Art Camp Prepping

So I have spent the last few months researching, planning, prepping and collecting for Spring Break Art Camp. I love Pinterest for ideas. I have a collection of Family Fun magazines I often refer to as well. I like to mix up art camp. After all Art is NOT just one medium. (Medium would refer to type of material used). So I have recycled items like turning a toilet paper roll into a cut napkin ring, 2 lt soda bottle into a bird house, etc. These items are cute and mostly inexpensive. I mean, really, I'm just gonna throw them away anyway so why not use them for a good, fun, maybe educational experience?? Over the summer of 2016 my oldest daughter got married and did a woodland type theme. It was really tinkerbell but to appease her now Hubby it was called woodsland. So anyway, my younger children and I made fairy houses for her decorations out of milk cartons, pringles cans, and even an OJ container. They really did turn out super cute.

I literally went to my craft totes and dug out fabric flowers, leaves, rocks etc The kids went outside and collected some leaves and sticks and even some rocks. They turned out pretty good for just throwing together as a last minute thought, literally. This is the type of thing we would do for Art Camp but more thought out. This allows me to keep the cost down to make it affordable for families in our areas, strike creativity in our youth and give our youth something fun and constructive to do on a day off school instead of sitting in front of their electronic gadgets and TV all day. The first Spring Art Camp I did was in 2016 and we did eggs made from blowing up the balloon and covering it with the messy glued yarn or string, letting it dry and popping the balloon. I was SHOCKED that so few youth knew how to make them. I mean really, that was like a "staple" craft when I was in school. I love getting messy and making something beautiful out of it. So much fun. So we did some paper mache too. More knew about that one but we had so much fun doing it here. For the older kids Spring Break I have planned to make Wacky baskets which is the yarn technique but laying it over an existing shape making it into your own new shape. See Education coming in?? Right along with Creativity. I have planned to paint in the rain, even if we have to make our own rain, No SNOW globes, drawing on foil and hoping to do some canvas transferring if I can find the right paper. As I was searching for some unique crafts to do of different levels I came across some pretty cool ideas and that has led to other camps. My oldest boy is soon to be 15 and is homeschooled and he has a mind for math and science. He isn't real outgoing and has Asperger's so interaction is sometimes hard for him but he is great with little kids. So he decided he wanted to try to lead a camp, after all, he will be part of taking over when I retire, so I let him. He has planned a Science Art Camp. He is looking forward to it very much. It's more so experiments more so than projects that could go home, but the know how to take home and do again is always a possibility. That is how we learn. He is looking to do that one over the summer probably in July and I am going to do a preschooler and me camp. One thru the week in April or May and then will do same one on a weekend because I have requests for both time frames.

So I ask that you consider signing your kids up for any or all of our Art Camps. We have several throughout the school year when there is a half day or no day school and the week for Spring Break, Winter Break and 1 week of Summer Break. We will do some painting on pottery too. Most of these are $10 a day unless we don't paint on pottery then it may be $8 depending on cost of crafts. We like to recycle here and use items we have donated to us so we can keep costs low. We also are starting a new Camp program for this year. When you attend 6 art camps (mini from 1-3pm or the week long camp) you get 1/2 off your 7th camp. The week long camps are typically 4 days so if you come all 4 days that is counted as 4 not one. How cool is that?? So sign up for our next art camp and get your paint on!!