Travel Activity... Journalling

We recently spent some time travelling around New Zealand in a campervan. It was great fun and I would love to do it again. I thought our holiday would be a perfect time to introduce the kids to journalling so before we left I bought:

• Acid-free spiral bound A5 diaries
• Some fabulous bright watercolours that were perfect for travelling (this is not a paid link I just LOVED them). 
• Small paintbrushes
• A variety of artline fine felt tip markers 

Every second day we all sat down and did some drawing and painting in our diaries. It was a combined family effort, Cakey and I often worked together on the same page. There was no right or wrong way to do this, we just painted what most appealed to us from the day. The best thing about this is now we have a lovely keepsake of our holiday.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Time to Create – Pattern Printing

I love a bit of process-based art and so does my 2 year old. Boo is all about the PROCESS.... she cares very little about the product. And now I have in my lap a wonderful book filled with a stack of process art ideas. This book is Time to Create, Hand-On Explorations in Process Art for Young Children, written by Christie Burnett. With chapters ranging from drawing to sculpture to digital photography there is something for everyone no matter where your mess tolerance lies!

We, of course, picked something a little messy to try out first – pattern printing with found objects. It was great fun..... this is what you need if you want to try it too.

1. Paper – I spread out a large piece of brown paper from a roll that I picked up in the supermarket, but any paper will do the trick.
2. Sponges and takeaway/plastic containers – place one wet sponge into each container. Use one container for each colour. We used three.
3. Paint – squeeze a generous dollop of paint on top of the wet sponge. I spread the paint out over the sponge with a paintbrush. The wet sponge absorbs the paint turning the sponge into one large stamp pad.
4. Miscellaneous stuff that you can print patterns with – we used a potato masher, leaves from the garden, cookie cutters, crumpled paper, and Boo also experimented with her fingers and hands..... as a 2 year old will!

We turned our pattern print into a piece of wrapping paper for a special friend. This is just one of the many ideas in Time to Create, it is a great resource for encouraging art... even if you don't think you are arty!

Time to Create: Hands On Explorations in Process Art for Young Children is now available internationally through all major online booksellers, including The Book Depository, Amazon, Fishpond and Barnes & Noble.

Want to know more about Time to Create? Keep an eye on the following blogs for upcoming stops along our international blog tour...

Picklebums . An Everyday Story . Learn With Play At Home . Octavia & Vicky . Sesame Ellis . Nurturestore . Simple Kids . Our Everyday Things . Rainbows Within Reach . Teach Preschool . At Home With Ali . Go Explore Nature . Not Just Cute . Lessons Learnt Journal . PreK+K Sharing . The Imagination Tree

(I was given a copy of "Time to Create". I was under no obligation to write a post about it. All opinions are my own and I love this book.)

Outdoor play kitchen

Many months ago we found an old cabinet on the side of the road. It was in pretty bad shape – peeling paint, dirty orange contact covering the wooden shelves and a weird asymmetry to the legs. We brought it home, set it up on our patio and pondered what to do with it. I decided to turn it into a play kitchen for Boo. I thought it would be a fun project for us to do together.

The BEFORE picture

Boo and her playgroup friend helped me wash the cabinet. They had great fun dousing it with sudsy water. It did occur to me that I should strip off the old paint and then sand the cabinet but I am way too impatient for that sort of thing. I did however strip off the old orange contact from the shelves.

How did I miss the right leg????

Boo and I took a trip to the hardware store where she chose the paint colour. We also went on a little trip to our local material shop so Boo could pick out some material for the curtain I wanted installed. She chose the first material she saw and would not be swayed.

I painted the cabinet during nap-time. I was super fast, so fast that I missed an entire leg of the cabinet.... which I only noticed when I downloaded these photos. Whoops!

The curtain was attached using plastic tubing and cable pins

Chris made some curtains for the bottom shelf. We attached the curtain by threading a piece of plastic tubing through a sewn loop. The plastic tubing was then nailed into place using cable pins (one on each side and one in the middle). When it was finished the kids and I loaded in all our play kitchen equipment.... and the girls set about preparing a pretend feast.

In the future, I would like to paint one side of the cabinet with blackboard paint so the kids can write/draw up their menu. I would also like to add a rail on the other side to hang tea towels.

