Who is ready for a fun art project? What about something you can involve kids in? This is the point where the kids are jumping for joy and all us adults are sort of excited and having a lot of questions of how much extra work this will be. Isn’t that life? Kids are up for anything and adults weigh the cause and effect… kids, art supplies, mess, equals more work for me. Yay! This one is not too rough in the mess. It is full of cuteness though so there is that.
This is the supplies needed,
- 1 canvas or paper per child
- lots of buttons
- blue paint
- colorful paper
- string or a sharpie. I ended up using a sharpie and not the string. But I cannot recreate this picture. Imagine a sharpie in the place of the string, mkay?
Select the blue color. Each of my kids made this even more complicated by picking different blue’s for the sky of each picture.
I simplified things by painting the canvas myself. I then complicated it by taking pictures while painting. I like to keep things interesting around here. I used standard acrylic paints for this art piece. One coat of paint was enough to turn the canvas into a sunny and clear blue sky day.
Here is the sky.
These little guys are the hot air balloon baskets. I thought the fun pattern and color would work with the whimsical and not so realistic appearance to the art. I used a hot glue gun and glues them into the center of the picture.
I gave the kids a choice, they could have one large hot air balloon or a bunch of small ones. My boy’s wanted the one big one and Nora wanted to do a lot of little ones. I should have just asked Caleb what he wanted, because his little brother Gavin copies everything he does. It is adorable, and Caleb shines with being the big brother. Can you tell I am pretty obsessed with my crew of littles?
I drew a hot air balloon shape on the canvas and told the boy’s to place the buttons within the shape. Because I was using a hot glue gun for the buttons I knew I would be doing the gluing, but I wanted the pattern and colors to be all them.
Nora and I worked as a team. She placed each hot air balloon button, picked it up. I put a drop of hot glue on it and she smushed it in. We are a crafting team, the amazing button gluing duo. I am currently designing our team shirts.
This is what the hot air balloon looked like after my hot glue gun skills took over. The whole time I was gluing I had two boy’s asking me if I was done. Also correcting any button that I put in the wrong place. They were serious with this hot air balloon art. I needed to keep the integrity of their art.
Time to add the basket and strings to this piece. Remember when I stated that string was needed? I changed my mind. That would mean more of me gluing, and I wanted this to be as kid friendly as possible. So a black sharpie did the trick perfect. They each got to work drawing the lines. Nora also had to draw the buckets for her hot air balloons.
My fellow leftie Caleb at work on his strings.
Gavin at work. Notice the other two in the background reading? That was a pleasant surprise and happy Mommy moment. I love seeing them enjoy each other and interact.
This is where the pictures are going to go. This was taken when I was explaining the gallery wall building. I broke down the how to for gallery walls. You can see that post
here. I have since changed around the seating in here. Just realized I have not shared what I shifted and where it went. I love it when post ideas for this blog just fall into my lap.
I used a thin and small canvas for the kids to work with. I used some heavy duty double sided tape and stuck them on our gallery wall in our study.
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| Gavin’ work of art |
The kid’s and I googled fun and sweet quotes about flying or life. They each picked one that worked for them. I wrote it with the sharpie on the canvas. This was not in my initial plan, but I adore that small addition.
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| Caleb’s work of art |
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| Nora’s masterpiece |
This gallery wall is so special to me. The art work all has special meanings and was created by me, the kids, or my Grandma. It is so bright and fun. So us, which is exactly how a gallery wall should be in a home.
These little hot air balloon art pieces are so fun, cute, and easy to create!
Time for reality, this is what was going on right under the frames of the pictures above. No joke, I had two dog’s and two kids crawling around the whole time I was taking pictures. Nora was coloring about 2 feet from me at the art table. This is our home, and all the time sometimes it is not camera ready. Just zoom out!
Be still my heart. Is it ok and normal to swoon at a gallery wall? I am in lurve with it! I am all about making my home beautiful, and enjoy creating for it. But, I also like to make this home work for all involved. This home needs to match this stage in our life. Right now we are smack dab in the era of littles. That means art projects, little hands, eager tiny helpers, and lot’s of color. I am sure as my kids get older (ugly cry happening now), our family ages, the feel of the home will change. Us and our house will mature. For now it is bright, lively, colorful and a place where hot air balloon button art fits perfectly.
I am sure the time will come to take these special pieces down. They may not flow with a more mature look to the home. But, you can bet you @$$ I will be keeping these and putting them somewhere. Maybe next to the kleenux where I can blow my snotty nose while I cry big tears and reminisce about my little ones who are not so little. I will call them and ask hem about the fun times, the art we created, and begging them to visit. They will roll their eyes and tell me to top being so emotional. And then they will have kids of their own and get it. How weird would it be if my adult children are searching for art ideas for their kids and come across these on the interwebs? Freaky!!!
What are some fun things you like to do with your kids? Any great art project ideas you can send me to? Do you think there will even be projects on the internet when our kids have kids?
Very cute. I love your little reading nook and table. So fun and a reminder to always READ to our kids. 🙂
Stephanie @ thedishbcs.com
Thank you! It is a great reminder to read to the kids. That is luckily something that all of my kids adore doing.
What a fun project! I love how you added them to your gallery wall. I will have to do this with my little man. Thank you for sharing!
This gallery wall is turning into something really fun and special because I have added so much of my kids and our family into it. This was a great project for little ones to take part in.
Super cute! Love how you incorporate their art into your gallery wall! Also, can we talk about that book shelf thingy?! Super cool!
It was so fun having my kids make this, they think it is special that their art is up on the wall. The book shelf we redid out of a old spool, here is the link for the post. https://ourhousenowahome.com/2014/01/old-spool-redo.html
This is so cute! I can't wait till my daughters a little older to do fun projects like this with her. Thanks for sharing!
My kids are just getting to the age where it is more fun then work for me. It took us a few years to get to that point.
Love this! I need to make more wall art with my kids! Cute!
It was a lot of fun, and really awesome to see how each child went bout this project a different way.
I LOVE this!! I especially love how you let the kids take the reigns and let their creative juices flow. I definitely want to do one of these when my boys get older. Thank you for the GREAT idea!!
Thank you! It was a lot of fun to have some time with each child and see how they all had their own way of doing things. This project is far from perfect, but this was them. Imperfectly perfect 😉