Archive for the 'Creative Gadgets' Category
Five Gift Ideas for Your Young Artist
Author: Sue Bartman CEO
If you know a budding artist or any child who loves arts and crafts, here are some fun gift ideas to enhance their abilities:
1. Specialty Drawing Paper
Kids love to draw on paper in unique colors and textures. Try Scratch Art, Folia rainbow paper, Mulberry paper, Acetate(transparent) or simply card stock in cool colors.
2. An Artist Portfolio
Give your artist a place to collect or organize his/her masterpieces. A sturdy portfolio will protect artwork and also give it a showcase.
3. Chalk Pastels
A large set of chalk pastels will let your artist experiment with chalk’s unique texture in a vast variety of colors.
4. Hard Bound Sketchbook
Sketchbooks come in various sizes and shapes and are reasonably priced. The bound books offer long term protection of your artist’s creations.
5. Air Dry Clay
Natural air dry clay dries hard without a kiln or oven. It’s easy to use and clean up.
There are many more materials and mediums that all promising artists will enjoy experimenting with. Happy gift giving!
read comments (0)Mother’s Day is May 9th
Author: Sue Bartman CEO
Everyone looks for that special gift for Mom or Grandma on Mother’s Day. Now you’ve found it! Put your child’s artwork on affordable, fun gifts that Mom will treasure for years to come.
Visit http://www.KidzArtProducts.com to see the selection of customizable products including aprons, mugs, apparel and much more.
Order by April 19th to guarantee delivery for Mother’s Day!
KidzArt Craft- Gratitude Box
Author: Sue Bartman CEO
Use any wooden or paper mache box available at craft stores, paint it with bright colors of craft paint or decorate it with jewels and findings. Write the word “Gratitude” on a scrap of black paper with silver sharpies and glue to the top. Inside put a felt or velvet piece to cover the bottom of the box and a mirror. Children can write little notes of things they are grateful for and put them in the box throughout the year. They could then pass out paper to family members to get a collection of everyone’s gratitude notes!
Submitted by Amy Klein, KidzArt Colorado- serving the Greater Denver area.
Homemade Holiday Gift Ideas
Author: Sue Bartman CEO
Put a new spin on holiday gifting by recruiting the kids’ creativity to help make homemade gifts. Tighter budgets along with some creativity can be the inspiration for making one-of-a-kind presents this year. Kids love to make crafts for the holiday season and get a great sense of accomplishment in creating items can be functional and given as gifts.
1. Holiday Gift Bags
Share your home-made baked goods with family and friends with this special home-made gift bag:
Decorate white or brown paper lunch sacks using acrylic paint in either red and green or blue and white. Each bag can be different. Stamp or paint stars, snowflakes, trees, icicles, etc. Sprinkle painted areas with silver glitter glue, tap off excess and let dry completely. Fill the bag with wrapped baked goods. Punch a hole in the top of the bag and thread an 8″ green or red ribbon through the holes. Tie in a bow and give as a gift.
2. Holiday Scratch Art Gifts
Purchase Scratch Art Scratch-Lite paper available on line or in your local art store. Cut out festive shapes such as stars, circles, hearts or snowmen. A rainbow of color appears when you scratch out a design on the shape (use a wood stick, chopstick or skewer to scratch)! Use as gift tags or punch with a hole punch and thread varying lengths of decorative ribbon or yarn to make a necklace, bookmark, tree ornament or a mobile.
KidzArt on “Good Morning Jacksonville”
Author: shell
On Wednesday, October 28th between 6-7am, Tammy Imrie, director of KidzArt in Jacksonville, Florida will be on Channel 12′s “Good Morning Jacksonville” in a special segment featuring No-Carve Pumpkin Masterpieces! Tammy and some of her students will be using paint, clay, glitter and glass paint to create unique pumpkins that are fun, easy and safe for all ages to make! Visit www.kidzartnfl.com for local KidzArt class information.
If spending hours scooping out seeds and stringy pumpkin isn’t on your list of fun things to do this Halloween, decorating a pumpkin without carving is a fun option. Forget the knives and break out the permanent markers along with some other household craft items to decorate your pumpkins.
Decorating pumpkins without carving is a great alternative for younger children who can’t use carving utensils. Without carving, your child’s decorated pumpkin will last a lot longer and it can be displayed in your home throughout the fall season.
Here are some clever pumpkin art projects that will excite the kids, minus a big mess:
Chris Cruikshank’s Top Ten List of Art Materials for Kids
Author: Chris Cruikshank
In honor of Youth Art Month, I wanted to share my list of favorite art materials that we use in many of our art projects at KidzArt. If you haven’t used these before, give them a try:
1) Liquid Watercolor Paint- Washable, economical and can be used straight from the bottle!
2) Scratch Art with scratch sticks- Scratch the black coating with a wood drawing stylus to reveal multicolor holographic colors
3) Oil pastels (water-based) – Create beautiful works of art using a kid-friendly medium that stands the test of time. We recommend the Portfolio brand because they can be blended by simply adding water.
4) Mr. Sketch non-scented markers- These watercolor markers featuring bright, vibrant non-toxic colors are great for pre-schoolers and are washable.
5) Air dry clay- Sculpey brand holds fine details and comes in many colors
6) Patterned and colored tissue paper
7) Watercolor crayons- The Caran d’Ache brand is soft, easy to work with and provides great coverage.
Vine Charcoal- This medium is messy but it is so much fun. You can easily manipulate the tones and create drawings that could never be done with other mediums.
9) Scrap Booking Paper- bristol cardstock, multicolors in 12” squares Give your child the chance to work on this format (square) with an array of beautiful colors. Use the darker colors with light colored pencils and oil pastels.
10) Prismacolor markers for ages 6 and up- We use these in KidzArt as the standard. They make the kids feel like real artists. They are a bit costly, but even a pack of 12 would do the trick.
Keep Warm in the New Year with These Fragrant Firestarters
Author: Liberty Harper-Simonsen
It’s cold. Really cold. And at KidzArt we like to keep the holiday warmth coming well into the months following November and December!
It’s the perfect time to create some great firestarters! They make fun winter-time gifts, too!
By using fragrant herbs, plentiful pinecones, old newspaper, and cotton twine or raffia, you can create a classy gift. It’s so easy! You’ll need some all cotton /all raffia (all natural – no colors, no additives) twine, newspaper, a dry pinecone, and a small sprig of lavender or rosemary. Insert the pinecone and herb sprig into the newspaper and roll up. Tie off the ends with your natural string and Voila! A natural and fragrant firestarter.
Courtesy of KidzArtNW.
Happy 2009 from The KidzArt Team
Author: shell
From the bottom of our hearts, we want to wish a happy new year to everyone who has supported us this year. Many thanks to our wonderful kids, parents, education administrators, employees, franchisees both domestic and international, vendors and wonderful support staff. Best wishes for a prosperous journey in 2009 filled with love, happiness and, of course, ART and CREATIVITY! Look for great new curriculum and exciting new programs this year!
Happy New Year from co-founders Shell Herman, CEO and Chris Cruikshank, President
More creative art projects from KidzArt!
Author: AdrienB
Jenn Dorand from KidzArt shows us how kids of all ages can express their creativity using fun projects you can do with your kids. Thanks to Great Day St. Louis for highlighting a great project and the benefits of art education for children!
Click here for the full art project!