How to use a scanner to create art

My daughter, Lilo's, favourite show right now is Artzooka. It's the Canadian Mister Maker who's a little more digital - using scanners, digital cameras and video cameras. So after he made some pictures using a scanner Lilo was bugging me to scan something. Finally one day we did and it was a fun.

She first cut out a picture of a butterfly. Then we put it on the scanner window and then put printed paper behind it and hit scan. Then we tried different paper, pieces of fabric, clothes, a clown wig, beads and whatever fun things we could find. I'm not sure who was having more fun with it, her or me.
If we did it again I would cut out the shape on a darker piece of paper instead of just white, but it still turned out pretty cool. We didn't print them out but now that I put them all together I think it would make a cool piece of art for her room.

How to make glittery reindeer

 This was my dollar store craft last year. So simple but so cute.

 I was inspired by some more expensive ornaments I saw at a department store and thought I could do something similar with dollar store finds.

 Dollarama had these great packs of fine glitter in tones of colours. I added 3 of the colours together which created a beautiful new colour.

 In the home section (not the holiday section) I found these reindeer which were perfect to glitter. 

To attach the glitter I painted on white glue and then poured the glitter over top. I used 2 paper plates to pour and catch the glitter. I glued and glittered in sections, it took awhile including letting it dry and touching up the spots that were missed. To fix the glitter so it doesn't just fall off and make a glittery mess everywhere I sprayed with hairspray. It works pretty well, I pulled them out for year 2 and the glitter   still stays put.

Here's how I have them displayed, on top of the bookshelf with a collection of the girls Santa photos (in dollar store frames).

How to make a glitzy wreath

Here's the new wreath I made last year for our backdoor. 

I started with a wire hanger and bent it into a circle.

Then I wrapped the wire with newspaper and taped it around. I took sheets of newspaper and crumpled it  into long tubes and then formed around the wire and taped it in place, then I added more until it was thick enough. I then taped all around to smooth it out. I spray painted the wreath white. And now you have a free wreath form.

Then I put all the Christmas crap I had bought on the table to figure out what to use. It's a combination of dollar store stuff and decorations that I bought at a sample sale - stuff like 1 strand of garland that's not enough to decorate a tree or anything.

I chose the garland to start with, since I only had 1 strand of 3 different kinds I had to spread them out and layer them. After I got all the garland on I added a big bow and some dollar store decorations.

How to make pretty monster cupcakes

Since Lilo's birthday is around Halloween she decided that she wanted monster cupcakes for her birthday, but not scary monsters. I showed her the monster cupcakes I made for a Halloween party but she thought they were too scary, so I thought brighter colours but same concept would be good. And then I also found some great ideas on Pinterest.

 I was trying to make big cupcakes that rise tall, that didn't work but instead they were just too big for little kids - oh well. To make them taller I put 1/2 a marshmallow on the top of the cupcakes. To cut the marshmallows run your knife under hot water and after you cut one marshmallow, rinse knife again.
Then pick a fun piping tip and add your coloured icing. The icing is about 1 1/2 cups of soften butter, about 3-4 cups of icing sugar, and a splash of milk - I don't measure just taste test. To ice the cupcake, start from the top of marshmallow and bring down to the edges and repeat until the cupcake is covered.
The eyes are just suckers with a dot of white icing and a mini M&M - the eyelashes are 3 chocolate sprinkles. And then I added a red M&M for a nose (or mouth).
And to make rainbow cupcakes you just divide and dye the batter and layer before you bake.

I made 3 different coloured monsters, using a different tip for each colour. The kids ended up eating the suckers and a bit of icing and that's it. Next year I need to make mini cupcakes instead.

How to a make a spider

Here is a tutorial from Lilo my little girl. She made this spider with her daycare provider last year and wanted to show me how they made it. It was her idea to take the pictures of each step.

Cut out oval shape from corrugated cardboard.

Push 4 pipe cleaners through cardboard

Bend pipe cleaners down to make the spider stand

Crunch up tin foil into a ball that will fit on the top of your cardboard oval.

So it looks like this.

Then remove the tin foil ball and glue on pieces of cut up tissue paper until it's all covered. We also glued  tissue paper to the cardboard oval.

Then glue the tin foil ball to the legs and all goggly eyes. And done. 

Then we made a large spider web out of bright coloured pipe cleaners and attached the spiders to them.

This was last year's craft that I didn't get time to post before Halloween. Hopefully we'll have time for something new this year.

How to make worms in dirt

We were inspired by a dessert on the Boston Pizza kids menu. Since we were full after our meal we decided to try and make it instead at home later. 

So on the way home we stopped off at the grocery store and picked up chocolate pudding, Oreo cookies (which we crushed up) and gummy worms.

It was a fun Saturday night dessert, but to be honest I think it would have tasted better without the gummy worms - the girls didn't agree.

How to make a cardboard flower

After seeing beautiful cardstock flowers on The Little Hut I was dying to try to make one. So when we were visiting my sister-in-law and family around Easter I was inspired by a Barbie box that Isla got for her birthday. I cut out petals from the box, taped and glued the flower together. Check out The Little Hut for instructions. I didn't follow it 100% but just went by memory of her post - pretty close though. I thought they colours of the Barbie box made a perfect flower.