Artist Inspired Craft Kit - Snail Under Moonlight

This is a copy of the original artwork - Snail by Kusama Yayoi.

The artist is known for her dot paintings, sculptures and installations. I found this artwork "Snail" a great introduction of colors and shapes to children.

This is my third tribute project with the little artists - "Snail Under Moonlight".



I drew a more simplified version of a snail and cut it out for the little artists. Other materials needed are shown below: red construction paper, purple origami paper, some round color labels, markers, school glue and scissor.

This morning, Little E and I were ready to do this project at a friend's house. The little artists seems to like the idea of making a little slug!
1. Cover the body of the the snail with purple and yellow dots using markers. Draw eyes. (It's so cute that they drew a smiley mouth, too!)
2. Peel and stick the quartered label on the shell - one green swirl, one red swirl.
3. Dot the green swirl with purple marker. Dot the red swirl with pink marker.
4. Glue the snail on the red construction paper.
5. Shred the purple origami paper by hand into small piece and glue under the snail to make ground.
6. Stick the yellow round labels on to make 3 moons.

The little artist were very patient and focused! Here are their artwork!

Paper Dress - The Pink Azalea

Spring is definitely here with all the allergies going on in our family. My occasional sneezing and watery eyes didn't stop me from noticing the flowers at Little E's preschool have been in full bloom for the past month. Walking to the classroom yesterday, Little E and I stopped at the curbside of the parking lot, kneeling down to look at the pink azaleas in awe of its beauty.

Today I found a half pack of doilies in the pantry (which I used to wrap up homemade pastries last year). Little E painted them with bright pink water color and we left them to dry for a couple of hours. After lunch, we folded the doilies in 1/8, opened and twisted them into vibrant pink azaleas!

I taped the azaleas onto two layers of mint color tissue paper. And here is our sixth paper dress - The Pink Azalea!

Artist Inspired Craft Kit - Polka Dots Mushroom

This is copy of the original artwork of Kusama Yayoi.

The artist is known for her dot paintings, sculptures, and installations. I found her dot collection a great introduction of colors and shapes to children.

This is my second tribute project with little artists - "Polka Dots Mushroom".





I drew the parts of the mushroom using Japanese origami paper and cut them out. Then I used hold-puncher to make some white dots for the mushroom cap. I also cut some red round labels into 4 equal sections.

 This afternoon, Little E and her friend met at the waiting area by an indoor pool since their older siblings are taking swimming lessons. 30 minutes are plenty of time for these two little artists to finish this simple project.

1. Glue the three parts of the mushroom on one by one.

2. Glue the white dots on the cap.

3. Draw lines under the cap and black dots on the stem.

4. Peel and stick the quartered red labels on the black paper as background.

Here are their artwork.

 They followed instructions step by step and made a marvelous project!

Paper Dress: Olaf the Snowman

When we first watched the Disney movie "Frozen" in the theater, Big E and Little E weren't big fans of the plot and songs. Throughout the movie they kept on waiting for Olaf the Snowman to show up. However, there were way more Elsa and Anna scenes than the funny carrot nose guy.

As other kids at school (both preschool and elementary) continue to sing "Let it go" during recess, Big E and Little E start to catch up on the song, too. It is a beautiful song indeed. However, when it is sung by your own kids repeatedly day and night, you probably secretly wish the song will be "let go" soon.

By the request of Little E, I drew Olaf for her and she colored him. We cut Olaf out and glued him on a big piece of royal blue poster paper.

Little E started to draw big and small circles on a piece of white printing paper. We cut them out as snowballs to glue around Olaf. Then we have a snow scene!

Inspired by the movie "Frozen" and the character Olaf, here is our fifth paper dress: Olaf the Snowman.

Storybook: Mr. Ballee Went Down the Drain

After swimming lesson today, I was trying to give Big E a quick bath. I was in a hurry to prepare dinner but he insisted on playing with bath toys and wouldn't come out of the tub. When I started to drain the tub water, his yellow plastic toy ball was floating toward the drain.

