Silly Faces Art - a collaboration between parent and child

I wanted to share some of our go-to art "games" that brings smiles and lightheartedness to your home.

I remember in Middle school when I would go up to my art teacher and say I finished my project she would say- great, draw some eyes on it, and say- make a face- make it silly, make it how you are feeling or design a monster. So I did. I have no idea what I drew, but I can remember the feeling of drawing because it was fun, or latest to let out my creativity with nothing holding me back. That is what I hope for this exercise can do for your children.

I love this collaboration, because the parent, can draw simple eyes, and the child has control over how they want to make their faces.

If you are like- no way do I draw eyes- Totally get it- faces are not "my thing" either, get some googly eyes, and have them draw faces, just don't say I don't like to draw, that will hinder their creativity.

we spend hours of fun drawing faces, it's a fun way to express how you are feeling.

Here is the link to get you started!

https://thefineartcafe.academy/courses/drawing-silly-faces/?fbclid=IwAR18hBwRJVq_1wVGanOxqZM37w756jxzjqidY7iwV7GTdo7fZsErCyBYWKo

Bernie's Barnyard at Adventureland

photo credit: Adventureland parks

Bernie's Barnyard And what you need to know:

-Like all the rides and attraction, it's free with paid admission, or with a season pass. 

-Located by the entrance by the Tornado

-Toddler area and older/bigger kid area are separate

-2 new rides perfect for families.

Photo Credit: Adventureland Park

It's finally open I thought to my self, it' better be worth the long wait! Yes, I believe it was, Bernie's Barnyard was THE PERFECT PARK FOR KIDS AND PARENTS!  I am happy that Adventureland has this new addition to its park, A much-needed place for elementary kids to play and explore. We were able to go on the second day of its opening. Of course, these pictures are what my kids loved about the park, We easily spend the whole afternoon here, I had to pry them away and say if you want to swim at the wave pool we need to leave! (that's how much they loved this park)

E loved the slide, underneath was a fruit stand that my daughter and son loved to play store at. 

C enjoying the new slide, (perfect for all children. I even went down it, it's a bumpy as it looked.) Part of the fun.

The fruit stand, they loved playing store in this. Great place to learn and play pretend!

Why do all kids love tunnels? this one reminded me of a tunnel at a park we use to love until we moved. Thanks for the happy memories of that park Adventureland, I am glad to see another play area with tunnels. 

When you walked in there is a "life-sizexylophonees, drums, and other musical instruments that the kids loved to play with. This musical feature captured all my kid's attention for a long time, more time than I expected. 

Lot of ways to climb, this is just one of them, it's a rope latter, one of E's favorite part.

Everywhere you look there is something for little hands to be busy with, I counted like 4-5 gear stations for them to explore. 

another way to climb, can you tell my kids are part monkeys?

one of many views of the playground.

C's happy dance, she loved this area!

At this park inside of Adventureland, they have two rides, shakin Bacon, (as C pointed out, it's like the Falling Star for kids)  and pictured here is the horse ride, if your kid is less than 42 inches, a parent has to ride with them. It was fun to hear the giggles from my 4-year-old while on the ride. (one of my new favorite family rides.)

They also have a toddler section, pictured above is my 4 yr old in the toddler section. It was filled with houses and other little tike toys for the toddlers. 

For an art project in the spring, our elementary school chose some students to paint a birdhouse, my Niece was able to be part of this collaboration, she was so sad she couldn't take home the birdhouse until she saw it proudly displayed at Adventureland in Bernie's Barnyard. It was such a treat to see her work and see her smile bright as she realized that it's part of her new favorite park! 

My thoughts: this is a great place for families. They had lots of picnic tables for families to enjoy, It's very open, I was able to chat with the mother I was with while watching my kids. Bernie's Barnyard is the perfect size for kids to explore while moms/parents/ caregivers can sit down and relax a tad bit. There are concessions, that sell kid food ( Peanut butter and jelly, milk, animal crackers, and other kid-friendly snacks.) 

I will continue to make my way towards the tornado (the park is right by the entrance of the Tornado roller coaster) when we visit every week (Adventureland passes are worth every penny in our family.) Because it's the perfect size for our family. 

Well done Adventureland! Thank you for providing a great play area for my kids to explore and enjoy!

Check out my other post about Adventureland Day Trips, to help make your day at Adventureland as stress-free as possible. 

Colored Rice: How to make my 3 year old's favorite sensory table activity

My kids love playing in the sensory table! I often have to think outside the box for new ideas on what to put in my sensory table. Some things just make sense, rice, beans, corn...

AWESOME things happen when we give kids open-ended material to play with! My kids play with the colored rice a ton more than if I were to just give them plain rice. Thier imaginations run wild, sometimes the rice is a habitat, other times it's a birthday cake or a secret ingredient to solving a crime, it's so fun to see what they come up with!

