Craft Club: Project One - Stained Glass Paper Name Collages

Craft Club is awesome! Just reviewing these photos fills me with good feelings!

On Wednesday I had about ten kids show up. They finished their stained glass effect name collages. We listened to classic Jackson 5 and talked about our favorite movies. 

One of the kids in Craft Club has severe behavioral problems at school. Most of my Crayons are afraid of this belligerent child and I was a little concerned about having him stay after too. I think we were all plesantly surprised to learn that he really can be a nice kid. Craft club was pure harmony.  I feel both encouraged and angered by this. How many jails will be built before the educational pendulum swings back and true arts education is available for everyone?

We can do no great things, only small things with great love.  ~Mother Teresa

To help keep things in perspective this should be tattooed on every inner city teacher's hand.

Would you like to to make one? Here's what we did:

First we taped our paper to an art board. The blue painters tape came from the dollar store and the hardboard art boards came from home depot. I think they are about 14" X 20". Then we wrote our names with bubble letters. An easy trick for bubble letters is to first write the letter in very light pencil. Then trace around the letter and finally, erase the inside letter.

Next we traced all sorts of stencils around our names. I should do a whole post about my stencils. They are over ten years old and still going strong. I made them from laminated tag board and cut them using the Ellison presses at this wonderful Learning Resource Center in East Orange, NJ.

 
Next, we mixed Elmers glue with black acrylic craft paint in these handy little bottles. The ratio was about 1/3 paint to 2/3 glue, but I just eyeballed it. We then traced over every line and allowed the paint to dry.

Finally, it was time to paint!

Doesn't this ice cream cone look good enough to eat!

The best thing about this project was that it was easy enough that everyone felt successful and had fun.

Before we knew it, time was up. Until next week, keep calm and craft on!

Many thanks to That Artist Woman for her awesome original idea!