Making Marbled Paper

Making beautiful marbled paper is messy business, but there's nothing quite like having paper you designed yourself to use for crafting. This paper can be used in just about any paper craft you can think of -- card making, scrap booking, a background for a drawing or college, or it can be unique stationery for a note to Grandma.

Here is what you need to make your own marbled paper:

• sturdy paper, such as card stock or thick drawing paper
• food coloring in a variety of colors
• shaving cream foam (not gel)
• waxed paper 
• an old gift card or other object with a smooth, flat edge
• a toothpick or skinny paintbrush

1. To begin, spread out newspaper over a large working area. Cut several sheets of waxed paper and arrange them on your working surface so that you have a working space a few inches wider and longer than the paper you will be working with. 

2. Put a generous blob of shaving cream in the center of the waxed paper.

3. Using the gift card, spread the shaving cream evenly over the waxed paper, so that the area is slightly larger than the paper.

4. Drop a few drops of food coloring, in contrasting colors, onto the shaving cream in a random pattern.

 5. Using a toothpick or the wrong end of a skinny paintbrush, swirl the food coloring around until it looks marbled. It is similar to making a marbled cake.

 6. It should look something like this:

Don't worry if yours turns out looking messier. It will still
look interesting when finished!

 7. Set the paper directly onto the shaving cream and press gently and evenly to ensure all of the paper is coated.

 8. Remove the paper slowly. It will be covered in a thick coating of colorful shaving cream.

 9. Use the wide edge of the gift card to scrape the foam off of the paper, and wipe the colorful foaminess back onto the waxed paper to be used again.*

 10. And now you have a beautiful sheet of marbled paper. Leave it to dry overnight!

*You can use the same batch of shaving cream twice. Follow these steps again with the shaving cream that you scraped off the paper. Try not to mix it up too much when you spread it out over the waxed paper, and don't add any more food coloring. The paper will not have the same swirly pattern, but it will still be interesting.

Instagram

We've talked about giving our kids cameras before. Taking photos can be a fun way to get creative no matter where you are! And with things like iPhones and iPods, taking pictures is easier than ever. These photos were taken by my daughter Samantha during our recent vacation to Minnesota, using an app called Instagram. What's fun about using Instagram is that you can experiment with different photo styles, lighting, brightness and contrast, black and whites, and so much more. 

Samantha loves her Converse, and I love the contrast
in this photo. It really pops!

Pretty cool (or hot!) close-up of the smoldering fire.

Have your kids done anything creative with a camera lately?

Improvise

Did you miss me?

I've been a busy lady for the last 2 1/2 months: we sold our home, had a baby (our eighth, and we're thrilled!), moved to a temporary rental home, and bought another house two states away. Whew.

We're about to move to the new house, and I've packed up most of the household again, including a lot of our children's things.

So what are they supposed to play with now?

I was quite pleased to find them this morning, playing with dolls and accessories they'd improvised from pipe cleaners. Not a single "I'm booooooored," or nagging from Mom for them to find something to do.

A slice of pizza

Table and chair, with a flower centerpiece

Hairbrush

Basket

Doll #1 in the chair

I'm told Doll #2 is pregnant :D

When was the last time you played with Legos?

Legos are as important as bread in our house. We just can't live without them! My kids and I have had many late nights working on some Lego project, most often some kind of house or building of some sort. After the hours and hours of building, our masterpiece will be proudly displayed on the family room shelf, and taken down often to be examined, played with or adjusted.

Legos, or other similar building blocks, are the ultimate creative toy. You can make just about anything you think of with the right assortment of Legos. If you haven't gotten the Legos out in a while, why not make an afternoon or an evening of it with the family?

You might just end up with something awesome, like this:

It's a Lego hotel, with two guest rooms and a pool!

Creative fun on the North Shore

Our family went on vacation to the north shore of Lake Superior recently. My husband's parents came along with us, and we all had a fabulous time despite the chilly northern Minnesota weather.

We spent a lot of time chillin' out at the beach, enjoying the waves and relaxing near a bon fire. On the first day, Abuelo (that's Spanish for Grandpa) built this for the kids:

Now, that's what I call creative outdoor fun!

Book Recommendation: Crafty Chloe

Here is a book recommendation for all of you with crafty kids. Crafty Chloe is a charming picture book about a little girl who uses her crafty creativity to solve a birthday gift dilemma.

So read the book! And check out the Crafty Chloe Make-Stuff Blog to find fun crafts for kids.

A Mini Poetry Workshop!

Let's face it: poetry is hard.


But it can be fun to write, especially if you understand some of the things that make poetry so darn cool. Like imagery, alliteration, rhythm and, of course, rhyme! Once you (and your kiddos) understand more about how to use these devises in your writing, poetry can become less of a struggle, and more of an engaging challenge.

Imagery

This is simply what you see put into words. When done well, imagery will transport a reader from one place to another, if only in their mind. It is what gives a poem, or any other piece of writing, a sense of place, and can greatly affect the mood.

Example:

Before me the grasses bend

in rhythm with the breeze,
and a cottonwood’s leaves shimmer and dance in the sunlight

Alliteration

Alliteration is a series of words that begin with the same sound, as is often done on tongue twisters. Using alliteration in poetry adds a layer of interest to the way a poem sounds when read aloud.

Example: 

His blood is black and boiling hot.
He gurgles ghastly groans. 

(from "The Troll" by Jack Prelutsky)

Rhythm

All language has a natural rhythm. In poetry, especially rhyming poetry, the rhythm is often a predictable pattern of stressed and unstressed beats, like in a song. This rhythm is usually referred to as meter.

Example:

Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are

These lines have a predictable patter of stressed and unstressed beats. The pattern is simple; every other syllable in each line is stressed. The trick to meter is working the right words into the poem in such a way that the words' natural rhythms will fit into the meter. You can see in the example below how I have fit other words into the same pattern:

Blizzard, blizzard, watch it blow
Whirling, swirling, ice and snow

Rhyme

This one is fairly straight-forward. It is good for budding poets to learn the difference between true rhyme (cat/fat) and near rhyme (rain/again).rhyme can be one of the trickiest parts of writing poetry because of the challenge it can be to find a word that 1) fits the meter, 2) makes sense with the rest of the poem, and 3) rhymes perfectly. A good rhyming dictionary, like the online one at rhymezone.com is a handy tool.


Now, you try it!

1. Have your kids practice imagery by writing descriptive phrases of things they see around them.

2. Practice making up goofy alliterative phrases.

3. Try working on rhythm by writing new words for Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Say the words aloud to hear how they fit in the meter.

4. Make lists of rhyming words.

5. Now you are ready to try writing your own poem!