A Homeschool group to Creative Cafe in Barrie Ontario

Today we went to Creative Cafe in Barrie with one of our homeschool groups. We have never been before and enjoyed our time there a lot.

***I have not been compensated for this post in any way. It is my honest opinion of how we enjoyed our time spent there for your reference only***

The studio is big and bright and oh so full of goodies! There is a great selection of ceramic pieces to choose to paint and lots of sample work if you need a little bit of inspiration.

I thought the studio was only for ceramics but learnt while we were there that they do many many art forms. There's a good selection of wood pieces to use. They offer canvas, pottery, and  glass fusing mediums as well.

Upon arriving you choose a piece of bisque to work with and find a table. The tables are set up with everything you need (brushes, water, sponges) except your paint.

You select your paint from here. There is a good selection of colours to choose from.

You can see two frogs on wall (above) that represent what your colours look like after painting and after firing. When fired the pieces become much darker in colour (when you use at least 3 layers of paint).

Step one (after you choose your bisque piece) is to wipe it with a damp sponge. You want to wash off any little bits of dust that might still be on your piece from the mold when it was created.

Next choose your paint. The pallet of paint colours shows two tone squares which the light half represents just 1 coat of paint and the dark colour represents what 3 coats of paint look like after firing.

Each square has a number on it which corresponds to a bottle of paint. I got my girls to search for the colours they wanted and then find the correct number on the paint bottle to help them learn to recognize two and three digit numbers.

You want to put just a little bit of paint in your tray at a time so not to waste any colours (there's a marker line on each individual pallet). Below Sierra has chosen and found her six colours. She ended up only using 4 colours so Aayla used some of hers in the end so as to not waste the paint. Even though we followed the recommended guideline and shared paint we still had a fair amount of left over paint when finished. This extra paint basically just gets wasted as it can't go back into the bottles and just gets washed away.

FYI We also had to go back a few times to get more of certain colours so be careful to keep track of the colours you chose to make sure you get the same colour on your refills.

Now for the fun part... let the painting begin.

 Such concentration...serious work going on here while we paint.

They also have a selection of very fine tipped containers to add small details like eye lashes. You also use these to write your name on the bottom. I added the year to our girls as well so they will always remember when their masterpieces were created.

 Both girls chose two small pieces. Aayla made an Easter egg and a unicorn (and is busy washing her hands below).

Sierra made a bunny and a small owl.

Aayla finished much faster then Sierra and spent the remaining 15 minutes washing her hands with the sponges... She is a water girl and always  jumps right in to water when ever she gets the chance.

Now we wait 5-7 days for a phone call to go back in and pick up our pieces and see how they turned out!

Creative Cafe also offer a variety of classes, workshops and summer camps. HERE is 2014's summer camp lists. The week of August 14th is right up Sierra's alley and if our house doesn't sell by then she will LoVe it! They also has a separate space for birthday parties.

There are certain days with discounts too and Ladies night sounds good to me...what do you think ladies?

Overall I was impressed with both the space and the staff at Creative Cafe. The staff were very helpful and informative. We received a home school  group discount and paid a $5.00 per painter studio fee instead of the regular $8.00 for children and $10.00 for adults. The four pieces my girls chose cost $27.00 in total so for $37.00 plus tax we made 4 items that they can keep for years to come or use as gifts.

Creative Cafe does not rush you by giving you a set amount of time to use the studio (as some studios charge per hour). You can stay and paint at your leisure. We spent about 2 1/2 hours painting and talking with friends we haven't seen in awhile as well as meeting new friends. A wonderfully creative, memory making morning full of FUN!

I Spy Ornament gifts

I recently got a bag of 15 clear glass baubles at a thrift store so we have been busy making all kinds of ornaments. There were a couple plastic ornaments which I was just going to donate back but then I saw this I SPY Ornament idea and I knew my girls would LOVE them.

They were so easy to do and the girls love shaking them up. They made one each to keep with their ornament collection and we will make more for a couple of their little friends.

