnival Scratch Mask

From Blick Art Supplies
Link

Buggy Hut

It's always a challenge to come up with cool projects for boys. Maybe it's because I'm the ultimate girly-girl and I'm drawn to the more feminine projects. Nevertheless, we see boy campers once a day. The boys I see are 6-10, so Bug Catchers are a staple.

I found this one today, and I love it especially, because, I get to use our Ellison Die Cutter, which, by the way is THE COOLEST piece of equipment in the art center.

Instructions

An Oldie But a Goodie - Paper Clay Bowl

This was our first project EVER at camp. In fact, the bowl pictured above was created by my daughter when she was 8 years old. It is so simple and useful, and considering this one was made in 2003, it has held up pretty well after all these years.

The bowl above was made with Paper Clay, we softened with our hands, and then folded in glitter specs. We eventually started adding tempera paint right into the clay. When you work the paint into the clay, the clay changes color. Super cool. We rolled the clay out and molded around little plastic bowls from the dining hall. They dry overnight, feather light, yet surprisingly sturdy.

I found instructions for a similar project from Crayola.com

You can find project instructions here.

Sculpey Swirley Frame

We have used Sculpey clay every year. The colors are vibrant, the clay is easy to work with and the funnest part is when you can mix the colors to make new beautiful marble-y patterns.

Sculpey has come out with a new product called "Studio" by Sculpey. The colors seem richer, the finish is suede like, and they say that the finished product is more durable than projects made with traditional Sculpey.

Picture frames are always divine, everyone can use and enjoy them, and this project seems simple enough. Even though this is shown with the new Sculpey, I'll bet the good old classic Sculpey will work just fine.

Instructions for Sculpey Frame

Nature Necklaces

Family Fun Magazine and website has a very clever array of original craft ideas. I kind of like this one, part nature, part jewelry.

The campers could spend the first ten minutes of their class hunting for beautiful stones, and then the balance working with wire to turn their finds into cool necklaces.

I think the younger campers would find this particularly appealing, and think this would be one of the few jewelry projects that might appeal to younger boys as well.

At our camp, we hold on to all projects until visiting day. I think our biggest challenge with this one will be keeping the campers from sneaking these back to their bunks!

Nature Necklace Instructions

Painted Rocks

This might be the simplest craft yet, I don't understand why we haven't ever done this. This would be great for boys and girls alike, and can run the gamut from simple to extremely detailed.

I love this most as a rainy day craft, since we need so little prep to get it ready. Just nice smooth rocks and stones and acrylic paint. Then we'll seal them with acrylic spray. Voila!