Dunkin Donuts Box O'Joe Gingerbread House Craft!

I have a really cool project for you today that my daughter and I are super-excited to share with you! One of my family members had brought a "Box O' Joe" from Dunkin Donuts to Thanksgiving dinner and since I am a hoarder, ahem, art teacher, I couldn't throw the weird-shaped box away. I thought it would be perfect as a gingerbread house!

Box o' Joe Image Source: dunkindonuts.com

I thought of having my daughter create her own decorations for the house, but she's six and I thought she might get frustrated creating all of the "bits" from construction paper. Then I thought I could print out a couple of coloring pages that have candy on them, have her color them and then cut them all out. A good example of a *free* candy printable you could use is here. Now my daughter's good with scissors, but you know who would actually get stuck cutting all of those little bits out!

Then I was out at Hobby Lobby the other night and happened to see foam candy shapes. The package had 100 foam shapes for $5.99 but it was on sale for $3. There were gingerbread people, red and green glittery gumdrops, and red and green starlight mints (all peel and stick). Unfortunately, I do not see these on their online site, but you could probably get similar items near you.

This was a great craft for us to do together but with little involvement from me. I love crafts like that where I don't have to set the pace and she can really go on her own and make the project her own. I was there just there to make the windows and use the glue gun, if needed. It was a relaxing, calorie-free project that will last throughout the holiday season!

Enjoy!

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And in case you are looking for step-by-step directions, here they are!

Materials Needed:

• 1 empty Box 'o Joe from Dunkin Donuts (remove the bag of liquid and discard)
• A piece of red corrugated cardboard for the roof and windows (our piece was 12" square and came from our recycling bin)
• Scraps of yellow or orange paper, optional, for the windows
• Scraps of green paper for trees
• Hot glue and glue gun
• Scissors and an X-acto knife
• Tempera paint (brown, white, red (for roof, if you can't find red cardboard))
• Paint brushes
• Glitter glue (totally necessary!!)
• Bag of sticky-backed foam candy shapes (or you can make your own decorations)
• A base for your creation--ours is a cardboard used when cake decorating

Directions:

1. Paint the outside of the box with brown tempera paint. Let dry.
2. Cut a square for the roof and edge with white paint. Let dry.
3. Cut a slit in the roof and slide it over the handle of the box. Adhere with hot glue.
4. Adhere the entire box to the base now, if you'd like.
5. Create some windows by cutting 6 little strips of red cardboard and glueing them to make a window. Glue the window frame to a piece of yellow or orange paper, if desired to create the illusion that a light is on inside the house. Make as many windows as you like and glue to the house with hot glue.
6. Now's the fun part--stick candy all over the house! I love peel-and-stick foam shapes so that the kids can to it themselves and don't have to wait for glue to dry.
7. Create trees from paper and stand-up gingerbread people and attach them to the base with hot glue.
8. Glitta it up baby!! I squeeze glitter glue on a paper plate and have my daughter use her finger or a paint brush to add some bling all over everything!

You are done! Enjoy your easy-peasy gingerbread house!

Box o' Joe Image Source: dunkindonuts.com

8th Grade 2-Point Perspective Dream Tree Houses

While I was subbing last spring, I was asked to teach two point perspective to the 8th graders. Instead of having them draw a standard house, I decided it would be fun to have them draw dream tree houses. This project is from Mini Matisse and she does it with 7th grade students, but the 8th graders enjoyed it. She also has a video that walks you step-by-step through the project (that was great for students who were absent and needed to catch up).

I had grand plans of also doing a shared project with my son's second grade classroom, but it didn't pan out due to time restrictions (but NEXT time I would have the littles brainstorm dream treehouse elements and have the 8th graders incorporate those into their work and then bring the treehouse images back to the second graders and have them write about the tree houses and create their own images).

This house has a car coming out of it!

I had the book, "Treehouses: The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb" by Peter Nelson on hand for some creative inspiration. WOW! Some of those tree houses are just fantastic!!

Vocab for the project: 2 point perspective, horizon line, vanishing points, parallel, horizontal, vertical, construction lines, recede, diverge, cube, depth

Anyway, the project was a great learning experience and I created two worksheets/handouts to go with the project. The first, a treehouse brainstorming sheet allowed the students to come up with ideas for their tree houses and tell me a story about their houses (those were fun to read!). I also came up with a an assessment checklist for the student and I to make sure that all of the expectations for the project were met.

