Easy DIY Kids Crafts: Sweet Feet Father’s Day Cards Made by Preschoolers

Little Feet Leave a Big Message!

Preschool ended last week so the kids in my classes made Father’s Day cards ahead of time. One class made Father’s Day cards with footprints and one with handprints. We are prepared!

Last year’s cards said, “Thanks for making a path for me to follow.” and this year’s says, “I love you Daddy from the top of my head to the tips of my toes!” So sweet. This Easy DIY Kids Craft is a homemade greeting card that’s fun for preschoolers and elementary age children to make. Paint on feet tickles.

Note: Footprints are a challenge! When my students stepped on the paper without assistance, their feet slid. When I held the paper to their feet, the print didn’t get their toes. What worked? Making sure paint was evenly distributed and guiding each child’s foot to step on the paper to make a quick print.

After the paint dried, I outlined each child’s foot with pencil and then went over it with a black marker. I added “Happy Father’s Day,” the child’s name and date and the Father’s Day card was ready to go!

Sweet Feet!

Supplies:

• construction or cardstock paper in white and another color
• paint and paintbrush
• pencil, magic marker
• glue or double-stick tape

Directions:

1. Using paintbrush, paint foot. Make footprint on white paper. Let dry. (Note–it may take several tries to get a full footprint.)
2. Write or print out, “I love you Daddy from the top of my head to the tips of my toes!”, “Happy Father’s Day!” and child’s name and the year.
3. Glue white paper with footprint and plaques with messages on background paper.

Show-n-Tell, Loopy Mango Super Cropped Cardigan

New Year Knitting

Whenever I start a new knitting project, I head to Wool & Grace to check out their selection of gorgeous wool. I’m like a kid in a candy shop and have to focus! So many colors, so many textures, so many patterns, so many things to create! I wanted to knit this cardigan for a friend and pulled out the pattern, but needed to see if a color felt right for her. The Blue Lagoon Tweed hit the mark. I have 1 1/2 skeins left and may knit a second sweater–this one for me.

Happy creating, hon.

Details:

• Pattern: Loopy Mango Super Cropped Cardigan
• Yarn: Loopy Mango Merino No 5 Tweed, color–Blue Lagoon

Show-n-Tell, Ceramics and Needlepoint

Working with my hands is my meditation.

I purchased this floral and geometrics needlepoint canvas at Wool & Grace and decided to switch the original colors from pinks and oranges to blues, yellows, green and grey. I finally had it made into a pillow and really like how bright and cheerful it is.

When it comes to Ceramics, it seems I work in sets. Maybe that’s my way of improving upon a technique or maybe it’s because I get into a creative zone and keep going. The past year, I spent a lot of time hand-building different size jewelry/catchall dishes: some made free-form and some using GR Pottery Forms. I re-visited pressing real leaves into clay, but when I used a dark stain called iron oxide to define stems and veins, it bled and smeared. More practice needed.

Carving into clay that’s been brushed with slip is a technique called Sgraffito. Slip is thin colored clay that’s painted on a piece before it’s put into the kiln to be bisque fired. The slip and clay are set aside to dry. “Once the piece is firm enough and the surface is not tacky, a design or pattern can be carved through the slip and into the clay body beneath. Once the design is pulled away by incising, there is a beautiful contrast between the slip and the clay. This contrast is stronger after firing and glazing.” (source: Cindy Couling)

A new semester of Ceramics classes started and I’m trying to get back to the pottery wheel.

Hon, you know what I’m meditating on when I work with my hands? Stories, characters, plots, and words. My mind doesn’t rest!

I pressed real leaves into the clay and tried defining stems and veins with iron oxide.

I used a technique called Sgraffito, which is carving into clay that’s been brushed with slip.

Show-n-Tell Ceramics, Lace Patterns

The Fall semester at the Visual Arts Center of NJ just wrapped up (shout out to Melissa, former co-student and now teacher!), but I’m looking forward to the Winter session when I can continue to play with clay! I love textures and patterns, so I was game to work with lace. I love how these ceramic dishes came out. They can be used for jewelry, soap, candy, catchalls, etc.

In the world of pottery, I also had a good time setting up and selling my ceramics at my synagogue’s Holiday Boutique.

What does it take to create these pretty, lace pieces?

• run clay through slab roller to flatten
• line up lace and use rolling pin to impress lace into clay
• brush black slip over lace, peel lace off carefully, dry wet slip with hair dryer
• outline desired shapes, I used GR Pottery Forms
• using large foam pieces, press GR Forms into clay to create indentations in each piece
• smooth all edges
• bisque fire
• after pieces are bisque-fired, wax bottoms then dip in clear glaze
• glaze fire

Easy, right?

Happy creating, hon!

Lace impression in raw clay, lace patterned pieces, pottery for sale.

Show-n-Tell Ceramics, Large Raku Coil Vase

Me and my large raku coil vase.

Playing with Clay

Summer means Raku workshops! Peter Syak, one of my wonderful Ceramics instructors, teaches Raku out of his carriage house/studio. I always learn a ton, meet new students, and have a meditative time working on new projects. This summer I learned how to make a large coil pot, building it up with flat strips of clay. As soon as its smokey scent abates, I’ll bring my vase inside and add some tall decorative branches.

Happy creating!

Stripes of Hasslesmat glaze are painted on the pot.

Aqua lustre glaze is painted over the whole piece.

The raku kiln is loaded.

A peek inside the raku kiln reveals an orange-hot interior and orange-hot pieces.

