My Current Obsession with Robots

I think I'm going bonkers for 'bots. It started last year about this time when I was asked to make an art piece for Green Star on the Go annual auction and KrE 8; the can-crushing-robot-recycler was born. Since then, I've been contemplating other ways to use robots in my artistic world.

I grew up with the Jestons, R2D2 and Rock'em Sock'em robots. By today's standards, these are quaint ideas of what is truly available with technology. Laughable even - my iPhone is more advanced than all of those archaic robots put together! But the charm of dials, buttons and metal has entranced me.

We added a robot element to the new MechanicKs exhibit at Kaleidoscape on Ocotber 8th. It is complete with buttons to push, lights that flash and 'bots to build... and still, I find myself craving even more.

It's not even what the robot can DO, it's more about the visual appeal. My Pinterest feed is filled with DIY projects of all sorts! With Halloween looming and several places to be in costume, I feel as though I MUST BE A ROBOT! Supplies are compiling, designs coming together.           

 I. will. be. a. mom. bot. 

(Waaaaayy different than a fem-bot for those in the know.) 

     

A Cardboard Box

 

A cardboard box has been the topic of many a commercial (and conversation) when it comes to the creativity of children. How many times have we seen kids discard the toy that was in the box and play for days with it's container?  Never underestimate the power of a cardboard box!

There is a kid under there!

 Last week, I gave my children 84 cardboard boxes to play with so that I could observe. My kids are 6 and 12, so my experiment was powerful to watch as even my tween was entranced by stacking, building, and crashing.  They were both excited with the multiple ways they could use them.

The holidays are here and you will soon find your home with cardboard boxes... I challenge you to gift them to your kids and see what creativity blooms. It's pretty cool to watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating Life... one day at a time.

I aplogize for the lack of posts this last week. I was practically bedridden due to a supplicated rib in the back. MISERY with a capital M and sadly, everything hurt... including blogging. Thanks to my hero husband, I recieved excellent treatment and chircopractic care and am on the mend. I am just taking it one day at a time.

With the tragedy at Sandy Hood Elementary this last week, it brought to light for me the importance of celebrating every day with those we cherish. Kisses and cuddles and "Love You's" should be given in abundance and so should celebrating everyday. Even if it's a silly.... maybe especially because it is silly.

With that, here is the upcoming week of little reasons to laugh and spoil eachother followed by some suggestions from your Kaleidoscape Play Studio crew. God Bless. <3

December 17th - National Bake Cookies Day!
Could this day come at a better time of year? What a great little way to spend the evening with you Littles than baking (and eating) cookies! And... if you make too many... GREAT! Give them away as gifts! LOL ! Did you know that the English word "cookie" is derived from the Dutch word "koekje," which means little cake? Turns out that Dutch bakers used to test oven temperatures on small amounts of batter so that they would not waste the entire cake mix if the temperature wasn't right.

December 18th - National Oatmeal Muffin Day!
Whole lotta bakin' going on this week! Now I personally LOVE oatmeal raisin cookies the best of all; how far off can and oatmeal raisin muffin be? HMMMMM. With cream cheese? I'm just making suggestions here...

 

OR... you could make these: Winning Recipe Oatmeal-Raisin Cupcakes, Orange Cream Cheese Icing and share some with us! LOL

 

 

 

December 20th - Go Caroling Day!It doesn't matter if you remember all the words or not. Just bundle up, take a themos of hot cocoa for the kids (more for the adults if you choose) and go sing as much as you can to the neighbors and call it good. It's not done as much as it was in my childhood or even teenage hood... (is that a word?!) but I still think that carol singing has a place in our cultural and social psyche. Not sure what to sing? Click HERE!

 

 

December 21st - National Flashlight Day!How FUN is this?! We plan to turn out all the lights and play hide and seek with flashlights!

In case you didn't know, the flashlight was invented in 1898, and the biblical quote of "Let There Be Light" was on the cover of the 1899 Eveready catalog, advertising the new flashlight! A flashlight by definition is a small portable lamp usually powered by batteries. Hmmph. Who knew?

