Salaric

I made this when I was about fourteen at Guides.

We were given stockings or the legs chopped off old laddered tights and we put a handful of grass seed into where the toes would go. Then we poured in sawdust on top of the seeds.

When we thought we had enough to make a decent head we pulled out a piece of the stocking, making sure it contained some sawdust, and pinched it so it became a little bud, we then twisted it so that the ‘neck’ of stocking material was closed, and tied it with cotton so it would keep its shape - this was the nose!

We then made sure there was enough sawdust in the head and that the nose would end up in the right sort of position. We tied a knot in the leg of the stocking, trying to make sure there was no excess space or the head would be all floppy!

We then sat them in mugs with the knot at the bottom and drew faces on them with felt tip pens!

The idea is that you stand them in water, which soaks up through the sawdust, and the grass grows into hair. I felt that the felt pen would run if I did this so never got around to growing the hair - but I will probably give that a go when my daughter’s a bit older.

This was a fun project and I am thinking it would be a nice one to try with my Scouts in the winter.

On Centenary Camp one of my Scouts decorated this lovely picture frame. Basically the frames came ready to decorate though they are made out what appears to be thick brown card and brown matt parcel tape with a course brown twine as the hanger.

The man who was running this stall turned up with lots of gems including flowers and butterflies with sticky backs which the kids could just stick straight on to their chosen frames! He also had foam shapes and little fluffy pom-poms. My Scout also used a fine liner pen to draw on the butterflies’ trail as the picture within the frame!

The frames themselves came in a variety of shapes such as circles, squares and hearts!

Again this was an easy but effective activity and the children flocked to it!

One of my scouts made this shrink keyring. I’ve seen these in the Hindles catalogue but had never seen them in action before - I was quite impressed and the kids loved it!

Equipment:

*Oven

*Split ring keyrings

*Hole punch

*Goggly eyes

*Saftey Scissors

*Colouring Pencils

*Special shrinking plastic

For the younger children we just used pre-made designs which the children coloured in, such as butterflies, snails, bees and other creepy crawlies! For the older children we just had blank sheets which they could draw their own designs on.

It is important that only colouring pencils are used and not felt-tip pens as it is put in the oven for a while.

Once the design is coloured in you cut it out and hole punch it, then you put it in the oven for a minute - I don’t know at what temperature but hopefully that is on the packet!

The plastic shrinks down and thickens, retaining and concentrating the colours. You then attach the keyrings and if you want, glue on the goggly eyes

This was fun and even I had a go, though I forgot to hole punch mine so it couldn’t be made into a keyring sadly.

Equipment:

*White ceramic tiles

*Candle and matches

*Toothpicks

*Sealant/hairspray

*Masking tape

As it is the Scouting Centenary this year there have been lots of commemorative events, one of which was the Centenary Camp at our District’s camp. I found myself in the craft tent there and I was to do tile engraving, though it was stretching the term engraving slightly I felt!

I had never done this before and had a bag full of equipment and some vague instructions so I arrived two hours before the kids were due, in order to have a go and work out the best way of doing it!

My first issue was that I had tea lights and normal tall candles without any candlesticks, so I ended up using the tea lights as candlesticks for the larger candles after a brief aborted attempt at smoking the tiles on tea lights!

The idea of this craft activity was that you black out the tile over the candle and then use a toothpick to draw a picture or pattern, then you spray it with a sealant - in this case hair lacquer.

I was obviously a little concerned about burnt fingers, which was my main reason for experimenting, but other pitfalls soon became apparent.

You have to get the tile touching the flame so that soot actually gets deposited onto the tile, making it black, but if you go too close, wax is precipitated onto the tile, making drawing hard and giving affected areas a shiny, almost brown, look. I used a cloth to wipe affected areas and put them back over the candle.

I found holding the tile at a 40 degree angle over the candle flame was effective in getting a lot of soot deposited onto the tiles. Also angling the thing towards you so that you can see how things are going helped a lot, but it did mean lowering your line of sight slightly for most people.

My first attempt was very blotchy with lots of wax on it and smeary fingerprints all round the edge but I drew on it anyway to see how well that worked and whether the hairspray would actually seal the picture.

The main issue the children and I had with this was trying not to rest your hand on the tile whilst drawing on it - we all had to re-smoke the resulting white patch were we had wiped the soot off!

Also I found that you had to be ‘light’ handed with the toothpick otherwise it would jump and skid on the tile, ruining the picture or writing you were attempting!

I was only allowed to do this craft with the older children, ie Scouts and Explorer Scouts. Even so, I was concerned about the burnt fingers and after trying to black out a second tile found that though I was no longer making it blotchy or getting wax on it, I just could not make the edges neat, as you have to hold the tile!

I then hit upon the idea of making a border of some sort and because I have been painting lots recently I wondered on the idea of using masking tape around the edge of the tile - this would hopefully create a nice neat border and prevent the children from burning their fingers.

