students – Roylco

Chinese Lanterns

Get ready for Chinese New Year! Learn how to create lanterns can help students work with form and color to create these awesome, decorative projects. We’ll show you the step by step process using our R22021 Color-In Chinese Lanterns and our R55009 Shape Sponges!

Age: 5+

Duration: 20 minutes

You’ll Need:

• R22021 Color-In Chinese Lanterns

• R55009 Shape Sponges

• Paint

• Glue

• Glitter (if desired)

• Paint tray

• Paint bowl

• Paint brush

• String

• Tape

It’s a good idea to use newspapers to contain glitter!

Each of the Chinese Lantern projects comes with 3 pieces: a large square with lines cut into it, a medium rectangle and a wavy-looking long piece.

Set each piece inside your paint tray. Paint all 3 pieces in a flat color. If needed, paint on two or three layers. When you are satisfied with the strength of the paint color, set aside to dry.

Once the large square piece is completely dry, get ready to decorate it! Fill a plastic bowl with a bit of white glue. Select a favorite sponge shape and dip one side into the glue. Carefully stamp the sponge shape 4-6 times across the square lantern piece.

Make sure you do this step quickly, before the glue dries! Place the square piece onto newspaper. Sprinkle gold glitter glue completely on top of the stamped glue areas.

When the glue and glitter have dried, gently lift up one edge of the square piece and shake off the excess. Only the parts where the glitter met the glue will remain on the square piece. This creates a lovely surprise for students! Tip: Try to separate the die-cut lines if they are stuck together from the paint/glue.

Now it’s time to switch back to the medium rectangle piece. There are two tabs at the top and of the rectangle piece. On the bottom are two slots. Flip over the piece and locate the tabs. Grab the sides of the tabs and fold them into the center.

Roll the rectangle piece into a tube. To secure the tube, slide the folded tabs into the slots.

Reach inside the tube and unfold the tabs to “lock” in place.

You can reinforce the tube with a bit of tape!

Now it’s time to attach the handle. That’s what the long wavy piece is for! Locate the two slots along the top edge of the tube and slide the ends of the handle through.

This will create a little basket-like project. Lay your glitter-stamped square piece face down so that the unpainted side is facing up. Align the top edge of the basket tube with the top edge of the square piece.

Wrap the glitter-stamped piece all around the tube and secure the edges together with tape.

Now, flip the lantern over. To create the bowl effect, you need to match the bottom edge of the square piece with the bottom edge of the inner tube. This will cause the strips to fan out.

Tape the bottom edges together.

If needed, separate and fan out the individual strips.

A beautiful, glittery take-home gift or, use string to hang the lanterns together from the classroom ceiling.

Thanks for stopping by to view this post! If you would like to share some of your or your students’ projects, send photos of your work to subscriber@roylco.ca! Thanks for visiting and check back soon!

Posted on January 9, 2019February 12, 2020 by Raman

Drip Drip Splatter Splash uses our Color Diffusing Paper!

Create awesome effects on Color Diffusing Paper! The Drip, Drip, Splatter, Splash blog posted their butterfly artwork which used Color Diffusing Paper, permanent marker and watercolor paints.

The post was published on April 17, 2013 and is entitled, “Butterfly Art.” Click here to visit the page!

Using permanent marker helps to create definite lines that students can use as guidelines for painting. We suggest to first have your design sketched out onto scrap paper. Once you are satisfied with the look, place a sheet of Color Diffusing Paper on top. Trace the outlines with black marker onto the Color Diffusing Paper.

Watercolor paints work best with the Diffusing Paper as it gets absorbed into and throughout the paper. This neat effect is due to the process of diffusion. Diffusion happens when the particles in watercolors meet a material like diffusing paper that has little to no water content. As a result, it is always trying to fill in that area with watercolor particles.

The first part of the post shows a beautiful picture of the various butterfly renditions made with Color Diffusing Paper. Scroll further down the post to see other variations made with different materials!

Thanks to Shelly P for sharing her work!

Images and original post © Drip, Drip, Splatter Splash

This post was not sponsored for a review. At LittleFingersBigArt, our mission is to present to our readers and viewers the newest and most creative craft ideas that fans of Roylco have made on their own. Our goal is to allow you and other educators and parents to reuse our products in fun ways so that children always get the best educational experience from them!

We’d love to see more ideas like this one! If you’ve got a brilliant craft idea or have made a version of one of our crafts that you would like to share with us, send an email to subscriber@roylco.ca with photos, descriptions or a link to your work. We will create a feature post and link back to you with full credit. We’d love to hear from you!

Posted on March 28, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Colored Rice Stencil Shapes

Earlier this week, we posted a Craft Spotlight post on Colored Rice. Today we’ll show you how to use Colored Rice with our various stencil shapes to make decorative shapes for your classroom wall!

