Day 34 Adding a Little Color

I awoke to the thought of taking the kids to the lake today. Checked the weather and found that all day rain was going to knock out that possibility. Well, now what? No camp, no tutoring and no play date was on the calendar.  Hmmm.... What we needed was a project! Something inexpensive, easy for all ages and appealing to my eye. I love those macaroni crafts and cereal necklaces as much as the next person, but I wanted something I could hang on the wall for years to come, not something I would fear the dogs would eat. I also have an understanding that I don’t find the same crafts appealing that my children do. I like crochet, puzzles (I sound really old) and photography. They like LEGO’s, coloring books, stickers, photography and anything requiring lots of glue and glitter everywhere. Aha, photography is our common ground. Normally, I would give them a camera and tell them to take pictures, but they couldn’t go outside. I decided to find a craft using our photographs.

What we used:

Artist chalk 

Color pencils

Cotton swabs or Cotton Balls 

Black & White photograph printed on cardstock

A few damp paper towels to clean hands

Krylon Matte Finish Spray (to seal the artwork when finished)

The kids went through iPhoto and picked out the pictures they wanted to color in. I converted them to B&W and printed them out. 

I explained to them that they needed to work from the top of the image down to the bottom to keep from smearing the images. I showed them to color lightly and blend with the cotton swab for the chalk. I also showed them where the interesting colors were in the original image and guided them to make the colors pop out against the darker areas. After that, it was all up to them. 

They loved it and kept saying how much fun it was. My son said he couldn’t wait to tell his art teacher about it. The artwork looks great, and they got to try something new (smile). And it wasn’t too messy (big BONUS smile). I like to think I won mom bonus points for once (smile of relief)! Oh, also, there was absolutely NO bickering between them the entire time they were crafting (smile for sanity)! 

Now, all I have to do is hang them up in the house! The photos are more vibrant than the scans and I couldn't be happier with them. I think they’ll go nicely on my wall.