Tag Archives: art

Dollar Tree Art Supplies

I wish that I had taken pictures one of the last three times I was in Dollar Tree recently! I’m such a horrible blogger sometimes. :D

In the past I’ve gotten Apple Barrel or Folk Art acrylic paints from Walmart very inexpensively. But when I went to Dollar Tree the last several times (all within the last month), we saw that they have paints now. These bottles are bigger than Apple Barrel and Folk Art. They also have washable paint for children to use.

Tiffany needed some acrylic paint for a wall mural she wanted to do in her room on her closet doors. We have a fair amount of paint but she needed a bit more. We’d heard that Walmart was out or very low on paint, so since we stopped at Dollar Tree first and saw they had some paint, we decided to give it a try.

They have some acrylic paint in tubes and since they were out of white in the bottle, we got one in the tube. We also got blue, green, and black in the bottles. She used the black and really liked it. She said the quality seemed a little different from the Apple Barrel she’d finished off, which was a rather old bottle, so she isn’t comparing new to new.

She said that the white paint in the tube wasn’t opaque enough. This week they had white in a bottle, so we picked up one of those. We’ll see how it works.

But all this to say, if you or you children need some inexpensive art supplies, check out Dollar Tree. They have a decent variety crafting items available. Of course, all stores are not the same. The one we’ve been going to recently is the biggest one in our area. Our normal store, a little closer to home, is a bit smaller and doesn’t have the same craft supplies but they still have a good variety. So if your usual store doesn’t have what you are looking for, check out other stores in your area. We have six that I can think of off the top of my head and there are probably more. (Yep, I just searched and there are about 13 to choose from in the Tulsa area.)

They have stickers, hot glue sticks, glitter, wood items, craft sticks, paint, little canvases, pom poms, flowers, “rocks”, posterboard, pens, craft kits, posters, and coloring books, just to name a few items. You do have to look around the store though. The store we were in today had two sections of flowers and floral supplies. They have ribbon of different types in one floral section.

There’s the office type supply section and the school/teacher type supplies are sometimes nearby and other times back by the party supplies. There are coloring posters in the kids section and in the office supply/books section some regular-sized coloring books and even sometimes some extra large ones. There are stickers in several sections as well.

I hope this helps you and your family afford to try your hand at some new crafting endeavors. :)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

Primary Colors, the real ones

Tiffany and I watch some youtube channels together; mostly she picks them. One of the art ones we watch is Echo Gillette. Now, I’m going to say this right up front, you have to be careful with her content because she will occasionally swear. Disclaimer done for now.

Recently we watched this video where she talked about the primary colors and how what we are all taught is not true. She also shared, scientifically, that it isn’t a really a color wheel because colors are seen because of different wavelengths.

I feel she did a great job explaining all of it that I just had to share. You see, I always liked to teach my children the truth as I understood it but then would tell them what other people think. In this case I would share this information and then tell them how it has been taught for a very long time.

Here is the link to the video. Be forewarned that she does use the “f” word twice and freaking 2-3 times. The first time the f-bomb is used is somewhere close to 5:45 (like maybe 5:50 or 5:51) and then again right around 9:00 minutes into the video. Normally I wouldn’t share videos with foul language but this had some really great content and is also a good teaching point that we don’t have to agree with everything someone does to learn something worthwhile.

You could always watch the video and teach it to your children yourself or let them watch it with you and then pause and skip the parts you don’t want them to hear. :)

I hope you find this information helpful,

Michele ºÜº

Art is Important

Art is Important ~ Lifeofjoy.meMy birthday is coming up and I was thinking about what I’d like to receive as gifts from my family. :) I’m really into artsy things right now. I was looking at some Tombow dual tip brush markers, some thin washi tape for my bullet journal, some paper for tangling on different colors, and some books on lettering.

Plan for the Mess

All of this got me to thinking about art and its benefits. I did a quick search on google and found LOTS of information. First let me say that providing your children, no matter what their age, with  art supplies is very important. Another important factor, is to know that there will be mess involved and prepare for it. Maybe you could pick up a shower curtain liner at Dollar Tree and use it as a table cover and another for a floor cover. ;)

Provide places where your children can feel free to scribble. If you are so inclined, you could paint a section of wall with chalkboard paint but I wouldn’t recommend that for young children . . . they probably wouldn’t understand why they can draw on the wall one place and not others. :D

Helps Focus

From my search I found that art and crafting is beneficial for fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and even just processing their feelings.

I also discovered at this website that it is better to notice that a child used a lot of one color and ask why or ask the child to tell you about their piece, rather than just saying it is good. Art can help concentration too, according to this and this page. Of course there are other benefits listed on each of those as well.

I think my negative feelings towards art stemmed from art class in school where you were graded on your piece. I’m a very tough critic of my own work but I think some of that stems from art class and my work being compared to others. I think it is important to gauge a child’s effort on an art project and not necessarily the end result, when considering any kind of grading.

I’d give you all the links I found but they were really the first page of links after searching “benefits of art to children” on google. But overall they seemed to agree that confidence, problem-solving, focus, creativity, and self-expression.

Finally, art can help the brain build bridges connecting its left and right hemispheres and thus helping them to do better in all their studies.

So during these summer months, you might want to provide your children with some new supplies to keep them occupied. ;)

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº

A Link of Links

Music and Art Links ~ Lifeofjoy.meI was checking out the website where I got the handwriting scripture planner and followed along to another of her sites, where I found some great links. She has a page with LOTS of interactive music and art links.

There are sites to play with sound, rhythm, melody and more. They work on a tablet, phone, laptop, or desktop. There are links to sites where you can practice instruments. It reminds me of the Wii Music game, which is another great offline option.

It’s worth checking out to give your children some art and music appreciation. There’s lots to check out so I’ll keep this short today.

Until next time, God bless,

Michele ºÜº