Age: 4+

Duration: 15-20 minutes

You’ll Need:

• R2114 Colored Rice

• R5522 Child’s First Stencil Set

• Construction paper / Card paper

• White glue

• Scissors

• Plastic bowls

• Paintbrush

• Paint tray

This activity encourages students to work through a multi-step process. The first step encourages children to use their fine motor skills while tracing the image in the stencil. The second is carefully layering glue onto the image. The third is dropping a little bit of rice at a time onto the image, being careful to hold the rice between joined fingers. Not only do you end up with a great result but students gain some fine motor experience as well!

It’s a good idea to keep all the work inside a paint tray to eliminate problems that may happen from potential spills or mess.

Choose your favorite stencil shape and place onto the card paper. Cover the inside of the stencil entirely with glue. Spread the glue using an old paint brush so you get an even layer.

Next, remove the stencil. Grab a pinch of Colored Rice and spread all over the card paper. Make sure you layer on as much as possible!

You have to ensure that the entire image is covered. The more Colored Rice you drop onto the image, the better chance you have of the rice adhering straight to the glue.

Wait for the glue to dry completely! Lift up the edge of the card paper and shake off the excess rice.

How brilliant is that! The Colored Rice has a wonderful multi-color blend that makes any shape stand out. The final step is to cut the shape out.

Cut around the rice shape to give it a small white border. Apply a bit of tape or sticky tack to the back of the shape and post it up on a classroom wall!

Combine several different shapes together!

Thanks for stopping by! If you’ve made a craft similar to this or would like to send us your ideas, drop us a line at subscriber@roylco.ca! We’d love to hear from you.

Posted on February 26, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Craft Spotlight: Colored Rice

R2114 Colored Rice doesn’t work just as a collage material. It produces artwork that can be used in sensory activities! Non-toxic and easy to use. Check out more below!

A basic way to use Colored Rice is to first draw a basic image onto construction paper. Construction paper holds up best against glue, which is what we will use to stick the rice on. When you’ve drawn out your simple shape onto the paper, prepare your glue.

First, make sure your workstation is completely covered in a plastic sheet or newspaper. This will be important for later on. We suggest using something to catch the excess rice in, such as our plastic paint trays! Drop the glue into a plastic bowl and use an old brush to spread it across all the interior parts of the shape.

R2114

Once you have completely spread a layer of glue onto the shape you’ve drawn, sprinkle a large amount of Colored Rice all over the construction paper sheet. Let the rice sit onto the sheet until the glue is completely dry.

When the glue is dry, gently lift up one edge of the paper and allow the excess rice to shake off. The rest will stick to the parts of the image that were covered in glue.

To see more about this process, watch the video below!

Your students’ projects can be used as sensory images! Ask students to choose one simple shape each to make (such as stars, flowers, squares, circles, etc). Cut out small squares (about 4 x 4″) from construction paper and distribute one square to each student. Students can draw their chosen shape onto their square, cover the shape with glue and apply the rice to make the sensory images. Shake off the excess when the glue is dry.

Gather children into groups. One student in each group will be the leader. The leader will collect everyone’s sensory images and tell everyone to close their eyes. While no one is looking, the leader randomly distributes one sensory image to each student. Students must keep their eyes closed and feel over the rice texture to guess what shape it is!

Thanks for dropping by! Explore our site to see more crafts like this. If you were inspired to make something from this craft, send us photos of your work to subscriber@roylco.ca and we will publish a special post! We’d love to hear from you!

Posted on February 24, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Crayon Shaving Stained Glass Paper

Last year, one of our most popular crafts used a technique with shaved crayon bits to make authentic-looking stained glass images. Try it out for yourself! The stained glass effect can be applied to any of our black-frame designs.

Age: 5+ (Adult Supervision Required)

Duration: 20-30 minutes

You’ll Need:

• R52087 Tropical Fish Stained Glass Frames / R52070 Stained Glass Frames /R52074 Junior Stained Glass Frames / R52093 Stained Glass Lantern

• Unlabeled crayon sticks

• Pencil sharpener

• Black marker

• Wax paper

• Paper towel

• Iron (CAUTION: Use adult supervision!)

• Scissors

• Glue

Stack the sheets of wax paper and staple them together if they aren’t already attached. Place several sheets of the paper towel on top of and below the wax paper sheets to minimize mess. Lift the top sheet up and crease along the spine to hold it in place above the second sheet of wax paper. This second sheet of wax paper will be your workspace.

Place the wax paper on an iron-safe surface, preferrably a craft table.

Use the pencil sharpener to sharpen the ends of the crayon. Hold the pencil sharpener and the crayon stick above the workspace so that the shavings fall onto the wax paper. Keep sharpening the crayon ends until you have just about covered the workspace area. Tip: Use different colors to make the best crayon shavings mix. In the next step after this one, I found that using fluorescent-colored crayons produced the best results. The colors were so bright and beautiful. If you never had a real use for fluorescent crayons (as the colors don’t show up so well on regular paper), save them instead for this project!