The Hasslesmat glaze dripped underneath Aqua Lustre which is just what I wanted it to do!

Show-n-Tell Ceramics, GR Pottery Forms

Image source: Scarva

Experimenting with Shapes and Textures

New ceramics supplies at the Visual Arts Center of NJ means time to experiment! I’ve been creating textured dishes with the studio’s GR Pottery Forms. These cool, fiberboard shapes come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and I’ve been having fun trying out different forms, applying textures, and finishing with different glaze combinations.

Next up will be small, wheel-thrown bud vases. Hon, I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Happy creating!

Stones and dragon scales texture on medium, rectangular dish.

Basket weave texture on medium, rectangular dish. Stones on long, thin dish, made without a form.

Hexagons, plaques, and oval with leaves, swirls, stones and lace textures.

Show-n-Tell Ceramics, Textured Dishes

Clay Class

I spent a large part of the Fall semester’s Ceramic class working on a project that was way more challenging than I’d imagined. Since I’m going to Raku glaze and fire those pieces, that “Show-n-Tell” is a long way off. Once I’d finished throwing a number of closed spheres, I wanted to work on easier projects that would be glazed and fired much more quickly. Hon, you know I love texture so I pulled out my texture mats and got to work.

These ceramic pieces were created by using inspirational forms available at the studio. For the two small, shallow bowls and square bowl, rolled out clay was textured and then laid, trimmed and pressed into wooden bowls. The larger tray was textured and then draped, trimmed and pressed on top of a wooden tray. The berry bowl is an add-on. It’s not textured but I punched holes out to create a small colander. That was a project that I’d put away half-way done and just finished. So sweet!

Thanks for viewing and happy creating!

Show-n-Tell, Baby Cable Ridge Blanket

One of my nieces gave birth to a sweet baby girl!

The minute I heard about the pregnancy, my hands were itching to knit a baby blanket. I couldn’t decide between light pink or variegated yarn. I checked with the mom-to-be and it was decided–I’d combine a cool, modern yarn with a traditional pattern (shout out to Patty, the owner of Wool & Grace, who suggested the yarn and pattern). I hadn’t knit cables in a very long time (maybe not since college?) but, after a quick reminder, I was ready to go. I love how this Baby Cable Ridge Blanket turned out!

Details:

• yarn–Malabrigo Rios, 100% Superwash Merino Wool, color “276 Medusa”
• finished size–approximately 24″ x 32″ but after blocking, the one I knit is 27″ x 46″

Show-n-Tell Ceramics, Neriage Nesting Bowls

Neriage (pronounced nair-ee-ah-gee)is the Japanese word for the technique of combining different colored clays.

Neriage, according to ceramic artist Thomas Hoadley, comes from “neri…a root word meaning ‘to mix’ and age…a root word meaning to ‘pull up.’ This refers to the pulling up action in throwing clay on a wheel, hence neriage refers to wheel work with colored clays.”

I created these bowls by layering brown and white clay, and then throwing the combined clay. I glazed the insides in matte white and the outsides in glossy clear. Stripes give way to swirls and, since I wanted to maintain the clays’ natural patterns and didn’t smooth the insides completely, you can feel some of the throwing lines.

Patterns and textures–so fun to create!

Show-n-Tell Ceramics, Nerikomi Mugs and Plates

Mugs and coordinating plates. Insides and edges glazed with Sky.

Hon, have you heard of Nerikomi?

Neither had I and, although I’d combined different clays in the past, it wasn’t until this spring that I learned what it was called. Peter Syak, one of my amazing instructors, had finished Nerikomi hand-built mugs and coordinating dishes and, as ones does in ceramics, I wanted to try to create the same. Peter glazed the insides and edges of his pieces with GB Blue and I used Sky. More posts to come on this very cool technique.

Nerikomi defined by Robin Hopper, author of Making Marks:

In Japan, the words ‘neriage,’ ‘nerikomi,’ and ‘zougan’ are all used for specific colored clay processes and there is some confusion as to which is which. In England they are often referred to as ‘agateware;’ in Italy they’re often referred to as “millefiori,” from a decorative glass-forming process meaning “a thousand flowers.” 

In Japan the words neriage (pronounced nair-ee-ah-gee), nerikomi and zougan refer to different ways the colored clays are used. Always interested in why things are called what they are and the confusion surrounding names, I asked Thomas Hoadley, a long-time artist working with colored clays, about the Japanese names.

Hoadley told me, ‘When I became aware that colored clay work would be my primary life’s work, I figured I should get to the bottom of the nerikomi/neriage question. I had been told that even in Japan the terms are mixed up. I spoke to a Japanese woman who lives here, and she explained that neri is a root word meaning ‘to mix’ and age is a root word meaning to ‘pull up.’

This refers to the pulling up action in throwing clay on a wheel, hence neriage refers to wheel work with colored clays. Komi means ‘to press into,’ as in pressing clay slabs into a mold. Nerikomi thus means hand-building with colored clay, which in Japan I guess usually meant mold work. It has been expanded to include other methods of hand-building.”

Neriage and nerikomi both use either naturally occurring colored clays or light-colored clays that are specifically stained to satisfy the artist’s color requirement. Neriage, or agateware, is done by laminating different colored clays together and throwing them on a wheel to develop a swirling and spiraling blend of the clays. Cutting across the grain…will expose an infinite variety of random patterns.

Robin Hopper, author of Making Marks, for Ceramic Arts Network Daily, April 21, 2021

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