Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Glue Batik with the kids

I found this on Ariella's blog, Childhood Magic, and she in turn had discovered it on someone else's blog.  We could have done it on T-shirts, as her kids did, but we didn't want to wait until we could get some white T-shirts and so we used what we had on hand, which was squares of white, cotton sheeting.

I drew a dozen different designs on the cloth with Elmer's Washable School Glue Gel and let it dry well.  Then we waited for an opportunity.  This was Gemma's nap-time, but in order for Dominic and Adrian to take part, I had to let them stay up from their naps (Adrian is really outgrowing the napping, but Dominic really needs his).

I had these cheap, disposable promotional tablecloths and I taped two of them to the schoolroom floor.  Then I filled foam egg cartons with acrylic paint, full strength.  Out came the brushes, paper towels and wax paper.

The kids had a great time painting these.  It took the older ones some time to realize that this was art, not a coloring book, and that it was okay to paint outside the lines.  Dominic got that right away.





I hurried up the drying process with a blow dryer.  Once the acrylics were dry, I scrubbed them first by hand in hot water with a little dish soap to remove most of the glue.  Then I tossed them in the washing machine with hot water and detergent.  And then hung them up to dry.

Aren't they lovely?  We will definitely have to do T-shirts...

9 comments:

  1. So beautiful and fun! I would love to be a fly on the wall in your house. I am so afraid to do stuff like this!

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  2. Very cool! What was the waxed paper for? The proof in how fun it was is in the math--I count 12?

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  3. DandelionMom, the waxed paper was to put the finished works on to dry. Impatient me, I had to pull out the blow dryer to finish the process!

    Elizabeth: I was a neat-freak for most of my life. Having a bunch of active kids has taught me that a creative home is usually a somewhat messy home. Yesterday when we did this, many chores didn't get done and we ended up having reheated pizza for dinner...!

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  4. Just beautiful. You are awesome.
    +JMJ+

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  5. I love how your daughter is in tie dye and doing artsy stuff. They turned out amazing, we'll have to try that.

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  6. Gorgeous and so much fun! Love the paints in the egg container.....!

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  7. What a lovely "rainbow!" And it looks like such fun...

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  8. While I've seen this idea on many websites, I like your christian theme and want to feature it on my newest post (coming June 2012) about crafts for VBS. Thank you very much for the great images and simple directions! StBrigidsAcademy.blogspot.com

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