Build It Tuesday - Thanksgiving Style

I love to create... with all sorts of stuff. I always have. Today my job was extra fun, because we are introducing a new element to our online programming with Kaleidoscape Play Studio...

Whether bricks or blocks, it is my belief that building is experimenting with three dimensional art. Plus, it's satisfying! 

 

So, Builder K and Builder J set to work this morning to come up with some fantastic Thanksgiving creations for you and your kids to build. Of course, OUR kids were at school while WE built these!  Happiest of Thanksgiving to you and your family from Kaleidoscape Play Studio.

 

Mmmmmmmm! A golden Thanksgiving turkey!
(Hey, use your imagination here and admittedly, I need more brown legos.)

 

Turkeys - Still Life
(Before and after)

 

Mayflower & Pilgrim
(Notice the rough water!)

Family Fun Friday - The GREAT Pumpkin

Starting something new here... I usually post some family friendly on the Kaleidoscape Play Studio Facebook page on Fridays, but I want to take that a step further. I want to help you have some family fun and give you a list for next week too! That way, you'll be ready to make some family fun a week early. (In theory)

Fortnuately, today's Family Fun Friday project is rather timely and you may need to do it anyway! Let's talk pumpkins! Whether or not you celebrate Halloween, finding joy in a pumpkin is easy. They are round, orange and super tasty in a pie! That said, this article does feature how to DECORATE a pumpkin.

So, first things first! If you decide you want to do some traditional pumpkin carving, PLEASE take the time to click here and read some Pumpkin Carving Safety Tips! But we are thinking after reading this... you may opt out of knife weilding with your kiddos and take one of these fun ideas instead.

First up... yes, I'm going there. MUSTACHE PUMPKIN!

Super simple tutorial here!

 

Next on the No-Carve-Menu, RAINBOW PUMPKINS!  

 

Neon + rainbow = amazing.

 

These pumpkins are also very kid-friendly, as all that's involved is acrylic paint (no hot glue or spray paint).

 

An egg carton served as our paint holder, with different colors in each compartment. Using a different brush for each color will keep them from mixing.

White Artist's Loft brushes worked well. The square brush gives you a straight edge.





A few coats of paint will probably be necessary to get good, thick color. When you're putting one color next to another, wait for the first to dry before starting the second.

One way to easily get in all the shades of the rainbow is simply to paint small pumpkins in different colors. This looks great, and is super simple to do.

Rainbow Pumpkin Ideas from here! Best Hallwoeen Ever!

Nine More No Carve Ideas!

1. Use hot glue or stickers
2. Masking tape
3. Glue cardboard words and spray paint
4. Duct Tape
5. GLITTER!!!
6. Patterned pantyhose
7. Pushpins
8. Decopage and add ribbon
9. Use Mr. Potatoe Head accessories



We LOVE this toy! (Like, REALLY!)

Part of our goal at Kaleidoscape Play Studio is to bring play elements that everyone wants to play with. We fell in love with the Perplexus mazes and actually have all four! Although they were purcahsed for the Play Studio, we couldn't resist them and opened them up!

 

There must be something pretty special about a man who can come up with a toy that appeals to so many age groups, that is durable and visually stimulating as well as completely addictive. Michael McGinnis is the inventor and developer of exactly that; the Perplexus. Michael is not only a sensational toy-builder-man, but also a sculptor, painter, art installation-er, and a host of other things…our kind of guy for sure! Michael has said how the development of the Perplexus was something of a dream, as he developed his long term passion of creating beautiful designs into something practical that could be enjoyed by numerous people, and thus a great business venture.

 

With eleven siblings and thirty-three nieces and nephews, as well as two children of his own, all of whom are cut from the same creative cloth that he is, the development of his invention may have been partly a result of creating something for the people he loves.

The Perplexus (formerly known as Superplexus) is a 3-D ball-in-a-maze puzzle or labyrinth game enclosed in a transparent plastic sphere. By twisting and turning the sphere, players attempt to maneuver a small steel ball through an intricate maze composed of 100 steps along narrow plastic tracks. Additionally, some of the steps involve dropping the ball into a cup or through a small rim to take advantage of its three-dimensional nature. There are obstacles of varying difficulty that must be navigated in order to reach the end.

