Art Kits

Our school/craft/puzzle/game/food/laundry/storage room

quickly gets out of hand

and due to that...

we occasionally lose items

(or forget we even have them!)

My Sweet J had a birthday 2 months ago...

we got two awesome crafty things from my sisters.

They were "put away" in above mentioned "room",

in a neat way - 

but subsequently

FORGOTTEN!

So a few weeks ago,

R had his birthday

and I decided it was finally time to 

do some thank you notes!

(a great writing exercise)

So, we made our list of who we were writing

and what we were thanking people for.

As we were going through the list we had an

"OH YEAH!, I forgot about those!"

Moment!

So, we finally pulled out one of the things 

he received.

It was a "starter pack"

 of Kelly Kits.

Kelly Kits?

What are Kelly Kits?

A cool idea that I had before we left NC,

that someone else had already thought of!

You have seen that my sister occasionally sends 

the kids a paper craft through the mail,

or a cut out and instructions to 

create a scene for their cutout.

(I went back to find the links of the crafts,

but couldn't find them because

I haven't labelled my posts,

so that is now on my to do list!)

Before we left, I asked my sister to send them 

some sort of craft kit in the mail.

Every time she saw my kids

(or close to it)

she would delve into our craft supplies

and come up with something cute for the kids to make.

So she has...

then I stumbled upon these:

Kelly Kits

We got a gift pack that had 5 different kits in it:

Kelly Klay

Blots and Dots

Kelly Kookies

Anyway Alphabet

Mighty Mosaic

Each kit has supplies for 2 children.

We finally decided to use one of them.

The birthday boy (J), got to pick...

he chose 

"Painting: Blots and Dots"

This is what we found when we opened the kit:

instructions

2 mini tempera paints

2 paint brushes

2 popsicle sticks (aka stirrers)

6 pieces of white paper

I read the instructions

and

away they went!

 First they applied paint to one side of the paper:

Then folded the paper and pressed the pieces together.

And viola!

The littles were asleep when we tackled this project

(yes that was planned)

Since there was paper left over,

I let A have a go at it.

T was supervising.

Look at that concentration!

And her masterpiece!

(no, not the hair - the paper on the table!)

Then when I went to the conference last weekend,

I got to meet the creator of Kelly Kits.

(wonderful lady with a GREAT idea!)

Oddly, the one she had on display,

was the one we had just completed.

However, I didn't consider prompting them to make a design

they did just random dots.

So her's was a bit different - but it prompted me to 

try it again showing the boys this picture as an idea....

A few days later we gave another one a go:

Printmaking - Anyway Alphabet

This one encourages them to make "rubbings".

This one came with:

white paper

triangle oil pastel crayons

letter and number stickers

red paper

The object was to make a word, design or phrase

with the letters & numbers on the

construction paper, 

then use the oil pastels 

on the white paper

placed on top of the 

"message"

they didn't turn out quite like I we had hoped

and it just dawned on me why...

so we will have to try this one again too!

So we are getting some great ideas.

My first impression of the product 

(simply based on the info on the website):

Fantastic!!

Once we used the first two:

Room for improvement

Now:

They are a great place to "start".

I intend on building on the products

and ideas she provides.

I would like to see a picture of a sample 

on the instructions I think, so parents

who are NOT crafty and artsy 

(like ME!)

can have more of a guide of the possibilities!!

Overall - I would highly recommend these for those
that are less artistically inclined.

And I have already thought about giving these as
gifts to a certain niece in VA
and a goddaughter in NC.

(Luckily neither of them read this, so no worries
on blowing the surprise...
let's see if I remember this great idea at the Sept birthday
and Christmas - hahahah!!
yeah RIGHT!)