Here is how you make Colored Rice (1 cup) I like to do this 4 times with 4 different colors of Rice
In a quart size bag:
Take 1 Cup of Rice (4 parts)
1/4 Cup of rubbing alcohol, or vinegar (1 part)
add food coloring, or if you have it liquid watercolor (my favorite way to die rice)
The knead the color around in the closed bag, once all the rice is colored lay out the colored rice on a pan.  Let the rice dry for about 6-12 hours, I did mine in the morning and by the afternoon it was dry and ready to go.

I did have each color of rice in a bag for each color for longer than I thought, then I let them play with all the colors together and that was entertaining a bit more, now we just have Rainbow rice and it's so fun to play with!

This is such a great book That has great ideas, to do with young kids

Here is how you make Colored Rice (1 cup) I like to do this 4 times with 4 different colors of Rice
In a quart size bag:
Take 1 Cup of Rice (4 parts)
1/4 Cup of rubbing alcohol, or vinegar (1 part)
add food coloring, or if you have it liquid watercolor (my favorite way to die rice)
The knead the color around in the closed bag, once all the rice is colored lay out the colored rice on a pan.  Let the rice dry for about 6-12 hours, I did mine in the morning and by the afternoon it was dry and ready to go.

I did have each color of rice in a bag for each color for longer than I thought, then I let them play with all the colors together and that was entertaining a bit more, now we just have Rainbow rice and it's so fun to play with!

Art Journal Autograph book

Before our trip a nice a clean Autograph book

We were blessed to be able to go to Walt Disney World. So for 5 months, I was preparing for this week long dream come true!

Part of this planning was an autograph book. I knew that I wanted something that was personal, and creative. While I was watching an Art Journal class on CreativeBug I knew that I could make an art journal for our trip for autographs, it's a perfect fit for Autograph books!

Here are some of my tips, and How I made it work.

First, you need a good sturdy BOOK, The book I picked out was great until the last day, and it seemed to fall apart. So Get a bound book that can take getting altered. I like the mixed media sketchbooks for that purpose.





I love that art journals have no "rules" as it should be. So be free, when I was creating this journal/autograph book I wasn't thinking too much about the other pages I started in the middle and thought about the mood I wanted, I wanted each page to feel fun and bright and light hearted.

With the mood in mind I found stencils and away I went, I thought about color choices for each stencil and I decided that some pages needed to be simple and others had more saturated pigment than others, I wanted variety and texture on the pages so I used some liquid watercolors in a spray bottle which are super fun to play with!!!!

Other stencils I traced and then colored in the design, and also for some I used a blending technique to blend. Really I just wanted the whole book to feel carefree and bright, so I didn't fuss too much over the "art" of it, I spent most of my thoughts on the negitive parts asking questions like: Is there enough room for an autograph? Does the color work? is the color to saturated, You know all those silly questions you would ask if you were desinging something for someone.

For some non stenciled pages, I picked 3-4 watercolors and used brush strokes to make the page burst with colors, or used a light wash to bring out desing elements.
Not all the pages are showne in this post, I had 22 pages to create on, the perfect amount

Once the pages were painted on, I then had a pile of what I call "recycle art" Art that you don't want to throw away becuase you learned something from it, or you were messing around on some scratch paper and you really like how it turned out... Yep I used them in the book. I cut the art to size and added it to the pages with washi Tape, making it a flap to the page.  A cherished memory happend from my"recyled art" my daughter and I were getting Repunzell's autograph and she didn't want to sign on the flower that I wanted her to autograph on, she was like it's too nice to sign on top of it, that painting deserves to go in a frame, I assured her that it was just a pracitice one, and that she deserves this spot becuase after all my daughter and I love her! It was a special memory that I will cherish.

I chose washi tape that worked with the over all "feel" to match the washi tape to the book I used color theroy to govern my choice, that's all, nothing too fancy about it. If the color worked then it was good to go on.

Next I chose some journaling tags and stickers. I love going to Tuesday Mornings! While I was there in the winter I picked up a pack of cardstock stickers from Basic Grey (one of my all time favorite paper crafting designers) and knew that the stickers would be fun and bright for my addiction, I mean paper craft hoppy. Since I had like 10 sheets of the same stickers I didn't have to feel so stingy with the stickers and used them as accents to the Art Journal Autograph book! The stickers made the whole book look unified when before it looked like an art journal.

What do you think? have you used an art journal as a autograph book before? While we were at Cinderella's Royal Table Jasmin said to me, YOU GOT TO SELL THESE I have never seen anything like this before! So there you go, maybe I will start a new trend, I mean after all mixed media and art journals are so trendy right now, that it makes sense to turn your art journal into an autograph book right?

