Collaborative art project for older primary children

The great thing about children is that they by and large get more dextrous the older they get. So when you get a class full of 11 and 12 year olds (and mostly boys as their female classmates are all off at a choir performance) and you need to give them something to do that will keep their hands and minds occupied origami comes to mind. And given that the school's "language other than English" is Japanese, everyone was happy to go along for the ride.

And then someone showed me the work of Will and Caro:

and I knew what to do with all the butterflies we made:

I used these instructions:

A 21st birthday tower

We were invited to the 21st birthday party of Emily, our neighbour's daughter. I offered to make a cake for the party, and this is what I made:

The component parts:

• 60+ cupcakes
• 70+ chocolate butterflies
• 2 cups of buttercream
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

A cake for Lisa

It was Lisa's birthday while I was visiting Perth so I whipped this little number up for her:

And here's what I learnt. Don't make the chocolate butterflies too flimsy, or they are hard to work with. And if you put a ganache covered cake in the fridge it will sweat when it comes out of the fridge. But then when it's summer in Perth you don't have much choice. And it was delicious!

Happy Birthday Letitia

Letitia invited me to her birthday party and I volunteered to make the cake. The "party" was in fact a sit down lunch, but after spectacular entree and mains, people wondered what dessert would be. That would be Bronwyn's cake! Lucky I made a big one. My first ever double decker cake!

But wait, there's more!

Mary Ann doesn't like chocolate, but she likes white chocolate, which made the decision about which cake to make for her birthday easy - more (white) chocolate butterflies. Maybe more than strictly necessary, but then it was a big birthday, so I tried to do as many butterflies as she was years old!

When you are onto a good thing.....

I wondered what the butterflies would look like piped in white chocolate, on butter cream icing... is it just me or do these look like little shepherds or cottage pies (with piped mashed potato on top)?

Made for the mothers' group 6th birthday celebrations.

A smaller group this year (see previous posts for previous years' cakes), hence the smaller cakes.

Another butterfly cake for Thomas

Last year, when he turned 5, Thomas wanted a cake with butterflies on it. This year he didn't specify what he wanted, so I did! And it's another butterfly cake, but not like the last one.

Inspired by Not So Humble Pie - http://notsohumblepie.blogspot.com/2009/12/mini-chocolate-butterfly-cake.html - this is it:

The chocolate butterflies were piped onto oven paper, then set in the freezer. After spreading chocolate ganache on the cake, the butterflies were simply arranged on top.

In terms of effort versus outcome, this is a winner.  

Greenwich Public School's Art Auction

Every second year the school has parents work with children so that each class creates an artwork to be auctioned to raise money for the school's Parents' and Citizens' Association.  I put my hand up to work with Thomas' class, KLM.  At the end of second term (July) a bunch of other Mothers and I helped the children marble paper. We achieved some remarkable pages of colour:

(I wasn't just looking for pink, but when more than half the class is girls, that's what predominates!)

I then scanned the marbled pages and reproduced the marbling on thicker card stock, and, inspired by Catherine Swan's work and emboldened by my earlier attempts at something similar, spent the July school holidays hand cutting butterfly shapes, until I had over 50!

Another Mum and I arranged them, mounting them on rice paper, before framing in a shadow box.

The finished picture was over 1m (3 feet) high by 50cm (one and a half feet wide).

This is the children's reaction when they saw it!

At the auction, it sold for $500!

The most amazing art was produced by other classes, too. These are the artworks from the other two Kindergarten classes:

A collage of wrapping paper torn into small pieces or cut into the shape of children's hands.

A colour blindness test made of painted wooden circles, some of them with children's hand drawings on them.

Greeting cards were also produced of the artworks.

This is the butterfly image from the card:

Our first school holidays

Inspired by the art of Catherine Swan, and after a trip to IKEA to spend a $10 voucher on a white shadow frame, Thomas and I marbled paper using the shaving foam and food dye method, then cut and mounted butterflies. The cutting and mounting was more my department than Thomas', I have to admit!