Mosaic Garden Plaques

The kids had their regular monthly Bunnings Hardware Workshop during the week. This time it was Garden Plaque's and it fitted perfectly into our current Mosaic's Theme.

A pretty straight forward, although messy activity, but if you would like to try it out at home I've included quite a few snapshots below.

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Materials Needed

Mould
Plaster of Paris
Water
Mosaics (stones, rocks, shells, tiles)
Cloth (for spills)
Glove for mixing plaster

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Grab whatever you have chosen to use as a mould. In this case it was a drip tray for a pot plant (or at least I think that's what it was). If I redid this at home I would line the mould first with cling wrap, like I did with our Clay Star Mosaics.

Read the directions on your plaster pack and start adding the plaster and water to your mould.

Mix, mix, mix. Keep on mixing and adding plaster powder until you have the right consistency.

This is where you need to start working quickly. Remember to remind the kids about that part or they will be disappointed towards the end when they can no longer add bits and pieces to their plaque due to the plaster drying out.

You need to have it thick enough so that the mosaic pieces you have chosen will sit on top and not sink to the bottom (as would happen if there was stil too much liquid) but not too thick that the plaster is already starting to dry.

Smooth off the top of the plaster and start adding your mosaic pieces. If you want a design you really need to think about that first. It's a bit late to start planning some kind of design after you have mixed the plaster as you just won't have the time to do it.




Remember this is where you need to work quickly. Get those mosaic pieces in and pressed down so that they will well and truly stick as the plaster drys.

Then all you need to do is sit back and enjoy your masterpiece. Let it dry, at least overnight. We left ours for a couple of days.

You might like to use a damp cloth to clean up any excess plaster from around the edges of the mould.

Remove from the mould and place somewhere in your garden.

Let me know if you try this at home, I'd love to see some other variations.

Open Ended Art: Paper Mosaics

We are a little on the late side with sharing our Paper Mosics project, but I have been a bit off colour this week.

I really liked how Susanna's kids did theirs on black card so I dug mine out of the cupboard for this activity. Anyway, without further ado here are this weeks creations.

I cheated slightly and bought pre cut paper, @ $1.99 a packet it was well worth it!

K5 loved this, in fact after she finished her butterfly she proceeded to use the remainder of the mosaic paper and black cardboard and covered it in mosaic squares. Not quite what I had in mind for the leftovers but oh well, she enjoyed herself!

B7 still hasn't finished his. I think he realised that he was probably trying to get in too much detail with his dinosaur. The paper squares just weren't small enough.

To see other paper mosaic creations visit Teaching My Little Bookworm.

Open Ended Art: Mosaics

Teaching My Little Book Worm runs a weekly theme on Open Ended Art and we thought that we would join in this time around since the theme is Mosaics and we've been wanting to do some mosiac work for ages.

There is no doubt a more effective way to do this but this is what we came up with.

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Materials Needed:

Clay (or Playdough)

Pebbles

Mould of some description, we used a Paper Mache Mould of a Star that I picked up on a throw out table

Cling Wrap

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Our Materials

We lined the mould with cling wrap so the clay wouldn't stick to it.

Then push the clay into the mould, making sure the surface is even as possible.



Clay waiting for the pebbles.

Adding pebbles. Be sure to push them right in or they just fall out.

The finished pieces, waiting to dry. B7's is the star and K5's is the face on the star.

After allowing to dry, this is B7's finished star. (K5 had a little accident with hers so unfortuantely we don't have a finished photo to share)

After they finished working on the star moulds, I gave them each a piece of canvas art board and suggested they draw something and fill it with pebble mosiacs. They went straight to work, after drawing their initial design they quickly realised that they would need to sort the pebbles into colours.

This took some time but was actually a great activity in itself. Some of those pebbles were really tricky to decide what colour they should be placed into to.

K5 decided on a tree and a flying creature.

Not quite finished, I believe she is going to paint the background on this one.

B7 chose an airplane, he still has a bit of a way to go with his.

We enjoyed participating in Open Ended Art and are looking forward to next week - Paper Mosaics. Why not check out what everyone else got up to over at Teaching My Little Bookworm.

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Sites Of Interest

Teaching My Little BookWorm

How Stuff Works Nature Crafts For Kids

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