Got Kid Art?

Kids are a natural artist's so at our house, we try to do fun art,  It's really open-ended, and most activities can be done with simple art materials that you might have already.

Here are some of our favorite things we like to do...

Draw your Favorite Animal, since my kids animal changes daily you could make it into a book, for them!

Color your mood: Pick a color that matches the mood the child is feeling and color with just that, it's that simple, color whatever you want.... we like to use different mediums, like colored pencils, and markers to watercolor.

Paint with watercolor

Scribble Art: Scribble on some paper, then color in the areas with three or four colors. We love watercolor pencils for coloring in, and sharpies for the outlines.

Create a scene with window markers: Yes I love my windows for my children's canvas! it's so fun to see what they can create! and it makes me smile when I see their artwork on my patio door!

Paint or draw a Song: Paint/draw a picture to one of your favorite songs, (we like Gold Fish by Laurie Berkner) Or any classical music. Or A holiday favorite like Jingle Bells

Trace Shapes on paper: Find things to trace and then color it, We love wooden blocks s from Mellisa and Doug

Roll Dice Art Surprise game (it's really unpredictable and entertaining.)

Face Painting, We love Snazaroo's face painting products!

Marshmallow and toothpick sculpture: We like to make buildings and bridges!

Stamp/print with everyday objects you find around the house, make a background for wrapping paper.

Bubble printing.   We love bubble wrap, but blowing bubbles and getting a neat print is so much fun!

Paint with Flowers and leave:, We like to collect leaves, flowers, petals, and acorns, and paint with them as if they were stamps or brushes.

Color with Markers

Create a picture with Shaving Cream, this one is so fun to do, it's a giggle fest! the plus side is your house will smell good, I make them clean up before they do something else. WE LOVE playing on our patio door with shaving cream! It's A blast!

Paint with Q-Tips I keep it simple and let them only have primary colors.

Playdough fun time. I have a tot of fun play dough toys that I have collected at Garages Sales, I even get excited for this one!

Make a collage with pom poms, you can glue pom poms, or use the pom poms as a brush, either way, it's a fun time. To glue the pom poms I use a hot glue gun.

Glue drawing and rubbing, get some school glue, let them make swirls, lines, whatever with the glue, then when it dries, let them do a rubbing or a resist on the glue.

Make a Collage: cut out images from magazines, find objects from nature and stickers, if you are using hard to glue things (pom poms, sequins, buttons leaves,) use contact paper, and then display it on a window.

Create beads with model magic Then the next day you can create a necklace

Draw or paint Nature

Paint Sticks: Got sticks, and paint, why not paint them, here is a post I did on this easy fun activity

Artists dates preserve your family in this time of chaos!

I love Artist's dates! What you have no clue what I am talking about? Let me explain:

Artists dates for my family and I are simple, you could say that they are more like mommy dates, and they are... but for me, as an artist, it has more meaning to it, it feeds my soul with creativity and culture that helps bring my inner artist out to play. The goal of the Artist's Date is to let the kids and myself have fun and experience new views and ideas about our world.

julia Cameron in her book "The Artist's Way" describes an Artist's Date as a key tool in recovering our creativity. Simply put an Artist's Date "is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend again all interlopers." The benefits of Artist's Dates are numerous but one of our favorites is that Artist's Date feeds our creative well of images which inspire us in immeasurable ways!


Visit a festival, I took my kids to the Des Moines Art Festival and 6 months later they still talk about it. We made so many memories in that afternoon!

Go to a local candy store we like Rocket Fizz in Ankeny IA and get our children's favorite candy, CAN WE SAY JELLY Belly?

Go see a movie with popcorn and candy, I love it when our local theater in town would play the oldie kid movies that I grew up with like ET or Willy Wonka, or my favorite to watch in the theater with my daughter was The Sound of Music, it was truly the best Artist Date that I had with her in a while.

WAVE POOL or any pool, but for me, a wave pool is like heaven on earth!

Make a recipe together, it's usually from the PBS kids cookbook that I love! A good Smore or a superhero lunch date will work wonders for your inner artist!

Play in the sandbox with bare feet
Painting sticks and rocks, check out my blog post about painting sticks  I like this book for inspirations

Botanical Garden, or butterfly garden


Zoo trip, and lunch at the park outside of the zoo

Listen to different music and talk about what you like, I like to introduce my kids to silly 60's songs, Jazz, Classical, and Broadway music.

Plan a trip (research it with youtube, and books) Planning our Walt Disney Vacation had been really entertaining during supper, It made my inner artist come out, and I felt my soul lighter when the day was weighing on me.

