Haunted House Book

I have made "house" books before like this Christmas one.

This time I wanted to build a setting to go with the house book so I added a box and a little platform.

This way I have lots of possibilities and the book can still look like a house on its own.























MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- a small box, I used a soap box
- some pieces of coruggated cardboard
- paper
- 2 large jump or O rings, you could also use binder clips, or ribbon
- paint
- pencil crayons
- 3 pipe cleaners
- coloured paper
- sharpies, white gel pen
- glue, scissors, hole punch
- little Halloween embellishments, optional

PROCEDURE:

Take your box and cut the tabs off the open end.

Cut a piece of corrugated cardboard for the base of your box.  Leave some space on the sides for your scene.




Cut 2 pieces of cardboard for your front and back cover.  You want it to fit in your box.  Cut them a few inches taller than the box.  This will be where you attach the "roof" sections.





Cut another 2 pieces of cardboard for the roof sections.  You want them wider than your covers.  You also want to cut them long enough that they will cover the cut end of your box when the book is standing.

Paint your pieces, you can also cover them with coloured paper.





When the paint is dry you can paint the backs of your covers and roof sections or you glue some nice coordinating paper.

Take some coloured paper.  Here I'm using some extra painted paper from my stash and some coloured cardstock.

Cut a bunch of shingle shapes, like a pocket shape.  Starting at the bottom glue your shingles on. Have them overhang on the bottom a bit.

Trim any shingles that are extending past the sides.

Cut some pages for your book, same size as the covers.

Using a hole punch, punch holes in your roof sections, the covers, and all the pages.  I mark them with a pencil as I go so they will all line up.


Take a large jump or O ring, (you could also use small binder clips, wire, or even ribbon), and thread all the pages on.  Do one whole side and then the other.  Close up the rings or tie the ribbon leaving some slack for the pages to be able to turn.

Now it's time to decorate the box.  You can also decorate the covers at the same time if you wish.


Draw out little windows and a door.  Paint and add color.

Cut them out and glue to the box.


You can add some spiderwebs with a white gel pen.





Put some glue on the bottom of the box and place into position on the cardboard base you painted.

Add some embellishments.  Here I added a skull bead from a dollar store bracelet, some footprints that I punched out.

I made a tree by twisting 2 pipe cleaners together.  I took a third one and cut it in pieces and twisted them on for extra branches.  I added a little spider webbing and 2 plastic spiders.


I glued it into place with a glue gun.

Add some grass.  I also made a gravestone out of cardboard and glued that into place.

Take a piece of wire and wrap around a pencil.  Slide it off.  I cut a little bat from some craft foam but you could also use cardstock.



Attach to the wire with a little glue.






Feed the wire thru one of the holes for the binding and twist into place.

Either hand letter or print out some text from the computer and add a title to your book.  I painted mine orange.

Now you can fill the pages of your book.

That's it, a cute haunted house book.

This will be my only post this week as I am off to the Early Childhood Education Conference in Edmonton.  If you are registered in my Book Artistry workshop you will be learning lots of neat book forms including this one.

Hope to see you there!

"P is for Poppy" Project

Every year I come up with a new Poppy project for Remembrance Day.  This is the 2012 version.  The poppies can be made in three ways, using white streamers, paper towels, or coffee filters.























MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- wc paper or heavy sketch/drawing paper
- scraps of newspaper and/or book pages cut into squares and rectangles
- disk tempera paint
- eye dropper
- stapler
- white streamers, paper towels, and/or coffee filters
- little square or rectangle of corrugated cardboard
- text printed from computer or by hand
- a large letter "P" stamp (you could do this by hand/computer if you don't have a stamp)
- black pony beads or buttons
- tacky glue

PROCEDURE:

At school I prepped my artboards by taping down the background paper on one side and then had a small piece of wax paper on the other.

Take your scraps of newspaper or old book pages and glue a few pieces down on your wc paper.  This will add a layer of visual interest to our poppy composition.




Paint your background.  I chose a light blue made from the white and blue tempera disk.  I varied the colour with darker paint at the top and lighter colour at the bottom.

  I use large "one use" only brushes I buy at Walmart or the Hardware store.  They cost anywhere from $1.00-$2.00 so you can pick up several.  They are meant for applying sealer,  hence "one use" only but I have used them for years.

Set your background aside to dry.

Take your streamer and cut off a strip about 8 inches or so.  For a class, you will want to pre -cut your streamers.


I like using white streamers, I can paint them and get lots of variation in my colour, so no 2 poppies would be the same. 

Start to gather into a circle, making your poppy shape.

Then staple in the center.

You might be left with a square corner that doesn't look too poppy like so I round it off with the scissors.

With paper towels just cut a strip

and then form in the same way. 

Once you have made your poppies paint them.  Mix up some red, orangey red, and purpley red and dab on the colour.

Streamer and paper towel poppies must be painted after making up the flowers.  The streamer and paper towels are a bit delicate to paint on their own.  Make sure you dab when applying the paint as they are still quite fragile and you don't want holes.

Coffee filters can be painted ahead of time if you wish.

You then can cut a strip and form the flowers.

When the flowers are dry mix up some watery black paint.  Drop into the center of the flower with an eye dropper.  This gives the poppy that natural look.


You then can glue a black pony bead or button into the center.

Place your poppies on your dry background.


Using a pencil sketch out the stems.

Paint in the stems over your pencil lines.  I added a few leaves at the bottom.  Poppies tend not to have leaves near the flowers but in a mound near the ground.

Glue the poppies into place.

