Bird Week, Days 6-7

On Friday we made bird cages!
(Complete instructions can be found here.)

This one took a little time, but was really cure so worth the effort!
We used Country Crock lids and I stiffened them up by adding some cardboard underneath (which was not in the instructions but I thought it'd be a good idea).

The girls did a lot of the tracing and gluing: 

They even threaded the wire through the "bars" of the cage, but needed mom's help to make the loop. 

Since I used KL's finished project to show you what we did here is KK's: 

Then on Saturday we made owl masks: 

(The template can be found here.) 

We started with the simple ones (the blue is KK's and the red is KL's), and we made those by folding them in half to cut symmetrically on the sides. (I kept referring to  paper snowflakes but that apparently confused the girls.) Then we had a little more fun with our more extravagant ones (KK's is the green, KL's is the orange). KL wanted to curl hers like KK did but it was past bed time by the time we finished so it didn't happen, but I like it as is anyway. 

Here's a few action shots: 

That's all for now, 

Jo! 

Bird Week, Day 5

Today the Big Ks got an intro to sewing skills while we made felt birds.

It was pretty simple. I cut the pieces out of felt, they attached the small body piece to the larger and then attached the other pieces (in no particular order, it really was chosen by where they started/ended attaching the first two pieces together).

Here's the action pics:

That's all for now,
Jo!

Bird Week, Day 4

Today we made painted a peacock...

... kind of.

We started out but painting with just about everything but a paintbrush.

We used combs, old used gift cards, straws, and plastic knives and spoons.
Here's KK's painting:

And here's KL's finished painting:

And then once it was dry we used both pictures to make one peacock (partly because it was getting close to bed time when they were dry and partly because I wasn't sure how much I would get out of just one) using simple tear drop shapes as the tail feathers.

It was fun to experiment with different painting utensils. Here's the action shots:

That's all for now,
Jo!

Bird Week, Day 3

Today we made "curly birds."

For this craft I saw a picture, unfortunately it was pinned from a search page/home page and so it took some searching and I still never found the original source or instructions. Boo :( But it seemed easy enough so I thought we'd try it.

We started with the body. We cut 1" wide strips of paper from a magazine. Then we cut them to lengths of 5", 6", 7", 8", and 10" (saving the part you cut off). We rolled them and glued them, leaving about an inch hanging off the largest to attach the other tail feathers. Then glue together in sequence.

For the head we used the extra 4" and 3" sections (cut off from the 6" & 7" body pieces) and curled them and glued them in sequence and attach to the body.

The tail feathers are a 5", 4", 3", and 2" (the 2" should be the last remaining piece from the original cutting- if you used magazine 10" lengths) glued underneath, lining up with the 1" overhang from the largest body circle. Then I curled the ends just a little.

The beak is a 2" piece. It's folded to look like a beak, and cut to a tip (like a beak). I glued my beak shut, KK didn't, she wanted and open beak (KL like to be just like mom, but she didn't glue her's until after I took her picture).

So all together, you need:
1-10", 1-8", 1-7", 1-6", 2-5", 2-4", 2-3", 2-2" (one cut to a beak).

The original picture also included one cut a little wider and rolled between the two layers of the head for eyes, but I didn't feel like doing that.

All done! Here's the action shots:

That's all for now,
Jo!

Bird Week, Day 2

Today we made Duck Tape feathers.

(This was at the beginning, so the two teal are my example I made before we started and the one I made in front of them to know what to do, the pink is KL's first one, and the red is KK's first.)

This was super easy, when I found the idea it was actually meant to turn into earrings but I figured just the feathers we're enough of a craft. Just put two pieces of Duck tape together (or fold one in half), trace/draw a feather on it and then cut it out. Feel free to add fringe like an actual feather and a little twisting makes them look slightly more realistic in the way that the "fringe" lays.

This one was tough for KK, mostly because she's a bit of a perfectionist and mom's were better looking than hers, but once she got the hang of it she just kept making them.

Here's the action shots:

 (They had a few pieces they tried to fold that didn't work for them, so I drew some feathers in the area that was usable and let them cut them out. I also printed out a few feather pictures for them to trace if desired or at least draw inspiration from.)

That's all for now,
Jo!

Bird Week, Day 1

This week, we switch to an art week with a bird theme.
We started with a circle parrot:

 (I'm so ready for those bangs to be grown out enough to tuck behind her ears and while we're just at home she refuses to clip them back!!)

It was pretty easy, I saw the idea online but it wasn't any more than a picture.
It's 3 red circles (1 cut in half), 1/2 of an orange, blue, green, and yellow circle. Then a smaller white and black circle (the black is a quarter circle for the beak, and then a smaller circle for the inside of the eye, which I just cut out of another quarter piece). I used 3 inch circles for the bigger and 2 inch circles for the smaller and I think they're perfect sized, but you could easily change it to be smaller or larger.

Here's a few action shots:

That's all for now,
Jo!