Comments (15)

By Mom Unplugged, August 9, 2009 9:39 pm

We’re back from France and finally over the jet lag. Time for the weekly Unplugged Project to resume!

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project is photograph so we came up with a super-easy photo project using some of the many photos from our trip.

Inspired by a very old, hand-colored black and white photograph of my mother as a child, I thought it might be fun to turn some of our trip photos into old-fashioned, or maybe even funky-looking colored pictures.

First we each chose a few favorite trip photographs to play with. Since our pictures were all digital, it was easy to transform them into black and white using my photo editor (not exactly “unplugged,” but this is just the first step).

After experimenting a bit, I found that for darker pictures, or those with many dark colors, the result was improved by lightening the exposure slightly (any simple photo editor can do this also).

TIP: Before altering with your photos with the editor, make a duplicate of your photo and use that. You don’t want to permanently change your one and only copy of that favorite picture!

We printed the new black and white pictures onto plain white document paper. Regular paper is easier to color on than photo paper, and even if the picture appears a bit grainier on ordinary paper, that simply adds to the old/artsy effect.

Wait for the ink to dry completely before moving on to the next step. This might take a little while if the picture has lots of dark bits.

When everything is dry, you can start coloring. We used colored pencils since they allow the picture to show through the color.

• You can try to reproduce the real colors (more or less - of course the cat wasn’t really yellow!), such as here:

• Or have fun and do crazy colors for more of a modern art look:

• Experiment with pressing hard, or lightly.

• Keep the colors in the same family, or vary them.

• Try coloring some areas and leaving others black and white.

Whatever you decide to do, the effect is really beautiful, almost luminescent sometimes!

The children and I found this fun and easy, even my 3 year-old. She wanted to color a baby picture of herself. I love that green hair:

Use your pictures for a scrapbook or album, frame them, or make a collage out of them. You could even turn them into cards or family gifts.

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If you joined in this week’s Unplugged Project with your own photograph project, then please put a link to your project post (not just your blog) in Mr. Linky below. Please leave a link in a comment too since Mr. Linky has been having problems lately. If you didn’t do a photograph project, then please don’t link, but read more about how to join in here. We’d love to have you!

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Pocket

Have fun!

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Comments (23)

By Mom Unplugged, June 28, 2009 9:53 pm

Our Weekly Unplugged Project post for this week’s theme of tiny is coloring rice (a grain of rice is tiny, right?).

Not very original, but I was going to take this a step farther with a colored rice project. However this simple first step was such a HUGE hit with my kids of all ages and genders, that it deserves its own post.

I like color. There is not one white wall in my house. Therefore I have always wanted to try coloring rice. Is that a logical progression to you? It is to me.

Instructions for how to make colored rice are all over the internet, such as here and here. Google “coloring rice” or “colored rice” and you will see!

We needed a large bag of white rice. Don’t use brown rice or parboiled (which is sort of beige), since the colors will show up better if the rice is as white as possible.

I checked all the prices per ounce at our one local grocery store and found a 10 pound bag for about $8.00 (I am sure you could shop around and find a much better deal than that).

You’ll also need rubbing alcohol (maybe), food coloring, and plastic ziploc baggies.

I read somewhere that you can use vinegar instead of alcohol, or it can be done simply with food coloring alone, but the rice might not be as brightly colored.

We did a few batches without alcohol and they were fine, I honestly couldn’t tell the difference and the smell when damp was a lot better without it (the alcohol smell does disappear once the rice is fully dry). I would skip the alcohol next time.

Some people say that paste food coloring produces a brighter result, but I thought ours turned out great with liquid coloring.

I passed out a baggie to each child and then scooped a few cups of rice into each baggie.

Next I added a bit of alcohol to each baggie (not much, a teaspoon maybe?).

Each child chose a color to make and dropped in the appropriate color, or mixture of colors.

NOTE: This is a really fun project for learning how colors mix (if you are a kindergarten teacher or homeschooling parent, be sure to remember this one, because it would make a great kindergarten color project)!

The really fun part is shaking and smooshing the baggie to spread the color.

Just be sure the baggie is closed properly. We had a bit of an accident as you can see here:

(I found these instructions that call for a plastic margarine container for the mixing instead of plastic bags. This method might be safer, as long as you make sure the lid is on tightly.)

