Donated Art Supplies
Today’s a holiday. My kids are home. I slept in. When I did get up I fought an internal battle between watching videos all day and working on my plan for February Art Club. I’m happy to report that working toward February Art Club won out. On Saturday, my 12 yo. told me that playing on the computer too long makes her not feel good. Watching videos all day makes me not feel good too.
February’s Art Club is titled: All Tied Up in Knots. The art teacher at the school had some macrame cord that she said had been donated and wasn’t planning on using. I’m all in on donated art supplies. I thought I might use it to have the kids make paracord bracelets and then show them how to do bead buddies and call it a session. But, I’ve been drawn to terracotta pots and spring lately. I had to pick up a couple of terracotta pots to play with for March’s Art Club and I grabbed an extra one.
When I was in 4th grade, I had a wonderful art teacher: Mrs. Taylor. She pulled me and a few other kids in from our regular class to let us go deeper into art projects. She taught me my first and probably only lessons in macrame. I remember a 4 shape in the knot we used and I remember her talking about how we should try to make our own clay beads. Since then, I haven’t really been into macrame. I saw it as a craft from the 70’s and since the 80’s eschewed all things 70’s (like bell bottoms), I abandoned macrame as well.
But I had all this macrame cord and a longing to make a hanging plant holder. I thought perhaps I’d find a simple design and teach the kids how to do it. I was thinking that it would be good for the kids to practice on a flat object the knot we would be using for the hanging plant holder. It turns out that the same knot that is used in a paracord bracelet is the knot used in a macrame hanging plant holder! The lesson plan practically writes itself!
We have 4 weeks.
Day 1: Paracord bracelet (they’ll get lots of practice with the standard square knot) and if they finish early, I’ll have them start cutting their macrame cord and showing them how to attach it to the metal ring and they can paint their beads (if I have the beads by then)
Day 2: For each section of the hanging plant holder, they will do a total of 20 square knots. When they get that done, we will either paint the beads or start stringing the beads onto the sections and do 10 single twisting knot between each bead. I’m following almost the same design as this YouTube Video. I’m just adding beads to make it more fun.
Day 3: We will probably still be working on this hanging plant holder. I’m hoping to have everyone finish the hanging plant holder by the end of this session. Because…
Day 4: Bead Buddies. My own kids did a lot of these thanks to a 4th grade teacher showing my oldest how to make them. I’m going to show my art club how to make them and I’ll bet it might just be the next explosion at the school. My 12 yo can’t wait to do them in art club.
I’m really excited for February’s Art Club. I can’t wait and I love how my hanging plant holder turned out!
Note for self: I used 4.5 yards of macrame cord x 8 pieces. Plus an 2 extra 2 foot sections. (Each skien of cord has 150 feet and it is enough with left overs to make one of these beautiful creations. The macrame cord is 3.5 mm thick.) 12 beads: 16mm wide — the hole is about 5 mm. The ring is a 1.25 inch welded ring from True Value. The pot is a 4.75 inch pot that I picked up from Home Depot. The beads were on clearance and cost $4 total. but they didn’t have enough for all of Art Club kids so I'll have to source them from somewhere else.