Nature Art: Painting Magnolia Seed Pods

Do you have magnolia trees where you are? We are in the deep south and these large, glorious smelling trees are abundant. The giant leaves make awesome canvases and they drop these interesting little seed pods, resembling pine cones. We love using nature‘s free art materials and decided to collect a few dozen of these […]

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Drama Llamas: Mixed Media Art for the Llama Lover

Llamas are pretty fun animals and have become pretty popular right now in most kid departments. Llamas have been seen in everything from birthday party decorations to home decor and even bed sheets. We happened to run into a live one during an excursion at a local animal safari near my hometown. I snapped a […]

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Color Theory Flowers inspired by the book, The Tiny Seed

April showers bring May flowers! The end of the school year is here but my 1st graders have been working on these COLOR THEORY FLOWERS since early spring! We explored color mixing with the primary colors using a variety of different paint processes. We used those papers to make flowers inspired by the book, The […]

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Process Art: Using Feathers for Art Making

We love making art on unusual or unconventional surfaces. Have you seen our Coffee Filter Butterflies or our plastic Milk Jug Faces? We also love using unconventional materials to use as a tool for art making! Want to know what I mean? See below how our feathers transformed from one process to another. Using a unique material to […]

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Mixed Media Rainbow Art Inspired By Children’s Literature

Children’s literature is a great source of inspiration for many of our projects. Check out our latest Art/Lit project below and then see some more book based art ideas at the end of this post. This post contains affiliate links. Our Mixed Media Rainbow Art inspired by the book, How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow by […]

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Giant Cardboard Feathers

I love using cardboard for creating because it is a FREE canvas that is readily available.

We have used cardboard for many past projects including our Funky Chickens, Monochromatic Collage, and our Upcycled Owls. There are many more so just take a look under my Create page and you can find a lot of inspiration with recycled materials.

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New Gig and International Dot Day 2018

With the exception of my last post on our Funky Chickens, it has been a while since I posted on The Art Garden. I have still been occasionally active on my Instagram page, but other than that I have been hitting the floor running with my new gig…I’m back to teaching art!

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Make These Funky Chickens With 5 Common Recyclables!

Did you know that September is National Chicken Month? Yeah, me either. Once I heard it was, though, I had to dig through our crafty archives to share these Funky Chickens with you all before the month was over. We made these last fall and they are proudly hanging in our art space, paying homage […]

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Art Inspired by the Book, Where Oliver Fits

Children’s books has always been one of my favorite sources of inspiration for art projects and was a big part of my art curriculum when I used to teach. This post contains affiliate links. We recently picked up the book, Where Oliver Fits by Cale Atkinson, from our local library and I fell in love […]

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Monochromatic Collage: Green Study

This simple collage project is made using cardboard, scrap papers, and miscellaneous recycled materials in a green monochromatic color scheme. MONOCHROMATIC– of or having one color; of, relating to, or having tones of one color in addition to the groundhue This project would be perfect for Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day, or for just a color theory exploration. This post contains affiliate links. Materials: Canvas panel or stiff piece of cardboard Cardboard scraps […]

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Milk Jug Faces

Create some fun masks or mythical creatures using a mix of recycled and various decorative items. These milk jugs are a perfect canvas for some 3-dimensional creativity! This post contains affiliate links. Supplies: Spray primer will help the paint adhere and not flake off. I use this a lot for plastic (and some cardboard projects) so […]

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Upcycled Owls: Art Using Recycled Materials

When I first started teaching art, I found very quickly that art budgets can be slim and teachers must get very creative and thrifty. Now that I am a stay-at-home-mom, it is still necessary for me to be frugal and cut costs where I can. A run to the craft store for one project can […]

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