We’re back into more of a routine of work in the morning and activities in the afternoon again, which is good for me and always better for the girls too. By the end of last week some form of demob madness had set in; my girls never have been good without a bit of structure and they aren’t any better at it now. It isn’t that they need to be especially managed or directed, they work fairly well in an independent, self directed sort of way, but they just don’t conform well to that stereotypical “autonomy equals miraculous high level education without a parent even breathing on them” thing.
This afternoon the girls had a go at using Tulip Fabric Paint which comes in a range of colours and has a 3D range too.
While I don’t subscribe to the fairly insane (if my schooling friends are to be believed – and I think they are!) school habit of turning everything into a bonkers Design project with endless hoops to jump through, I did get them to plan out some ideas first. Maddy often gets upset if her ideas don’t work out as she sees them in her head and Fran jumps in hastily, so this seemed a good plan. Fran did lots of drawings and learned to collect together a design sheet using Pinterest and Maddy came up with a couple of good ideas very quickly. She’d like to do design and she has a knack for grabbing a popular idea and interpreting it.
Fran was also really pleased with hers and she helped Josie by doing the “Strawberries” writing on it. Shows you what a suddenly self motivated kid can do; her writing has improved a lot.
Josie tried really hard.
All the girls were very surprised at how easy it was to use the paint; I was surprised by the ways you can use them and how neatly they achieved the writing. And there was NO mess!
Giveaway!
Big advantage to owning your own online arts and crafts store of course is you can do your own giveaways 😆 So here is the deal 🙂
Take a look in the Tulip Paint section of CraftMerrily and comment to tell me a craft idea you could do with any of the paints. You can link to a product, link to something somewhere else on the web you would decorate… anything you like. We’ll use the best ideas on a blog page to support the product (so please only participate if you are happy for us to do that.) A condition of entry is to come up with an idea for a craft 🙂
If you tweet a link to this giveaway, comment a second time to let us know.
If you Facebook a link, comment AGAIN to let us know!
If you blog a link COMMENT AGAIN to let us know!
I’ll use a randomiser to choose a winner and to save confusion, I’ll answer any queries at the bottom of this post.
Tulip Fabric Paint
I’ll give away 1 Starter Set of Six Bottles of Tulip Paint first and then another for each set of 25 comments and I’ll also pick a top craft and give a prize for that too.
Entries close Friday 13th May 2011 and the winner will be announced on the blog and you’ll need to check back to see if you won 😆
Hi, may I post my idea here, please?
I would use, frankly, anything in the range to decorate an old plain t-shirt and then make it into one of these http://www.marthastewart.com/266942/good-thing-t-shirt-bag
We have done this with patterned t-shirts and they are fab – still in regular use months later!
Has just occurred to me I can comment like this and not count them. I think this is a great idea, we love these 🙂
I would love to use the 3d ones to capture some of my toddler’s drawings. I reckon I’d grab a few of her ‘drawings’ (ok, they’re just scribbles….) that I like and trace them onto fabric, using the fabric paint. Or, using the non-3D stuff, I could let her do some finger painting with it onto muslin or similar.
Then, hey presto! We have some Christmas gifts for grandparents. Perhaps framed. Or sewn into something simple, like a bag, or a patch in a small quilt.
Oh I just love that idea. You could do a few and stitch them together into a door hanging or door pockets 😀
Ooooh how fab!! Fabric paints are sooo cool!
Maybe we would have a go at decorating some scrap fabrics wit the kids and sewing a pillow out of it!
Love Rachel’s idea of tracing the kids’ drawings!
Maggy
I really fancy enhancing some scraps and putting them into a random patchwork somehow.
Got to be superhero logos for Small. He can do his own costumes 😀 Think the metallic paints would probably work best for him – his heroes are often ice or fire based, so shiny metallics would look good.
Personalising sunhats always good, preferably so they can be identified at a distance – I’d use brights for those. Also great gifts to take on holiday with us.
Fab to make presents with – little bags are easy to sew and then personalise with pretty paints.
Particularly like the sunhat idea actually; ideal for camps!
Tweeted. Stuck your name in so you ought to see it too 🙂
And Facebooked.
Buttercup has a handed-down T-shirt with a drawing of the Solar System on it. It came years ago with washable fabric pens, for repeat colouring-ins, but they’ve run out/been lost since then. She asked me a couple of days ago for some fabric paint to colour it one final time, so a freebie would be handy 😉
These seem quite permanent too so you might even get a bag out of it as per Maggie!
Shared on Facebook too! I’m such a networker! 😉
I’ve been making felted bags out of random yarn, knitted or crocheted and even old jumpers. I would paint big round woolly sheep and flowers on craft felt and then stitch them onto the bags!!
Lottie would draw on smaller scraps of cotton fabric to make gift bags for her little friends!
I like felting but hadn’t thought of combining the two – like that idea 🙂
i just love fabric paints !!! i would have the 3d and the metallic, buy some cheap plain tote bags and then let the kids personalise them for grannys xmas pressies, plain fabric purses for the aunties, and hankies or socks for the grandads and uncles, cheap xmas pressies which will be treasured forever 🙂
i just tweeted too 🙂 @clareandtribe xx