All of a sudden, Big E said " Oh no, Mr. Ballee is going down the drain!" in a southern accent! I burst into laughter and told him it would be a great story idea.

Inspired by a true event, here is Big E's fourth story book - Mr. Ballee Went Down the Drain.

Artist Inspired Craft Kit: Polka Dots Pumpkins

This is a copy of the original artwork of Kusama Yayoi.

The artist is known for her signature dot paintings, sculptures and installations. I found her dot collection a great introduction of colors and shapes to young children.

This is my first tribute project with little artists -"Polka Dots Pumpkins".



I drew and cut out three pumpkins using construction paper and prepared some store-bought round labels last night. Since it's my first tribute project, I planned to keep it simple and fun for my 3 year-old artists.

This morning, Little E and 2 of her friends met at the park bench to start the fun!

1. Pick the pumpkin you would like to have.

2. If the dot sticker is the same color as your pumpkin, put it on the black paper. 

3. Put the rest of the dot stickers on the pumpkin anyway you want. 

Here are their artwork!

Here is the combination of their artwork on another piece of black paper.

I'm so proud of the little artists today! They all did a fabulous job!

Storybook: The Naked Red Crayon

Big E's teacher read the story "The Day the Crayons Quit" to the class today. Big E still couldn't stop laughing when he was trying to retell the story to me. Later tonight, he was inspired to make his third storybook.

Paper Dress: The Aspen Daisy

Last weekend was warm and sunny. Big E and Little E had a great time in the park with their friends - Stanley and Leo. While Big E and Stanley were playing baseball and football, Little E and Leo picked wild aspen daisies and gave them to mommies as gifts.

Little E and I both loved the bright yellow and white combination. This Morning I made a daisy pedal pattern so that she could practice tracing. It was a lot of  fun for me to see her trial and error : )

After school-gluing the enormous daisy on a neon yellow poster paper, Little E and I rolled up a piece of green Japanese origami paper to make the stem and cut out two green leaves.

Voila! Here is our fourth paper dress "The Aspen Daisy"!

Paper Dress: The Cherry Blossom

Little E picked some fallen cherry blossoms from preschool. Her teacher put them in a sandwich bag for her to take home.

The soft pink pedals looked so beautiful that we had to find a way to keep them alive!


I tried to show her how to draw 5 pedals with a similar size and shape. It tuned out her freestyle cherry blossoms were way better than my stereotype ones.

We school-glued Little E's cherry blossoms on a piece of black construction paper and cut the top edge like flower pedals.


Here is it - our third paper dress "The Cherry Blossom"!
She was wearing her own pink flower hairband and it completed the look!

Paper Dress: The Curly Rainbow

It had been raining for some days. The pouring rain seemed to back up from the pipe outside and filled my dish washer with smelly water. It leaked all over the kitchen floor and I was feeling very GLOOMY.

One afternoon there was a bit of sunshine after the rain. Big E and Little E were waiting by the window hoping to see a rainbow. Although the rainbow didn't show up that day, Little E and I made our own version of a rainbow later. And the sun started to shine soon after.

I found a pack of pastel color printing paper sitting in the garage. The colors are still vibrant so we cut them into strips using craft scissor to create wiggly edges.

We use a thin marker to curl one end of the strips. Then we school-glued all strips onto a piece of drawing poster paper. I also made Little E a flower barrette.

Here it it - our second paper dress "The Curly Rainbow"!

Little E kept on jumping while I was taking the photos since the curly strips made such interesting crunching sounds!

Paper Dress - The Emerald Princess

It all started with a web link my friend Nicole shared on Facebook.

I love paper. I love its texture, pattern, and the endless possibilities of what it can create.

So I took out some left-over wrapping paper from last Christmas, wiped off the dust, and asked Little E to start folding with me. She also helped me cut the paper into small strips. Later I tied the strips together and made it into a barrette.

February 27, 2014
After some Scotch tape, here it is - our first paper dress "The Emerald Princess"!

Little E and I were both very excited that we made it work!

(Link: This 4-Year-Old Makes Paper Dress with Her Mom.)