Treehouse brainstorming sheet to be passed in with final drawing.

The checklist I used to assess the drawing.

Enjoy these creative dream tree houses! Sorry some of the pictures are wonky!

The bulletin board display. I added a title and the book by Nelson to the case as well.

The Making of a Spooky Village and a Poem

Happy Halloween!

Here's a look at the Scary House Prints my students created last week in after school art class. I had each of them donate one print to me and we created a spooky village. I had a kiddo use the formative assessment "poem activity" I spoke about here to create a spooky poem about the halloween village.

"Halloween Houses
Trick-or-Treating
Scary Like a Bat.
Spooky Night!"

ENJOY!!

Mosaic Snowglobes

So, using paper to make mosaics is not new, but using a grid with my students has really helped them "get" the idea of mosaics. This week, I had my after school art class create plaques with a mosaic snow globe scene inspired by a quilt I saw. This project has enough direction so that the children could understand the concept of mosaics and create a piece that they could be proud of in a short amount of time. It also allowed for creativity: the children could choose the colors they wanted and if it was night or day, etc. The projects came out great and were very gift-worthy!

 Supplies Needed:

• Pattern on graph paper (see below)
• Tracing paper
• Tape
• Glue stick
• Small amounts of scrapbook paper cut into 1/2" squares. Use whatever colors will work for your piece. I had the following colors available for the students:
• Pale Blue (for a daytime sky)
• Royal Blue (for a nighttime sky)
• White
• Brown
• Orange
• Yellow
• Red
• Teal Green
• Lime Green
• Pine Green
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Modge Podge
• Brushes/water bucket
• Wooden plaque large enough for your design to fit on (I bought mine at the dollar store)
• Hole punches (I had 1/8" circle, 1/4" circle, 1/4" heart and 1/4" star on hand for the children to use).
• Newspapers
• Ribbon to hang the piece with (ours came with ribbon attached)

Directions:

1. Using graph paper and a pencil, design your image. Darken the grid and image with Sharpie markers to make it easier to see. For this project, I used 1/2" squares of paper so I divided the graph paper into 1/2" squares (rather than the 1/4" squares that are standard). I used a fine tip Sharpie to mark the grid and a fatter-tipped Sharpie to outline the image of the house and snow globe. I also labeled each of the cells with a letter and had a key on hand in case the children got confused ("A" is the Background behind the snow globe, etc.). This helps the children be able to place the paper squares easily.

My original design was 5" square. This is a basic design for younger children or first-time mosaic artists.

Add I modified the design for my after-school art class since the plaques I bought were oval.

2. Once your image has been designed, decide on the colors of paper you will need and cut them into 1/2" squares. I needed lots of squares so I used a combination of Xacto knife and mini paper cutter to cut my squares quickly. If you are doing just one piece, you can use scissors to cut your squares. Don't worry if they aren't perfect!

3. You are ready to go! Tape a piece of tracing paper over the image on the graph paper. Using the glue stick, glue to squares onto the tracing paper using your image as a guide. You don't need much glue, so go easy! Don't worry about the snow or stars right now, we'll put those on later.

 I keep the little paper tiles in an ice cube tray or muffin tins.

Gluing the paper mosaic pieces to the tracing paper.

4. Once you've glued all of your paper pieces onto the tracing paper, trim off the excess tracing paper from around your piece. Go right up along the edges of your paper mosaic tiles.

5. Brush a nice coat of Modge Podge onto your wooden plaque. While it is still wet, place your mosaic (glued to the tracing paper) onto the plaque. Press down gently and then brush a nice coat of Modge Podge over the entire piece. These two coats of Modge Podge will secure the piece to the plaque. While the piece is wet, you can add the details to your design: stars if it is nighttime in your snow globe, snow,  details to the door, etc. We used hole punches to make these details. Just sprinkle them on or gently place them into the wet Modge Podge for now. Let the piece dry.

6. Brush the entire piece with another generous coat of Modge Podge. This will further protect the piece as well as secure the snow and/or stars you added. Let the piece dry.

7. It's done! Attach any hardware or ribbon to the back of the plaque if you'd like to hang the piece on the wall. The piece should be displayed away from direct sunlight and if you need to clean it, use a damp cloth (getting the piece wet will ruin it). 

I hope you try this project! It is fun for the kiddos (and grownups too!) and comes out so beautifully! ENJOY!

Another version of the project. Instead of a snow globe, make a winter scene.