We discovered that the more you smoosh and shake, the more uniformly distributed and solid the color is. If you only do a bit of mixing, enough to just barely color everything, you get a very pretty variation of colors which I preferred:

Once you feel the rice is colored to your satisfaction, then spread it on a foil covered baking sheet and put it in a 200 degree oven until dry.

Stir about half way through the process to uncover the wetter rice from underneath. It took about 15 minutes for us, but if you put in a lot of liquid color and alcohol, it might take a bit longer. You can also let it air dry, but I am far too impatient for that.

The cooled, dry rice was irresistible to little hands. Even I had to touch it and sift it through my fingers. What a great, Montessori sensory material!

After the rice is dry and cool, use it right away or store it in a baggie or jar.

My kids and I all LOVED this project! We made lots and lots of colors. The children experimented with different color combinations and amounts of mixing.

One of my favorites was this one, where my 7 year-old son put many different colors in. I anticipated a big muddy brown mess, but he didn’t mix it up much and ended up with quite a variety of lovely earth tones in his batch, as you can see here:

Remarkable fact: The kids are 8 (girl), 7 (boy) and 3 (girl)…plus a guest: age 8 (boy), and me (girl)… age more than 8 and less than 100, and we ALL loved this project. It is hard to find a project that appeals to all ages, but this one was it for us.

As my oldest daughter said, “Our kitchen is a colored rice factory!!”

By the way, anticipate a good lesson in vacuum cleaner use after this project.

Also note the hopeful dog parked strategically under the kitchen table, just waiting for falling goodies:

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Did you do a tiny Unplugged Project this week? If so, then please put your link (to your post, not just your blog) in the Linky below. If you didn’t do a tiny project this week but would like to learn how to join in future Unplugged Projects, then please do not link, but read more about how to join in here.

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The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Container

Enjoy and be creative!

Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, June 23, 2009 3:10 pm

Photo credit: mconnors from morguefile.com

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project is mechanical.

I have been away and just got back yesterday so this week’s Linky is late and we haven’t done our project yet. I think we’ll get to it later in the week though (I’ll be sure to put my link in below so it is all together with the other mechanical projects). I had a fun time, but I must say it is nice to be home again!

If you did a mechanical Unplugged Project this week, then please link to your project post (not just your blog) in the Linky below. And the usual explanation applies too: if you didn’t do a mechanical Unplugged Project, but would like to find out how to join in in the future, please do not link but read more about how the Unplugged Project works here. The more the merrier!

The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Tiny

Have fun!

PS. The latest update on last week’s slippery worm bin: The children have been very impatiently awaiting the arrival of the resident worms. We finally received a tracking number and discovered that our worms are currently in Memphis, Tennessee! What world travelers they are! Hopefully they are enjoying a bit of shopping and listening to some great Blues before continuing on to Arizona. We are hoping they’ll arrive here at their “forever home” tomorrow or the next day. Their worm hotel will need a bit of moistening and freshening, but it is ready and waiting.

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Comments (3)

By Mom Unplugged, June 15, 2009 7:51 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project is slippery.

We have a project to do that loosely fits the slippery theme and we’ll probably get to it tomorrow, or maybe Wednesday. I’ll be sure to put my link in Mr. Linky here when I have the post up.

Meanwhile, if you did a slippery Unplugged Project this week, please put your link in Mr. Linky below (and in a comment in case there is a problem with Mr. Linky). If you didn’t do a slippery project but are interested in learning about how to join us in the future, then please do not link, but read more about how to join in here.

The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Mechanical

Have fun!

PS. Sorry this post is a bit late, but a busy schedule combined with blog technical difficulties made it a difficult week to get it up on time!

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Comments (4)

By Mom Unplugged, June 2, 2009 2:18 pm

The theme for this week’s Unplugged Project was petal. We planted flowers this week…unimaginative perhaps, but at least our front porch is looking pretty!

Between golf lessons, art camp, and homeschool French we haven’t had time this week for a more formal project. Perhaps next week (golf and art will be over).

If you did a petal Unplugged Project this week then please leave a link to your project post in Mr. Linky below, and a comment with the link too. If you didn’t do a petal project, but would like to join us in future Weekly Unplugged Projects then you can read more about how it works here.

NOTE: Mr. Linky appears to be up right now, but there have been a lot of problems lately, so please also leave your link in a comment in case the Linky fails again. We want to always be able to find your project post!

The theme for next week’s Unplugged Project will be:

Homemade

Have fun and be creative!