Creative Galaxy Inspired Toddler Mosaic Art



As I have said before on this blog, I am not naturally artistic, but our oldest daughter definitely is!  And her early and enthusiastic interest in art has forced me to come up with opportunities to explore her artistic side; but often I feel like I am floundering for inspiration.  And I often get ideas from just watching what she is watching, what she is interested in.  One of the shows she is very interested in is a new show from Amazon Prime Instant Video called Creative Galaxy.  It is perfect for her art-loving soul!

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The point of Creative Galaxy is to get preschoolers (and their parents) interested and aware of art.  It helps show young eyes that art is everywhere in the world around them and it is easy to become an artist.  Each episode has LOTS of ideas to inspire kids to make their own art.  The characters on the show, Arty and Epiphany (and their friends), teach how to do the art projects through an animated story.  And then on each episode, real kids do the art projects by themselves while talking about and teaching how to do the projects.  This is really helpful (and encouraging) for parents because it removes the barrier of fear of craftiness and gives very clear instructions for making art with their own kids!

Arty and Epiphany are also problem solvers, taking every opportunity to “fix it with art” in the episodes.  I love that kids are encouraged to be creative problem solvers.  I am not very imaginative myself, so having a little help from the Creative Galaxy to teach my girls to use their imaginations as inspiration is really great.  But the girls aren’t really aware of the nudges toward creativity and imagination, they are just enjoying the story and the art!  G has even started saying some of the catch phrases from the episode, including, “We fixed it with art!” and, “it’s MY masterpiece!”  So cute!

I also love that when Arty finds something that inspires him, he says “that lights me up!”  It is such a cute phrase to describe the feeling of inspiration.  And he encourages the kids to look for things that light them up, pointing out that inspiration for art is all around us.

One specific episode has lots of crafts to make for Arty’s birthday party.  Since we were celebrating W’s birthday this weekend, I thought it would be so fun to do one of the crafts on the episode with the girls.  I chose to try to make paper maché treat bags. Typically, I would be nervous about this type of project, but watching the episode encouraged me to try it out!  I think it must have something to do with the theme song.  It is seriously so catchy, you will be humming and singing it all week!

The episode doesn’t give a recipe for paper maché glue, so I did a little research and found this one from Blonde Mom Blog that is edible (not that you would want to) and easy to make.  It also makes WAY more than we needed, so maybe cut it in half for smaller projects.

Here is what we gathered from the creative galaxy to make our Paper Maché Mosaic Art:

  • balloons
  • crepe paper streamers (torn into small pieces)
  • Paper Maché glue (prepped from Blonde Mom Blog’s recipe)
  • paint brush (you could use foam brushes, but we don’t have any, so we “fixed it with art”)

Creative Galaxy art project prep

 

The instructions for the paper maché mosaic art were gleaned from watching the episode of Creative Galaxy, but a really quick set of instructions are as follows:

  1. Blow up a balloon
  2. Use paint brush to slather glue onto the balloon evenly.
  3. Apply strips of paper over the surface of the balloon.

Creative Galaxy Inspired Mosaic Art

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After we let them dry, we popped the balloons and didn’t quite get the same results as the characters on Creative Galaxy.  Arty and Epiphany made theirs into treat bags, but ours were not as sturdy as they would have been if we had made them with newspaper (they used newspaper in the episode).   Ours kind of deflated and looked sad.  But what was great about it, was my 3-year-old looked at it, as it was deflating in front of us and said, “It looks perfect!”  We have short-attention span toddlers, so I wanted to cut down on the painting step, by using colored paper.  But what I should have done to make it sturdier was layer it.  The extra layers would have given the art project the stiffness it needs to remain inflated after the balloon is removed.

Creative Galaxy Inspired Tot Mosaic art project

I love in another episode of the show that they state again and again, that if you like your art, it is not wrong.  It encourages parents and children to be happy with the results they have, even if it is not perfect.  True art comes from being inspired and it is not very easy to get inspired if you are intent on perfection as a goal.  Though our project is not picture perfect, it is perfect in the eyes of my oldest girl, the artist.  So that is all that matters!

 

mosaic art project for toddlers, inspired by Creative Galaxy

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.


This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. evonne

    I love this idea. And, they are right, art is never wrong.
    My mother used to make enough paper mache in an old wash tub. It was probably enough for 20 classrooms! We made volcanoes for an open house at her school every year. It actually was pretty exceptional.
    Enjoy!!!

  2. Jamie

    Thanks for sharing my glue recipe! It was truly easy to make and to work with and I am not very crafty at all.

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