Tulip Time in Pella taking a trip to a town nearby that has an educational or cultural feel is always worth the drive, Pella Iowa is one of my favorite places to visit.

Visiting a Greenhouse, we are blessed that we have a beautiful one that is in our School District that has a huge variety of plants, all kinds.

Visit a planetarium, (ok this is really just a trip to the science center) but every time we watch a show in the planetarium I feel elated by imagery and I always come back learning something new!

 I could go on and on, but really an Artist Date with children is an easy way to learn and see the world from a different perspective. An artist date with your kids should help your soul feel lighter and happier. I love seasonal artist's dates, like visiting the pumpkin patch during October, I mean how often are we likely go down that big slide without a screaming elated 7yr old? You start to feel young and carefree! I am so glad I implement this into our family's life, I hope that you can see value in this easy way to help preserve the happiness of raising a family like I have done.

As always I have someone else in the blogosphere that mentions the same thing, check her out:

Mellisa Taylor at Imagination Soup has a great list of ideas and ideas that work for families. (perfect Family Home Evening ideas.)


For other information on Artists Dates, I have a great post on taking time out for yourself here

Your boys are missing out on this!

Monster trucks? Markers? painter's Tape? and some paper.... Yes! I made art monster truck jam. It was a fun activity that my boys really enjoyed!

It's been in the works for awhile, I just needed some white paper on a roll, (butcher paper) I got mine from staples for about $10, The monster Trucks came from the Hot Wheel section at Target, and we had markers that I had bought during back to school season for like $.30

The prep:
Tape a good length of paper to the floor, I think our paper was about 3 feet long

Tape your kid's color choice of marker to a monster truck using painters tape, we found three trucks, so we used red, blue, and black. I loved using the pipsqueaks markers, they are shorter than regular markers, making it the perfect size for the monster truck, We also used regular markers, it's not a big deal to use either.

I used washable markers, so if the trucks did go off the paper it was an easy to clean up.

Afterward, use this paper as wrapping paper! or cut it up into shapes and use it as collage art!

My savings tip for this activity, buy extra school supplies late July, you will be glad you did, I always buy like 5-7 more packages or markers and crayons. They make some nice unexpected gifts, for example, your daughter was invited to 7 other girls birthday parties for this school year, (those presents can get really expensive,) pair some markers and crayons to a nice activity book, you have a perfect present for the birthday girl/boy!

DIY PK Smores

This is a super easy recipe that most Preschool children can do on their own with little help from a grownup!

DIY PK Smores (I can't believe I haven' thought of this before now.)

Yup my active and spunky pk son wanted a snack,  so I said look in the PBS Do It Myself Cook Book and find something you want to eat. He's not a huge fruit or Veggie fan so... he saw the only not so healthy recipe (go figure right?) I was secretly hoping for the veggie wrap snack... SMORES it is!

I love recipes that are kid proof. This one is.

DIY PK SMORES
you will need:

Chocolate frosting
Marshmallow cream
and graham crackers
 a teaspoon and a butter knife to spread and a cutting board for easy cleanup

I let him use our teaspoon cookie scoop to measure out the frosting and marshmallow cream. We broke the graham cracker in half and put one tbs. of chocolate frosting on one side, and the marshmallow cream on the other side, then we put them together. A PERFECT SNACK for a PK to do it all by himself! It helped that the whole family ate them as soon as it was made!

The best toy for the whole family you didn't know about

What do you do with your kids during spring break????

 Buy them some JIX!

JIX and Hawkeye colored straws to make life fun

I had the opportunity to talk to the maker of JIX this week! His education toy JIX is amazing. He was able to help me see his vision for this educational toy. It's really a fun intuitive activity that helps cultivate team work, and learning together.

There are not too many toys out on the market that can involve the whole family, JIX is one of them. Get some JIX and let your kids play with these during spring break you will be glad you did! You may even find yourself playing with them too.

To learn more about JIX go here and here
 JIX can be used as a fun educational toy that inspire creativity and give children an opportunity to develop their motor and spatial skills through hands-on play.

Just how fun it is to use JIX? Um you had me at creating with straws, it's the little things right?

All you need is some standard drinking straws and JIX straw connectors. It's that easy, with them you can created shapes that turn into geometric patterns and 3d objects. It's really fun to see how triangles and pentagons can make a sphere, or triangles and hexagons can make a tube. It's perfect for science, math, art, using acute and obtuse angles, there are no limits to what you can make!

I love that this  is all about team building! 

The sphere is one of the most easiest and most awe inspiring project to do with your pk child. 

JIX won NYC 2014 Design Award for innovative and creative design.

Get your JIX on and let me see some pictures! it may help your kids learn and have fun. Other things Jix teaches your children, is volume, and Engineering. It really is the real STEM education toy.

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