Christmas in DFW: Irving Arts Center

The Irving Arts Center is celebrating Christmas with their 24th annual Christmas Tree Decorating contest so we stopped by to see some of the amazing trees that students from different schools have created.

At first we just thought they were nice trees but then we realized that there was a theme to them.  They were all decorated with recycled materials!  How cool is that?!  Nicholas was the first to discover it when he noticed this poinsettia was made from a water bottle!  How creative!

Once we realized how special these ornaments were, it became a fun game to look over each tree in detail and see who would discover the next really unique ornament on a tree.  It was a lot more fun than what I had expected.

This tree below was made with a nature theme - butterflies, lizards, turtles, etc.  It was my favorite of all of them simply because of the cute critters all over it.

There was one tree that was computer/electronics themed complete with an antenna tree topper!

There were several more amazing trees there but I don't want to give away all of their hidden treasures.  You'll just have to go there and hunt for them yourself :) 

The walls of the exhibit room and covered with art work from school children.  It was fun to look at the different subjects and different skill levels on display.

At the end of the Christmas Tree exhibit room there was another exhibit called The Book Forest.  Old books and magazines were the media used to form trees and various decorations throughout the room.

I don't know that I could actually do this to a book but the finished project does look pretty cool.

While we were there we also checked out the National Geographic Rarely Seen: Photographs of the Extraordinary photography exhibit.  The photographs are unbelievable!

A lot of the pictures are of natural wonders like this picture of Thor's Well.  It is a real salt water fountain in Oregon that is driven by the ocean tide.

Nicholas just stood and stared at this picture of the Northern Lights for a long time.  He read the plaque and told me all about it.  This picture is actually two pictures that have been joined together.

Of course this picture got a smile out of my little dare-devil.  It's called Dangle if you Dare and it's a picture of some crazy guy's feet dangling from a skyscraper in China.  I wonder if his mother knew he was doing that?

Look at the detail and perfection you can see in this snowflake when viewed up close!  It's such a beautiful example of God's handiwork.

Nicholas really enjoyed looking at the details in the photograph of a white tiger but every single one of these pictures were an amazing sight to see.

Nicholas was entranced by the whole exhibit.  He slowly went through and looked at every single photograph AND read each and every plaque describing the photograph.  He was really studying each one intently.  He especially like the picture of the Man o' War here.  He will be quick to tell you the differences between a Man o' War and a Jellyfish.

He was already interested in being a field photographer after our recent trip to the Perot Museum but now he is more interested than ever in nature photography.

Rachel stared dreamily at the giant chandelier for a long time.  Then she announced that we needed one for our house!

It really is a work of art by itself.  Here is the view from beneath the chandelier.

Finally, we headed outside to check out the sculptures and the water features.  I didn't notice any new structures since the last time we were here.

But its always a fun place to run around and get the wiggles out after being in a quiet art exhibit for a while.

And play hide and seek.  I wonder where Rachel could be?

The Irving Arts Center is located at 3333 North MacArthur Blvd. in Irving.  Gallery Admission is FREE!  Gallery Hours: Mon, Tues, Wed and Fri: 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Thursday: 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Saturday: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Sunday: 1:00-5:00 p.m.

DIY Crayons {Recycling Project for Kids}

If you are like us, the beautiful new box of crayons don't stay that way for long.  Those long crayons end up breaking and over time you are left with a box of lots of little crayon pieces that are just too small to really use.  Instead of throwing them away, try this fun recycling project and help your kids learn to be creative and reuse these little crayon pieces to make DIY crayons!

We started with Rachel using a muffin tin to separate the crayon pieces by color.  She loves these kinds of sorting activities!  Then we pulled out a little silicone baking mold of butterflies, ladybugs, and bees.  She filled each of the mold cups with the little crayon pieces.

Here full mold looked like this:

We put the mold on a cookie sheet and placed it in the oven at 200 degrees for about 30 minutes until the crayons were completely melted.  We let them cool then very carefully popped them out of the mold.  They turned out to be big beautiful crayons that she can use again...or just keep because they look so cool!

Nicholas thought this was such a cool project that he asked to make some crayons of his own.  

We found this cute silicone Lego minifigure mold on Amazon (affiliate link)


And also this cool Lego brick mold there as well (affiliate link)


As soon as the molds came in, Nicholas grabbed the leftover crayon pieces and went to work. 