Here is what you need: clear plastic baubles, pellets (I got mine at the thrift store too not sure where else to buy them...the tutorial above used epsom salts instead), small beads, buttons and trinkets to add to the ball, ribbon and a glue gun.

The girls chose 20 items each to add to their balls.

We laid them all out and took a picture of them.

We printed out this picture so they know which items are in it and can search for each item (they also have been playing together one at a time searching for something the other suggested).

To begin, fill one half of the plastic bauble with pellets.

Fill the other half with the items of your choice. Now for the tricky part...placing one half on top of the other.
 NOTE we didn't add more pellets before placing the top on and had a tricky time opening the bauble again to add more pellets. It would be much better to top off the bauble with pellets before placing it ontop of the other half.

Now for the fun part...shake, shake, shake to mix them all up.

Here Sierra is searching for one of her treasures.

 Happy that she found it :) So fun!

 We were shaking a little too much and one burst open before we glued the ribbon around the seem where the two halves meet. So you may want to do the ribbon before you start your shaking too!

We also made some glitter globes... You will need a glass bauble, glitter glue and someway to stabilize the bauble while they decorate (we stuck a sharpie marker in the open end and stood it upright in a glass).

 Now just cover the bauble with glitter glue, allow to dry and hang...it doesn't get much simpler then that!

I really want to make some of THESE!!! I have some feathers we have collected on our walks and I think this would be a perfect way to preserve them :) These are great to keep out all year too!

Beeswax Candles: travel tins and rolled Day 17 countdown to Christmas

Todays countdown to Christmas activity was to make beeswax candles. I have wanted to make them for awhile and bought beeswax before we went on our 4 1/2 month trip this summer but never got around to doing anything with it :(

Today was the day to give it a try and I must say I LOVE the smell of melting beeswax!

I purchased some travel tins from Micheals last year and they have been sitting quietly waiting for me to get busy with the beeswax!

I actually have way more beeswax then pictured here. I bought this chunk at a craft show last Christmas and then in the spring found a local beekeeper that sold me a dozen coffee cups full of raw wax (He said I'd need to purify it but all we did was melt it and be careful when we poured it so most of the black bits stayed in the pot). The chunk above just looked prettier for the picture :)

To melt the wax I bolied a pot of water then cut off the top from a milk carton. I chopped up the beeswax into smaller chunks and placed it into the milk carton. I then put the milk carton into the water so it melted the wax from the heat of the water instead of the heat of the burner.

While the wax was melting the girls decorated 1 inch strips of paper to put around the outside of the travel container (they used rubber stamps and then coloured in the images). We also punched out a circle to cover the lids.

When it was time to pour the melted wax we had to stabilize the wicks until the wax hardened (we just used a couple of the kid utensils).

The wax smells so pretty when it's melting and looks so nice when it has cooled.

When the wax was completely cooled we glued on the decorated paper and then Sierra added some glitter glue to hers.

 We made a couple tea cup candles too in vintage thrift store mugs.

Travel candles are all done but we weren't finished with the beeswax...I also have a box full of beeswax sheets that I was saving forever. I tried to use it once but it kept cracking and breaking and I got frustrated with it so it just sat around for about 8 years!!!

I learnt a little secret about beeswax sheets...it likes to be warmed up when you use it. We picked out a piece of red and a piece of green and set to work.

 First we cut off a rectangle that was about 4 inches long.

 Then we gave it a quick blow dry to warm it up.

 I placed the wick onto the wax and rolled the lip up as shown below and then Sierra did the rest. Aayla was able to make one too but hers is not rolled quite as tightly.

 At the end, we warmed up the edge of the wax and pressed it down firmly to secure in place. Sierra also added some green holly leaves we cut out of the green beeswax sheet with a small cookie cutter. We heated up the tip of the leaf and pushed it on to secure it in place.

 The girls tried to heat and roll some red scraps to make berries but it proved to be too difficult for them so they gave up and use red glitter glue. They look nice but I am bot sure what happens when glitter glue burns...I guess we will find out soon enough.

Sierra finally discovered Elfie tonight too...he was hiding amounst a cluster of Santa's...very tricky!