I stole some masking tape from the Junk Art stall and proceed to experiment - my main concern had been that the tape would catch fire or it just wouldn’t work as a neat border. However it worked better than I had expected, though obviously I then had to stress that you needed to move the tile about, otherwise the masking tape would catch fire, which did happen a couple of times resulting in a brown sticky patch on the tile - this took some wiping off!

Blacking out the tile over the candle.

Smoked out tile ready to engrave!

One of the Explorer’s tiles - he decided to have a go without a border.

Masking tape as a border.

Here are some of the kids’ finished tiles!

My first attempt Second attempt

The only thing I found abit iffy about this project is that you had to spray the tiles several times with the hairspray and still it is only just touch safe. Anything touching it will scrape the picture off it! I’m wondering if better quality spray would be a better idea or perhaps actually using proper sealant.

My fathers’ day present to my dad was a garden dragon ornament, depicting a dragon emerging from an egg, and it’s made out of a cement/concrete type material, created to look like stone. My dad appeared to be chuffed with this dragon and proceeded to paint it in fantastic detail, bringing it to life!

He loves painting toy solders and little scale models and when my brother and I were young, made us a whole fantastic range of toys! I asked him if he would write up what he did to the dragon - here is his account.

MY FATHERS’ DAY PRESENT It was a dragon, as mentioned above, given to me by my daughter. As the finish was a rather dull grey I decided to paint it to resemble a real dragon. Of course as I have never seen a real one I was forced to guess at the colouring. I was very happy to find that the eyes are made of glass and look really authentic.

THE METHOD I used an artist’s brush, with bristles that come to a point, for the fine details. I believe it is called a rigger, and I used a larger one of the same type for the bigger areas. However, I think that an artist’s flat brush might have been better for covering these parts. The paint was Humbrol enamel, which I purchased in a model shop. It is also available in hobby shops. As it is a garden ornament, I finished the whole thing in yacht varnish to protect the paint from the elements.

The egg is the largest part of the ornament that I wanted as a single colour, so I painted it first - grey. Well, yes it is only a shade lighter than the cement but it is somehow better if the whole thing is covered in paint. As there are some pieces of shell that are inside out, I highlighted them with grey paint mixed with yellow.

The next part is, of course, the dragon. I chose a dark green with which I painted the whole dragon, then I mixed a little yellow and/or white into the green to create a lighter green for highlighting the creature’s throat and chest. I also highlighted around the eyes.

The dragon’s claws were painted yellow and the ridge behind the claws a dark grey. I added some black to the light grey.

The nostrils are black and the cracks in the shell are a very dark grey; I added a lot of black this time.

The base the egg stands on is either a representation of earth or rock, so I used light, medium and dark brown paint. I used actual dark brown paint for the dark brown areas and simply added yellow in medium and large amounts for the other two shades.

Finally, the dragon’s mouth. This is pink and the tongue is red. I just added white to the red to obtain the pink.

I should have already mentioned that it is a really good idea to make sure that the paint is dry before adding another colour. With model enamel I usually leave two hours drying time between coats. If it is going to stand in the garden I would leave it overnight to dry completely, before adding a coat of yacht varnish to protect the paint from weather damage.

We went and had a look around in Stratford Park in Stroud as there was a Textile Festival at the museum in the park.

Unfortunately I didn’t have the time or money to go on any of the courses and workshops that they were running this year, though they did look really interesting!

They did, however, have a little gallery set out with interesting displays of uses of textiles. I sort of regretted going there with family as it would have been great to take a sketch pad there - alas instead I had an almost-two year old with me and no reins!

But they did have a huge selection of books on textiles and their modern and traditional uses, and some very nice ones on crocheting with wire - which is something I’ve been working on anyway. I also picked up some nice wooden printing blocks in the shop - it was really interesting.

Hopefully this blog will act as a repository for all the art and craft and any other crazy projects we get up to. I hope too that the documented projects which will also have photos attached will be a good resource for other people.

I am still learning mainly new techniques and styles; my favourites though are probably my polymer clay projects and our metalwork projects. I probably paint more than anything at the moment but promise not to bore you all too much with that!

By training I am a scientist and not an artist and I feel this definitely comes through in my work - hopefully in a good way!

I have found myself at several points in my life organising craft activities for children or adolescents. I am currently in one of these positions with our local Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, so there will probably be lots of childrens’ projects on here too. This section I feel will only grow as I have a small baby/toddler who already scribbles with crayons and will no doubt be a continual source of inspiration!

I will also cross link to my mother’s sewing blog from time to time and maybe a few other sites to build this blog into a valuable resource for anyone interested in art and handicrafts.

Ps my spelling etc… isn’t too crash hot but I feel that the site should have a high standard so please let me know of anything too glaring.