Thursday, July 1, 2010

Crayon Scratch Fireworks



My children have almost all, outgrown Don Freeman's Corduroy. So, we checked out Corduroy's 4th of July one last time, before they all pass him by.

It's a simple board book, but the illustrations are colorful, and innocent, and depict perfectly the Independence Day we're looking forward to - with picnics, lawn games, parades, squirt guns, and fireworks. We just can't wait!

To pass the time, we decided to do another firework craft. This time with crayon scratch.

First, we colored rainbow streaks across our papers. Thanks to Debbie at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Lean, we knew to use the waxier crayons we got sometime back, with a restaurant coloring sheet, instead of our Crayola crayons, for the base colors.


We colored over our papers with black crayon.



Then, we used the back side of pens, to scratch the black away, in lines, revealing our fireworks.



For more story stretching arts, and crafts (and even another craft idea to go along with Corduroy's 4th of July), check out this week's stART (story + ART) link-up, at A Mommy's Adventures.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

11 comments:

Christy Killoran said...

I have to try that with my kids. They have a few of the books that have scratch paper in them (and love them), but it's fun to make your own scratch paper!

Thanks for the tip too! It's funny, over the years I have noticed that the cheaper crayons are better for just about every craft project (suncatchers with crayon shavings, making recycled crayons, scratch paper, etc) but I love coloring with Crayola crayons and you can't beat the names of the colors.

Ticia said...

I remember having one crayon that was cheaper and colored so cool for projects like that.

Christianne @ Little Page Turners said...

A classic activity! Mine are always a bust, but I'm glad yours turned out so great.

Stacie said...

I have always loved to do this, but my girls can't seem to color hard enough to get it to work very well. Maybe the waxier crayons would help us?

Also, thanks for stopping by my blog!

Charlene Juliani said...

Looks like fun. And now I see that 2 people have reccomended that book, we might have to try and find it.

Debbie said...

These are so fun to do! I love to make them up ahead of time and surprise Selena. She never knows what lays under the black. I am glad the waxier crayons worked well for you!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Very neat - I like the effect. How interesting that you and Michelle went for the same book.

sbswtp said...

Such a fun project! We also like that book :) I think it came out great :)

MamaGames - Alexa C. said...

My kids like these... but never want to do the black layer so I'm always the one to color that in! Ah, the life of a Mom. "Here, you do the BLACK." :D

Anonymous said...

The fireworks really show through. What a great craft!

Jenny said...

Aw, I get sad when they outgrow books. I have a whole tub of board books I can't bring myself to get rid of yet. That's a good project to use for making fireworks.