Scavanger Books!

Recently a friend of mine stopped in the studio. "Help me! I have 9 kids age range 3-12 coming to my house and I need to keep them occupied for about half an hour!"  After some brainstorming we came up with this idea- a scavanger hunt.

Divide the kids into teams with one clue book per team and a pencil.
Materials Needed:
small photo albums from the dollar store- one for each team
a digital camera
printer
photo paper
plain paper
pencils
scissors
small prizes

Walk around the three main rooms the children will be in while they are visiting your house.
Take photos of objects in the rooms- get creative with close-ups
print the pictures
put pictures in the photo album on one page
write clues for each photo on the plain paper and cut the papers to fir the album
tape the paper with the clue on the facing page from the photo and leave space on the paper for the teams to write the answer down

Hand out the Scavanger Books and set a timer for 30 minutes.
When the timer goes off the game is over and the persons with the most correct items in the Scavanger Album wins a small prize.

My friend reported back to me after her family's Chritmas gathering that the Scavenger Hunt was a success. Even the adults got in on the fun.

What to do for the youngster's birthday?

I have been approached recently asking if I do birthday parties. My first thought was no way! then I thought oh wait- I get to pick the activity and there is NO cake or ice cream at the studio so why not?

I put together three parties. The first one involved 9-10 year old girls. We made Artist Trading Cards (ATC's). Each party girl made 8 ATC's - one to keep and 7 to trade within the group. Lots of giggling and glue and sequins later we ended up with a pretty impressive set of cards. Mom agreed the party was a success!

The second party involved 7-9 year olds and was mixed boys and girls. We made paper dolls or "action figures" depending on your gender. (GI Joe was a DOLL!) This one was alot more fun because these kids were much less inhibited. We had purple hair and one boy used leopard print paper for his hair. The clothes were mixed stripes and plaids and prints all on one doll. I really enjoyed this group of kids!

What was best about both parties is the prep was pretty low stress. I have plenty of scrap ephemera and colorful papers on hand from my own projects. Just had to make sure the scissors were sharp and the glue supply was plentiful.

The third party involved 12-14 year old girls. We made Art Dolls. This one was more challenging but still fun. The party girl is one of my students so I knew the group could handle it. I gave them unbleached muslin dolls, the big bin of fabric scraps and fabric glue. The results were amazing.

Good Art Won't Match Your Sofa!

Unbelievable. It has happened before but every time it does I still sit back in amazement and wonder why I do this? Someone just walked into my studio this morning and said she was looking for an abstract painting. Ok- I'll go along with it...

So what kind of abstract painting are you looking for?

Oh something in rainbow colors with a beige-y background I'm trying to match it to something....and she glanced around the room...

I don't think...

Well, it doesn't look like you have what I am looking for... and she walked out the door.

I wanted to run after her and shout STOP! GOOD ART WON'T MATCH YOUR SOFA!!!!

But instead I sat down and just shook my head. I hope she finds what she's looking for.