Easy & Inexpensive projects that bring art to the streets: Street Fair Art Links Round-up

Make Music Day - Drums, & Ukuleles

Cardboard Tube Maracas

Cardboard Tube Owls

Cardboard Tube Cuffs

Egg Carton Goggles

Coffee Filter Everything

Paper Bag Hats

Easy and inexpensive projects that take art to the streets: The best one!! Paper Bag Hats

This was the most amazing Street Fair project I did this summer.  I had been asking friends and family for months to save recyclables for me in anticipation of Street Fair art, but the best was my super surplus of bags from Trader Joe's.

I originally saw another art teacher make paper bag hats with kindergartners a million years ago.  I always loved tem and often replicate the adorable hats by having the kids fold them.  I knew that would get costly, and be a little hectic to do at Westmont's Street Fair.

We began by turning the bags inside out and tight rolling them up to fit kids' heads. I brought streamers, scraps, cupcake cups, markers and die cuts to decorate them.  Everyone enjoyed making their hat, and I loved seeing people walk around wearing bags on their heads!

Easy & inexpensive projects that bring art to the street: Coffee filter everything

This summer I worked the Westmont Street Fair promoting my art studio.  I had to come up with some easy & inexpensive projects kids would find engaging and they could complete quickly.  I found a great go-to in coffee filters.

I set up my table with crayola markers and helped kids fold their coffee filter into 4ths.  They drew, colored, & designed one quarter of the folded filter.  They moved to the other end of the table where they placed the folded filter on a towel and sprayed both sides with water.  I had the kids mount the projects onto construction paper and they looked cool.  

Even though the end results were pretty awesome, the process was also really enjoyable.  My 6 year old wanted to keep making more and more and more at home!

Here are some pictures from the Clarendon Hills Park District Fall Fest.  I brought back the coffee filter idea and we turned them into pumpkins!

This pumpkin weighed 400lbs!  The Park District was raffling it off with the disclaimer that whoever won it would have to move it!

Easy & Inexpensive Projects that take art to the streets: Egg Carton Goggles

We learned early on that the kids at the Street Fair liked art projects they could wear.  Thus, Egg Carton Goggles were born!  Every Thursday night this summer I set up shop in downtown Westmont for their Street Fair.  I was promoting my art studio, and bringing art to the community.

This project had a few tricky parts to it, but was a success.  My friend Val and I cut apart a bunch of egg cartons, cut out eye holes, and stapled strings to the side.  When kids came up to the table, they could decorate with paper, glue, scraps, Sharpies, googley eyes, and cellophane.  Everyone looked awesome. I miss summer.

Easy and inexpensive projects that bring art to the streets: TP tube cuffs & a rant on street fair art.

Every Thursday this summer I set up shop in downtown Westmont for their Street Fair.  I had to come up with a bunch of unique and cheap projects that kids could do while standing at my table as their parents waited.  

As an art teacher, these walk-up art project tables always drive me crazy.  Sometimes the projects are so lame (Oriental Trading Company Foam Frame anyone?) Or, they were created and presented by someone who has never taught a child, has no children, or has no concept of a child's development.

I do not want to watch my child paint with acrylics without a smock at a street fair.  I do not want to carry around a pom-pom'd, chenille stemmed, feather sculpture that is dripping with glue.  I do not want my kid standing at the table for 25 minutes, and I do not want my kid standing there doing a coloring page.

I tried to take this into consideration with every little mini-project I developed. Here is my third project in the series:  TP tube cuffs.  The adults liked this one too!

Easy and Inexpensive projects that bring art to the streets: TP tube Owls

I spent most Thursday evenings this summer working the Westmont Street Fair.  I had the opportunity to teach a fun mini project to lots and lots of kids while promoting my new art studio.

All the projects had to use cheap materials, since I would sometimes have over 200 kids come visit me!

One week we made toilet paper tube owls!  They were so cute!  There are a TON of things you can do with toilet paper tubes.  We also made toilet paper tube maracas.

Did you know you could buy toilet paper tubes?  Ugh, yeah, I saw them at the Hobby Lobby and made my daughter pose with them.  I've been lambasting the very idea of them ever since, but another mom told me it might be handy for those last minute people who haven't been saving them.  I think it would be cheaper to buy the toilet paper.