There are lots of ways to turn old or unused furniture into pretend play kitchen pieces, here are two of my favourites:

• DIY Modern Play Kitchen from small + friendly, this is an amazing kitchen, way better than our simple cabinet and way better than any of the commercial play kitchens I have seen.
• Play Oven from A Little Learning of Two, another amazing example of upcycling.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS, google+ or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali

Fairy Apartment Block

I love arty projects that you can do over a few days. This was one of those projects..... a fairy apartment block. Now for the fairy purists out there – I know that fairy houses are supposed to be made from all natural materials rather than man-made materials. We have a copy of the book Fairy Houses by Tracy Kane which is a great resource for natural fairy house building. BUT we live in the city and our fairies are quite urbane, so we thought they needed a luxury high-rise apartment block.

Day 1
We found an old wooden CD rack at the side of the road. We dragged it home and gave it a good wash with sudsy water. Then we let it dry.

Day 2
The three of us had a chat about the apartment block colour scheme. We started painting. Cakey painted a lovely picture of flowers on the outside. Boo and I painted and splashed paint on the inside of the apartment block. Then we let it dry.

Day 3
We took our dry and colourful fairy apartment block down to laneway garden and set it up for the fairies. We decorated the rooms with flowers and small boxes filled with playdough and little animal friends. The fairies visited their apartment block and played.

We do make natural fairy houses too. Cakey loves to build little fairy tents from sticks. Boo is good at collecting seed pods and flower petals. I was going to write a post about this as it keeps the kids very busy in our local park but all the photos look like this......

It is hard to photograph a pile of sticks

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime and The Kids Co-op

Christmas salt dough ornaments

We have been making a lot of our own Christmas decorations lately... mainly because it is something fun to do. I actually went out to the Christmas shops to buy some new decorations but they were all a bit cheap and nasty. In the end I didn't bother, I think we will just stick to making them.

Speaking of making Christmas decorations we have made some fabulous salt dough ornaments. I have found a new recipe for salt dough and I like it. It is based on a recipe I found at Mum in the Madhouse, but I have adapted it a little.

Salt Dough Recipe
2 cups of table salt (I find cooking salt too coarse)
1 cup of water
1 teaspoon of oil
1 cup of plain flour
1 cup of corn flour
Approximately half to one cup of cold water (during the kneading process)

Instructions: Combine the salt and one cup of water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil, let the salty mixture bubble for a few minutes while stirring. I thought this process might dissolve the salt completely but it didn't. After a few minutes take the saucepan off heat and add flours and oil. Stir vigorously. This is when I looked at my mixture dubiously – it was not a dough. I poured the whole lot on to the kitchen bench. When it had cooled the kids helped me with the kneading. I slowly added cold water to the mix until we had a good dough consistency. Once you have turned your dough into shapes or sculptures bake in the oven at low heat (150ºC or 300ºF) for 3 to 4 hours. Keep an eye on it so the dough does not burn.

The mixture after cooking the salt and adding in the flour

Let's knead

Once the dough looked like a dough I divided it in half. I rolled out a portion for each kid and they cut out their Christmas shapes. Cakey poked a hole in each shape with a straw so we can string them up on the Christmas tree. I carefully laid each shape on a lined baking tray and we baked the dough in the oven for 4 hours at a low temperature. If your kids won't wait for hours to get their hands on their salt dough try Rainy Day Mum's quick microwave salt dough.

Making the shapes, I dusted some flour on the bench to stop the dough sticking

Our salt dough shapes after baking in the oven for 4 hours

We didn't get to paint our salt dough until the next day. Every single piece was painted and glitter was added too. I have stored the ornaments away in an air tight container ready for the Christmas tree. These salt dough ornaments are going to look fantastic! (Note: if you have issues with humidity you might want to seal with with a varnish as recommended by Learning 4 kids).

You can find all our Christmas craft ideas here.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to The Kids Co-op, Kids Get Crafty, It's Playtime and Tuesday Tots

Painting with shapes

My sister and I have always loved Sonia Delaunay. Her abstract and colourful compositions are gorgeous. We have a book full of Sonia Delaunay's abstract lithographs – the kids have looked at it many times, picking out the colours and different shapes.

A little bit about Sonia Delaunay: She was born in the Ukraine in 1885, grew up in St Petersburg, Russia, moved to Paris as an adult and stayed there until she died in 1979. Delaunay co-founded the French avant-garde movement Orphism. She was also the first living female artist to have a retrospective art exhibition at the Lourvre. Quite an achievement! She was an artist and designer ahead of her time, she started mixing art with fashion and designed the most wonderful geometric patterned fabrics. I often see contemporary fabric designs that are strikingingly reminscent of her work created back in the 1920s.

