All this month we were hired to put together workshop every Thursday at One Colorado courtyard in old town Pasadena. It has been incredibly fun creating new projects each week for children and adults alike. As you all may know I love gathering and creating projects using recycled and found materials. Here is a great Halloween project using used mint tins - Bug collection tin.
Things you'll need-
- mint tin
- decorative paper- I used this beautiful black and white webbed paper from Paper Source along with pages from a book and orange and black papers.
-watercolor paper
- oils pastels
- watercolor cakes or crayons
- orange and black sequins
-two little squares of cardboard about 1 inch X 1 inch
The first thing the kids did was to look at books with all kinds of insects and arachnids in them, beetles, caterpillars, cicadas, moths, spiders and scorpions. I then gave them a small piece of watercolor paper and oil pastels to draw their bug and add watercolor if they wanted.
After cutting it out their insects they were ready to decorate their mint tins to make a home for their insects. They layered on papers and sequins and black glitter. ribbons and pieces of orange and black paper.
One of the aspects of teaching these kinds of workshops that I so enjoy is watching the parents and children work together making something creative, talking about ideas and techniques. I also love seeing the excitement of the children at the materials they get to use. There is utter joy on their faces at the prospect of orange and black sprinkles or decorative papers or ribbon.
When they are finished decorating their boxes we are now ready to use the small pieces of cardboard. glue them one on top of each other into the middle of the tin and glue the insect right on top. This allows the bug to hover a bit over the background to give it a bit more animation.