Take your little square or rectangle or cardboard and paint red.

When the paint has dried you can stamp a letter "P" on it or use a sharpie to hand letter.

Print out or write out the "is for poppy" text.

Paint with a little red paint.

Glue into place.

That's it.

 Those of you who joined me last Saturday at the Mini Potpourri made a little one of these on a file folder book using the white streamer sized poppies.



A file folder book on Remembrance Day would be an excellent project to try.  We made our stem from black paper strips from paper run thru the shredder.

Before I go I just want to show you this year's version of the Woven Bat project.  I changed it a bit.  We made the wings from paper we painted and then added some plastic wrap on top before it dried.  We smooshed it and left it on to form wrinkles.  (More details on this technique in this post).

The body paper was still painted and combed.  Instead of stringing the wings we used black paper that was run thru the shredder making strips.  We then glued these on the wings.

Grade 2 did an awesome job and we now have lots of bats in the hallway along with the Grade 1 Pumpkin Stacks.


See you next week everyone.

Halloween Inchies 2012

I know you were waiting for it.......this year's Halloween inchies!



Always keep in mind that each inchie can be done larger as a full blown art project on it's own.


















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

I'm giving you my list but just use what you have on hand and improvise.

- 6 wc paper cut into 2"x 2" inch squares (twinchies)
- 2 black paper twinchies
- 1 yellow construction paper twinchie
- disk tempera paint
- scrap of black felt
- sequins
- assorted scrap paper
- sharpies, fine and med
- yellow and black wax crayons
- mini googly eyes
- green oil pastel
- 2 yellow seed beads
- little yellow gem
- piece of string and /or thin ribbon
- white or grey stamp pad
- scrap of bubble wrap, plastic wrap, salt shaker
- little alphabet stamps
- scissors, tacky glue, hole punch

PROCEDURE:

We will start with the witch hat.  Take a wc inchie and paint with green tempera.  Before it dries give it a sprinkle of salt.

When the paint is dry brush off the salt. Cut a hat out of black felt and glue onto the green inchie.  Take a scrap piece of orange paper and draw some lines with a sharpie.  Cut a little ribbon shape out of it.  Glue onto the hat and add a little yellow gem.

Now the candy bucket. Cut a little pumpkin shape out of scrap paper. Cut off the top to make it like bucket.  Out of black paper cut eyes and a mouth.  Set aside.

Out of colorful scrap paper punch a few circles and cut some little rectangles and squares.



Put some glue on a black inchie and add the circles, rectangles, and squares you just cut.  Add a piece of ribbon or string for the handle and then glue on the pumpkin shape with the eyes and mouth.

Now the bat.  Paint a wc inchie purple and while wet add a piece of plastic wrap smooshing a bit.  Leave on till dry.

You can use black tissue paper but I was out so I painted a piece of coffee filter black.

Cut out a wing shape on the fold.

Glue onto the purple inchie.  Add a black felt body.

Glue on 2 yellow seed beads for eyes and use a silver sharpie (or white/silver gel pen) to make the wing markings.

Now the witch legs.  Paint a wc inchie purple.  On a scrap of white paper draw lines with green oil pastel.  Some skinny some wide.  Paint on top with black disk tempera.

Let dry.

Cut 2 strips out of the paper with the green strips.  Make them a little wonky.

Glue onto the purple inchie leaving a gap at the bottom for the shoes.

Take a piece of black paper and fold it.  Cut a with shoe on the fold.  This will give you 2 symmetrical shoes.  Cut them apart.  Glue onto the bottom of the legs.  Add a sequin for the buckle.

For the skeleton head at school I would use my punch but you can just cut on out of paper.  Use a sharpie for the mouth and nose holes.  Punch out the eyes with a hole punch.

I had first glued it to an orange paper inchie but decided it needed more texture in the background so I took a wc inchie and added torn strips of masking tape and assorted papers.

Paint the inchie orange.  Glue on the skeleton head and add 2 mini googly eyes.

Take a wc inchie and draw a circle with a yellow wax crayon.  Go around it a few times.

Paint the inchie yellow.

Let dry.

Now paint around the circle with black paint.  The wax crayon will help resist the paint a bit making for a hazy moon.

Draw on 2 bats with a sharpie.

Next up is the spooky graveyard.  Take the yellow construction paper inchie and draw a tree with a black washable marker.

Spray or brush with water.

Cut out a little tombstone shape out of a book page.  Add RIP in sharpie.

Go over edge of tombstone with black wax crayon.  When the yellow inchie id dry glue on the tombstone.





Now the mouse. Take a black inchie and stamp on your fingerprint using the white or grey stamp pad.  You can also just use paint.

Using the end of a pencil add 2 ears with pink paint.

Cut a piece of string.  Tie a knot on one end.  Poke a little hole at the bottom of the mouse.  Pass the string thru.  Trim if needed.

Stamp on the word eek!

Finally we have the vampire.  Paint a wc inchie green.  Before the paint dries place a piece of bubble wrap on top and press down.  Leave it on till dry.

Cut a circle out of white paper.  Add a widows peak, a nose and teeth using sharpie and red pen.

Glue onto the green inchie and add 2 mini googly eyes.

Cut a bow tie out of a scrap of purple paper.  Glue on and add a sequin.

Finally mount your inchie collection on some nice paper.  I double mounted mine using silver and orange.

That's it. These inchies are so much fun!  Even if you only do 3.  Set it up as an assembly line or Halloween center in the classroom.  I can totally see doing the witch's legs as a large project this year as well.


Catch you later.