This has been such a fun and easy project for the kids plus it is a great way to teach them about reusing and recycling things that they might have just thrown away.

Recycled Art Project: Making Valentines Day Cards

We love finding creative ways to reuse or recycle things we might normally just throw away.

Today we made Valentine's Day cards with cardboard toilet paper rolls and plastic water bottles!

Cardboard Toilet Paper Tube Hearts

To make these heart stamps, just bend the cardboard tube into a heart shape and dunk it in some paint.

Then you simply stamp the heart on to your card.  Rachel was so excited to see the heart she had made!

She then went about painting the insides of the hearts and decorating the rest of the card.  Notice how she got so into this that she had a paint brush in each hand!

But preschoolers dance to their own drum so at some point she decided the card would look better if she painted the whole thing blue.  She even said, "cool" as I took the second picture here.

I let her creativity go and next thing I knew all of the hearts were almost unrecognizable.  I asked her, "What happened to the red hearts for Valentine's Day?  Why is the card all green and yellow now?"   

Rachel simply smiled at me and said, "Don't worry.  You just have to trust a TRUE artist.  All the beauty is still there." 

Nicholas got creative and made two-tone hearts!

Water Bottle Flower Stamp

We used the bottom of a water bottle to make some cool flower stamps.  Just dip the bottom of the bottle in some paint.

Then stamp the bottle on the card.

Fill in the rest of the flower with markers or paint.

Once the red flowers were dry, Nicholas decided to make a second stamp of pink paint over them.  I think it turned out really cool looking.

Of course, while Nicholas was making his card, Rachel continued to play with her paint until it looked like this....

I guess it was an hands-on lesson in color blending!

She did make more heart stamped cards.  She wrote in them on her own too.  (She likes to write in all caps!)

Learning About Recycling at IESI Recyling Is Fun Day

We recently visited IESI in McKinney to learn about recycling.

They opened their facilities to the public and hosted a free educational event called "Recycling Is Fun Day".

There was an electric train that carried us from the parking lot to the facility.

The kids loved it!

The train dropped us off at the back of the property where all the recycling action takes place. There was a long row of booths set up from businesses and organizations in the community to help us learn more about reducing, reusing, and recycling to protect and conserve our environment.

We started at the first booth where the kids were given little passports that they could get stamped at each booth they visited. At the end, they could turn in their passports for a prize!

There was a great exhibit by the Texas Agri-Life Extension that demonstrated how important ground cover is to prevent run-off of water and soil. There was a tray of concrete, bare soil, mulched soil with plants, and lawn grass. There were spouts at the bottom that dripped run-off into other containers underneath so we could study the amount of water and soil that was running off. It was a great way to show how a healthy yard and properly prepared flower beds can better use and retain water and soil.

We took a peek inside the recycling facility.

My kids loved watching all of the newly delivered recycling material getting pushed around and scooped up.

IESI has a new, $1 million optical sorter, which is used to scan plastic to determine the kind of plastic and in which category of plastics it is to be placed. Other conveyer belts separated cardboard, paper, glass and aluminum into their own sections as well.

I was amazed at the mass amounts of paper and junk mail that just kept piling out of the sorter.

We talked about this diagram which shows a simplified explanation of what happens to trash and recyclable materials once it leaves your home.

We headed back outside to visit more booths. We learned a lot about conserving water.

We saw an exhibit which clearly showed how much healthier plant roots are when they receive deep, infrequent watering vs. frequent shallow watering.

We played bowling with re-used 2 liter bottles.

The kids loved this following activity and kept going back to it over and over again.

There were buckets of water with fish and pieces of trash. They had to use the grabber tools to pull the trash out of the "lake" in order to save the fish. Super cute idea and a great way to demonstrate the importance of putting litter in its proper place.

Rachel made a caterpillar craft out of an egg carton.

Nicholas made a cyclops creature from another planet.

The McKinney Fire Department was there to teach us about fire safety and handed out some cool things for the kids.

We loved looking at all of the different bundles of recycled materials out front.

This bundle is just plastic water bottles.

Here is a bundle of cans.

We had a great time visiting the facility and all of the booths. The kids returned their passports and were given these cool re-usable drink bottles filled with cold lemonade.