Easy & inexpensive projects that bring art to the streets: Make Music Day guitars, drums, & maracas.

June 21st was Make Music Day.  My husband's music store hosted an outdoor event consisting of a group ukulele class, ukulele circle, and guitar play along all for free.  No Corner Sun's Art Studio was on hand for the kiddos to help make music too!

I have been bringing art class to the community in an effort to promote my private classes.  This event was a lot of fun and very successful!  Here are some pictures from the event:




We made drums!

Materials:
coffee cans, protein shake canisters, and baby formula cans
thin vinyl cut into circles (about 2" more than the opening of the canister)
rubber bands
Sharpie Marker
scrap paper
Liquid School Glue
Scissors
14" dowel rods
corks
7" square pieces of fabric
feathers
duck tape

Believe it or not, the only thing I had to purchase were the dowel rods for the drum sticks.  Everything else I had... ugh.
I made sure all my canisters were clean.  If they had a label I could peel off, I did.  If the label did not come off, I covered the canister with a decorative paper. I prepared enough supplies to make 20 drums!  And we made them all.
I screwed a hole into the end of the corks, and stuck the dowel rod into the end.  The children covered the corks with fabric, and used rubber bands to fasten them.  Feathers were added for fun!

We made box ukuleles!

 
Materials:
cereal, cracker, cookie, boxes
wrapping paper cardboard tubes
decorative paper
x-acto knife
rubber bands
decorations

This one, I did most of the preparation ahead of time.  I covered the boxes in decorative paper. I cut all the holes in the center of the boxes, and slits at the top to hold the "neck".  The kids only had to decorate and add the rubber bands for it to make a sound.

And we made more maracas. Great day!

Easy & inexpensive projects that bring art to the streets: Cardboard tube maracas

To promote my private art classes, I set out to bring art to the streets during my town's weekly summer street fair.  In Westmont, IL.  every Thursday night from June thru August, our main drag shuts down and it becomes the Street Fair!  It's  combination car night, market, & activities.  It's a lot of fun, and you are sure to see the entire neighborhood, as well as over 100 classic cars.

I already worked closely with the Westmont Special Events Corporation, and I knew there was a need for more kids' activities.  Our wonderful library hosts a craft, but it is usually kits from Oriental Trading and doesn't require many higher order thinking skills, or creativity for that matter.  I set out to do something different.

Over the next few weeks I'll be sharing the projects we made on the street and how I prepared for them.

For all of my projects, the first thing I did was to start saving everything.  I made this poster:

and shared it with many friends and family.  My basement is overflowing with usable recyclables.  It was already overflowing with art supplies.  Seriously, I walked down there one time and thought "I have so many art supplies, I could open my own school...." and so, that's what I am going to do.

Toilet Paper Tube Maracas:  Our first street fair experience.

I admit - it was a little rough.  I wanted to do something musical to cross promote my husband's music store.  He would be having an event on that Saturday for Make Music Day - and I thought the combo would be perfect.  But, it was rainy, there was a lot of stuff to schlep, and this project was a little difficult.

I was inspired by this photo, and did a few test runs of the project myself.  I wanted the kids to cover the end of the tube, fill it with rice, cover the other end, wrap it, and decorate it with papers & Sharpie markers.  What I learned was ain't nobody got time for that.  The kids were fine.  They wanted to trace and cut circles and listen to directions, but my co-teacher and I had a table full of kids and were getting stressed out trying to help each one at different steps, with different supplies, and different abilities.  Yes, all the kids come at once.  When we had a lull, we started to just make the basic maraca so that the kids only had to decorate it.  This worked well.  We would spend 20 minutes making 10 maracas, and they would be gone in five.  It was truly rewarding to have a table full of kids cutting, glueing, taping, and drawing in the middle of the street in summer.

Supplies:

Toilet paper cardboard tubes

masking tape (regular & colored)

rice (I got a 25lb. bag at Costco for about $10)

construction paper (it was pre-cut to fit around the tube)

circles to trace for the ends of the tube

decorations, Sharpies, small construction paper, duck tape

I also had business cards, Summer & Fall class schedules, an email sign up, & a raffle at our booth too.