Beyond Basic: Winter Projects

by Elizabeth Van Allen  
for scribblesbyartteachervanallen.blogspot.com

Are you tired of cutting paper snowflakes?  Way past boring snowmen?  When considering what to add to your annual buffet of seasonal projects, these fresh ideas might just hit the spot!

Mini Paper Snow Globes
I originally found this idea at makeandtakes.com, then developed a template to copy onto card stock and use in my classroom.  It only takes about 45 minutes and students can take it home that day.

Clockwise from top left: finished project: front view, snow globe images drawn on the template, finished project: back view, paper strip for the base: pre-assembly

Look for inexpensive paper doilies
in dollar bins at your local pharmacy! 

Crafty Snowflake 
Decorations
This fun project really enchanted the K-5 set. In order to give my students' snowflakes maximum drying time and minimum chance of falling apart, I spread out our two-sided snowflakes over two 45-minute classes.  The inspiration for this hands-on activity was from erikhandmade.com, which also has a very nice downloadable lesson plan.  I added a flashy twist by adding in a paper doily snowflake and some sequins!

What new winter crafts 

have you tried out this year?

Making It Mine

by Elizabeth Van Allen 

for scribblesbyartteachervanallen.blogspot.com

Personalizing My Yoga Bag

I like to personalize my stuff.  I don't know if it's just an artist thing, but I don't like looking the same as everyone else.  This summer when I stayed in Disney World I needed a way to mark a few towels as mine so that they wouldn't get gathered up by housekeeping with the rest of the linens.  I know it sounds funny, but I bring my own face towel when I travel because my skin won't tolerate the bleach hotels use.  When it comes to personalizing towels, patches and painting were both out as options.  What I needed was something that would hold up well with frequent washing and drying.

Embroidered Face Towel 

Being a glutton for punishment, I decided to delve into the world of embroidery.  To give you a little background on my grand plans in needlework, I started really experimenting with sewing in high school. I decided one day that I wanted to make a dress with a fitted bodice and a strip-work, ankle length skirt.  I hadn't made much past simple pillows, but I'd watched my mother make clothing, curtains and quilted stuff tons of times.  How hard could it be?  Mom got pretty worried when I confidently stated my intent, but she patiently walked me through it and I wore my dress for years.  In that same tradition, I decided that one of my first embroidery projects would be a multi-hued purple lotus flower that looked the same on both sides of a face towel.  If you've ever see the back of a piece of embroidery or needlepoint, you know that is not exactly the status quo.  

Embroidered Yoga Towel

My Yoga Bag and Towel

I added a multi-colored running stitch
 at the seams to brighten up my gym bag

I did some research and finally got it right.  I successfully embroidered the same lotus on my face and yoga towels and figured out first hand why an embroidery hoop can be a very useful tool.  



My next challenge: my gym and yoga mat bags.  I think I nailed it! 

How have you personalized some of your favorite things?

Artsandcrafts: the Candy Bar of the Art World

by Elizabeth Van Allen

scribblesbyartteachervanallen.blogspot.com/

When I was young, 'artsandcrafts' was both one word and one subject.  You went to a room/cabin/table/tent, made something fun and walked away with it.  There was no differentiation between aesthetic and functional value.  To be honest, beyond the satisfaction of making something fun or pretty, value of any type -stated or implied- wasn't something that was even touched on.  I understand that this is a more important issue to me as an artist and an art teacher, but I like to make sure my students (and anyone else who will listen) know the difference between 'art' and 'craft' as two separate entities.

http://teachbytes.files.wordpress.com/
2013/02/venn-diagram.jpg

Arts and crafts is not so much a single grouping as it is the title of a Venn diagram.  For the non-initiated, a venn diagram is one of those organizational chart thingies with the two overlapping circles that shows the commonalities shared between two ideas or objects.   

Art-making supplies

The 'Art' category includes expressions and applications of imagination and creative skill that are primarily created for their beauty or emotional power. Paraphrased from google's answer to my search phrase 'definition of art', this best states the nature of art more way more succinctly than I could after literally hours of research on this exact topic over the years.  For the layman, think objects, environments and performances that are created to make you feel a certain way or think about something specific.

Crafts and the materials
they are made from

The 'Craft' side of the diagram includes activity involving skill in making things by hand.  As you may have guessed, I googled that one too.  Why reinvent the wheel when so many people have customized wheels just waiting to be used?  And, if you were wondering, creating customized wheels would be a craft. In layman's terms that means that a craft is usually a functional object fabricated by a real human being, and that it was made using great skill. Think ceramics, weaving, wood working, etc.

Going back to our Venn diagram, for something to qualify for inclusion in the overlapped middle section it would have to be both art and craft.  That means that a highly skilled artisan would have to take their craft beyond function to a place where it was also an expression of a concept or emotion.  As you could imagine, examples of this are fewer and farther between than one might have initially expected.

'Artsandcrafts' supplies

Artsandcrafts is about as similar to Art or Craft as a penguin is to a hawk.  They both share most of the same basic parts, but their function is much, much different.  Artsandcrafts is when you make a fun, sparkly picture.  If that picture were art, it would have purpose and meaning and be well made.  If it were a craft, the picture would probably be three-dimensional and intended for some type of a functional purpose.  While artsandcrafts are usually fun and flashy, for the most part they just don't have the educational or long-term value that a true artwork or a craft does.

So where does artsandcrafts fit into our Venn diagram?  Artsandcrafts is more like the fun picture doodled in the margin of the paper where you drew the diagram.  It's worth is more in practicing a few basic skills that support your art- and craft- making practice than in the finished work itself.  That being said, there is a lot of value in both experimentation with different supplies minus the pressure of creating actual content and the enjoyment you get out of making something just for fun.  While the practice of artsandcrafts might not fit in with the real meaning of art or craft, that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it for what it is... the candy bar of the art world.

Side note/disclaimer: Artsandcrafts should never be confused with the Arts and Crafts movement, a late 19th century push for careful hand craftsmanship and careful attention to overall and decorative design.