Delaunay's work l-r: Petit rythme couleur 1972, Swimsuit design 1929, Affreux jojo 1969

The latest Kids Get Arty presented the perfect opportunity to have a Sonia Delaunay inspired painting session.... and it was all about shapes. I pulled out as many foam shapes as I could find, we already had circles, rectangles, stars, flowers and some foam rollers. For a few extra shapes I cut up cheap sponges to make arches and semi-circles. Generous dollops of bright paint were applied to plastic takeaway lids which made great surfaces for the foam sponges to soak up the paint.

I did not supply any paint brushes and the kids didn't miss them. They really enjoyed painting with the sponges and I was impressed with the choice of colour and shapes.... but most importantly it was a fun afternoon creating for the sake of creating.

Sonia Delaunay inspired foam shape painting

Cakey, Boo and I love participating in Kids Get Arty, we have also been inspired by Kandinsky, Magritte and Australian artist Margaret Preston. For tonnes of arty ideas you might be interested in my Arty Kids Pinterest board.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to Mom's Library and Kids Get Arty

10 things to do with a 2 year old

Sometimes I don't feel like going out.... but it is hard work entertaining a 2 year old at home all day. My 2 year old has a short attention span and wants to be active all the time... and I am pretty sure all 2 year olds are the same (correct me if I'm wrong).

So, I have written a list of my 2 year old's 10 favourite things to do at home... and I would love to know what your kids love to do at home too.

1. Threading cut-up toilet paper rolls onto ribbon

2. Gluing with a tub of watered-down pva glue and a paintbrush

3. Playing in a homemade fort

4. Using puffy stickers that can be stuck down and pulled off over and over

5. Helping in the garden by cutting herbs or digging holes for planting

6. Gluing different materials like cotton balls and fabric with a gluestick

7. Painting anything... paper, rocks, cardboard, her hands

8. Playing with playdough

9. Pretend cooking with a mixture of flour and water

10. Practising scissor skills

What do you think of this list? What are your kids' favourite things to do at home?

A few more resources for keeping toddlers busy and entertained:

• For the littlies Pinterest board
• Mummy Musings and Mayhem – a great blog full of practical ways to entertain toddlers
• A Toddler's World Pinterest board
• Nurturestore – tonnes of playdough ideas
• Playdough magic Pinterest board
• The Toddler Years Bucket List by Creative with Kids
• Sensory play is so much fun Pinterest board
• Growing A Jeweled Rose – sensory play ideas
• Hands on: as we grow – lots of toddler play ideas

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and my new love – Instagram. Cheers Ali



Linked to It's Playtime, The Kids Co-op and Finished Friday

Kids Get Arty – Margaret Preston

I have a box full of art postcards that I have been collecting since I was a kid. The girls and I love looking through them. Cakey's favourite is the image of Anemones, a hand-coloured woodcut by Margaret Preston. As she consistently chooses this same image, I thought it would be great to learn a little more about Margaret Preston for Kids Get Arty.

Margaret Preston (1875-1963) was an Australian artist best known for her modernist style. She was predominantly a still life painter and printmaker. Her bright, dynamic flowers are our favourites, you can see examples of her work here. Preston was based in our home town, Sydney, so many of her paintings and prints feature flowers, bush scenes and landscapes that are familiar to us.

The first step in our art process was to create our still life scenes..... that meant some flower arranging, which the girls always love.

I provided a small canvas and a stack of paper for each of them to paint on. I also supplied lots of brightly coloured paint including a tonne of black as it is a predominant colour in Preston's art.

A picture of Margaret Preston's Anemones with Cakey's small flower canvas

Being two, Boo ignored the flower still life, mixed all the colours together and produced many paintings. She had fun! Boo is all about quantity but Cakey is all about quality. She painted three pictures, starting with her mini canvas. She was dissatisfied with her canvas painting and moved onto paper. At 4 and a half, Cakey has very strong ideas about how her paintings should and should not look. Sometimes she gets very frustrated and at other times she is happy to try again. Thankfully this was a 'try again' day.

 

This was a fun afternoon and Cakey enjoyed having a focus for her art. I would like to try a few more still life scenes very soon.

If this is your first visit to at home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along through our facebook page or subscribe via email or RSS. Cheers Ali



Linked to The Kids Co-op, It's Playtime and Kids Get Arty