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African Aluminum Ornaments:
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Materials:
- Aluminum foil roasting pans or aluminum pie pans
- Small pieces of cardboard
- Wire or paper clips
- Scissors
- Nail
- Glitter
- Bits of colorful construction paper, or wrapping paper
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Instructions:
- Draw traditional African shapes on the bottom of your aluminum pans. Animal and traditional geometric shapes work really well with this project.
- You may even want to practice by drawing your designs on paper first.
- Carefully cut out the aluminum designs.
- Place the aluminum cut-outs onto pieces of cardboard for padding. Then, using a nail and gentle pressure, make dot-impressions into the soft metal. Be careful not to puncture the aluminum with the nail.
- The result should be a series of smooth raised dots in your aluminum cut-outs.
- Next, glue colored bits of paper and glitter to your ornaments. The goal here is to make the ornaments sparkle brightly.
- For a finishing touch use the colored permanent markers to trace your raised impressions on the ornaments.
- Finally, use a nail to poke a single hole in the top of each ornament. Insert a wire hook for hanging around the house.
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Materials:
- Aluminum foil roasting pans or aluminum pie pans
- 2 or 3 large potatoes
- Carving knife (X-acto knife)
- Several colorful inked stamp pads
- Large construction paper or artist's sketch paper
- Pencil or pen for drawing designs.
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Instructions:
- Wash the potatoes. Cut them in halves with an ordinary kitchen knife. Do not peel the potatoes. The skin provides a good surface to grip.
- With a pencil, carefully draw out a simple geographic design on the flat surface of the potato. Simple stripes seen in African art will do nicely.
- Use the X-acto knife to cut away the portions of the potato that are not in your design - only your design should contact the ink for printing.
- Dip the potato designs into the printing ink. Print your designs across entire sheets of paper for a more dramatic effect.
- For a finishing touch crop your printings and frame them on separate dark-colored pieces of construction paper!
Note: You may want to have the potatoes pre-carved if the children are younger. Just make several designs from which the children may choose to complete their personalized printings.
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Materials:
- Colored construction paper
- Large sheets of black construction paper
- Pencil
- White glue, glue stick, and glue brush
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Instructions:
- Tear the colored construction paper into small pieces. The pieces should have somewhat irregular shapes for a classic mosaic look.
- Next, take the large black piece of construction paper and lightly draw the design that you are going to create... How about an African savannah, complete with lions and giraffes!
- Be sure to draw an outline for each different area of color that will appear in your design.
- Then, glue the small bits of colored paper onto your design. Be sure to completely cover your initial pencil design. You don't want the pencil markings to show through.
- Continue filling in the color areas of your masterpiece until completed - tearing and sculpting pieces of colored paper as needed.
- Finally, allow your design to dry completely, then mount on the wall.
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