We got our all of our Perplexus mazes at Over the Rainbow Toys and we are tickled to put the official KPLAY stamp of approval on them!
Reference Links
An Interview with the Perplexus Inventor
Wikipedia

You're are gonna get in troooooouble!

True story:
For years I had an art studio in our house. It was a joy, full of creative mess and open space. I had eight bar stools in there for years, but one summer, on a whim I decided to alter my plain-o chairs. Now, let me set the scene for you...

So first thing, I do NO prep work at all.
I just start to paint, alter and create!

I begin painting the first chair and my oldest comes downstairs and stops in her tracks.
"What are you doing? You're are gonna get in troooooouble! Daddy's gonna be mad at you."

And I start laughing. "Honey, they are my chairs, Daddy won't mind if I paint them."
Dubious, she said "Well, I don't like them. I won't sit in them and I'm NOT helping you."

Of course, I got the giggles and continued on my project. When Daddy did come home, he liked them and then OH! Suddenly, she has a favorite! (See the pink one in the middle?)

So, now that we are opening a play studio, I want to bring that same whimsical element to the space. While I don't doubt that I could do a whip out some chairs for the space myself, the point of Kaleidoscape is to draw our community together. Wouldn't it be more fun to feature twelve extroidinary artists as a permanant exhibit within the Play Studio as a collaborative effort?
So, I'm hosting a call to artists...

Allow yourself to be inspired by kaleidoscopes, playtime, fun, kids, birthdays, party (any of those, not nessecsarily all of them!) Artists may select a sturdy chair to "flip" and transform with the inpiration. I invite you to take a look at what style we are drawn to in my "eye candy Pinterest Collection of art chairs".

The collection here are just ideas found online, NOT to copy.

 Criteria: MUST still be a functional chair to sit at regular table height and be family friendly.



Deadline to submit: December 5th by midnight.
Submit detailed photos by email to: kplaystudioak@gmail.com subject: “Chair Party”​
12 chairs will be selected for the final project display.

Selected submissions will become the property of Kaleidoscape Play Studio.

Each artist selected will recieve:
Artist Credit for their work at Kaleidoscape Play Studio
A commerative, limited edition Chair PARTY calendar.
If you have any questions: please contact Jennifer: kplaystudioak@gmail.com 

This week, I am...

 

I'm going to play a game of checkers, read a comic book, plant an apple tree, invite my neighbor over for some breakfast, and drink a caramel mocha! What a week this will be!

In Search of Elephants

September 22 is National Elephant Appreciation day and you may or may not know, Alaska doesn't have any elephants living in the state. We used to have an elephant (two actually) at our local zoo. But after much controversy, she moved to California. We really miss her, but we understand that an elephant sized treadmill just wasn't enough. NO, I am not kidding!

So, with it being National Elephant Appreciation day and nooooo elephant to appreciate, my daughters and I set out on a mission. You guessed it... in search of elephants.

We made four stops today... and found elephants at each place!

As you can see, we stopped at Title Wave books looking for pachyderm... found a few picture books, but NOT exactly what we were looking for. All of those books are there still...just waiting for someone like you to take them home! Then, on to Barnes & Noble... as we had a specific elephant in mind. There, we found the stuffed version of Elmer... but no books!

 

 

The girls and I decide that we must bring Elmer home for adventures at our house and he has surfed the net to find that he is famous, had a princess tea party and painted.

The only place we found the actual Elmer the Patchwork Elephant book for sale in Anchorage was at Over the Rainbow toys! and they only have two! It is a treasured story at our house (we can't find our copy, thus the search!) about an elephant thinking he needs to change to fit in.

 

Amazon's Book Review:

Elmer the elephant is bright-colored patchwork all over. No wonder the other elephants laugh at him! If he were ordinary elephant color, the others might stop laughing. That would make Elmer feel better, wouldn't it? The surprising conclusion of David McKee's comical fable is a celebration of individuality and the power of laughter.

Elmer the elephant, a colorful character because of his patchwork hide and sense of humor, tries to blend in with the herd, but soon realizes that he's happiest just being himself. "McKee's gentle humor and love of irony are in full force in this celebration of individuality and laughter." -- Publisher's Weekly.