Once you have just about covered the sheet of wax paper, replace the first sheet of wax paper over top to cover. Make sure that the top and bottom of the wax paper sandwich is covered with paper towel. This is crucial for this next step. CAUTION: Using an iron requires adult supervision. Make sure you do not use any hot appliances without proper protection (oven mitts, for instance!).

Set the iron between the LOW and MEDIUM settings. Place the iron on top of the paper towel. Gradually push the iron across the paper towel in a zig-zagging motion. This will help to heat up the crayon wax to a liquid. While you push the iron across the sheet of paper, the crayon colors will converge and blend to create a wonderful stained glass look.

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When you have run the iron several times over the sheet of paper, remove the iron and have a look between the layers of wax paper to see how the crayon melt is forming. If it looks like it needs a little more work, fold the wax paper down and cover with the paper towel, then run over it with the iron.

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Place the stained glass design onto the crayon wax paper and adjust so that all the gaps are mostly covered by the color underneath. Use a black marker to trace around the outside edge of the stained glass design. This is a step that students will enjoy trying out for themselves as they can get to see how their finished art piece will look like.

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When you have finished tracing, cut out the crayon wax melt from the resulting outline. Hint: Make sure you keep track of what side of the stained glass design goes on top of the crayon wax melt. Use tape to secure the edges of the crayon wax melt and the stained glass design together.

Flip the design over to make sure none of the wax paper shows outside of the edges. Trim any excess off with your scissors or reapply and tape the wax melt onto the stained glass design.

Experiment with different colors and our other stained glass designs (the product numbers are available above in the materials list). The colors really are gorgeous! Hang the stained glass designs against a window to catch the light. When sunlight shines through the wax, the color will bounce off and reflect into the room. Enjoy the view. Talk to your students about the properties of light and color while creating the stained glass designs.

If you have a large window in your classroom, make an entire theme of stained glass designs to hang up! The view looks great both inside and out!

Thanks for stopping by! Give us your input or send us photos of your own projects to subscriber@roylco.ca. We’d love to hear from you!

Posted on February 19, 2014May 21, 2020 by Raman

Craft Spotlight: Masquerade Glasses

Bring out your inner drama buff! R52023 Masquerade Glasses are a great way to encourage students to express their performance skills while exploring decorative art techniques.There are several different types of Masquerade Glasses to choose from. For example, some of the glasses are well-rounded, others are cat-like frames, and yet other frames are shaped like stars, hearts or flowers. You’ll notice the various types in our Art Camp photos. The Art Campers loved to try on the different styles first and see which ones suited them best.

Some of our Art Campers decided to start decorating right away with collage materials and other nifty craft bits we could find. It would be a good idea to encourage students to first color in their Masquerade Glasses before proceeding to decorate them.

We used materials from the R75419 Sensory Collage Kit to provide our Art Campers with inspiration to decorate their dramatic glasses.

Some larger pieces helped to add color to the glasses! We attached all of the collage pieces onto the glasses with white glue.

R52023

You can color in the Masquerade Glasses with crayons, markers or paint. Cut out fun little shapes from construction paper or add on beautiful details with colorful pasta pieces or buttons.

To see more inspirational ideas, visit our PDF guide HERE!

Thanks for stopping by! Give us some of your feedback on projects you’ve made. Send us photos and your thoughts to subscriber@roylco.ca! We’d love to hear from you!

Posted on February 18, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman

Craft Spotlight: Bouquet Paper

No need to pick flowers! Make your own decorative bouquets with our realistic R24560 Bouquet Paper! The ingenious flower designs allow students to overlap the different flower images to make their own three-dimensional flowers!

Sheets of Bouquet Paper line one of the art tables at our Summer Art Camp. Each of the flower images can be popped out from the backing and combined with other flower images. To see more information on our R24560 Bouquet Paper click the following link!

Simply overlap the flower designs. Each flower image is marked with a center hole to allow students to thread a pipe cleaner through and secure the flowers together. The pipe cleaner acts like the flower’s stem! Make sure the flowers all align at the center hole before you secure them with the pipe cleaner.

You can add leaves to the flowers as well. The hole for the pipe cleaner is located at the base of each leaf. Adjust the position of the leaves along the pipe cleaner ‘flower stem.’

Each of the Bouquet Flower petals and leaves can be carefully folded along the center to add a realistic touch to your designs. Here, one of the Art Campers adjusts her flower bouquet!

The flowers were placed inside of clean and empty water bottles. The inside of the bottles were decorated with our 15203 Decorative Hues Paper located HERE. Students selected their favorite paper design, rolled it up into a tight tube and slipped it through the top of the bottle. Now it looks like a vase!

Perfect for adding a happy touch to your crafting table tops!

Thanks for stopping by! If you have used this craft in the past, send us photos of your work to subscriber@roylco.ca and we will feature them in an upcoming post!

Posted on February 5, 2014February 12, 2020 by Raman