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Recycled materials

10 Open-Ended Materials for your Art Space to Nurture Creative Thinking

February 18, 2026 by Barbara Rucci 1 Comment

As I was gathering content for this post, I realized that in the 13+ years I have been writing this blog, I have never written a post about a collection of my favorite materials! I’ve written about liquid watercolor so many times. I’ve written endlessly about recyclables (and in my book!), and many times about…

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Children experiment with wire and threadable materials

December 17, 2025 by Barbara Rucci 2 Comments

I have a huge collection of pinecones because I cannot stop myself from collecting them whenever I see their perfect, symmetrical shapes lying on the ground. Big, small, and in between. I now have to sneak them into the house because nobody can know this collection is getting bigger, not smaller. The pinecone is such…

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Mixed-Media Exploration with Wood

April 3, 2024 by Barbara Rucci 1 Comment

Children make sculptures with wood, glue, magazines, and other collage materials and dry them on a rack.

Hello! It’s been a while. I have been working so much on The Creativity Project that it’s been hard to find the time to write over here on Art Bar. But I have things to share! As you know, I have been facilitating open-studio classes at our local library over the past year (I’ve written…

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Egg Carton Mushrooms

January 13, 2024 by Barbara Rucci 1 Comment

Make mushrooms from egg cartons and acrylic paints.

On New Year’s Eve day I was scrolling through Instagram and saw this post for @ingthings whereby she shared some little mountains she knit for friends that were coming over because in Austria, it’s tradition to give little good luck trinkets for the new year. Well, that was the spark I needed to make a…

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Still-Life Cake Paintings

October 7, 2023 by Barbara Rucci 1 Comment

Cakes made from recycled materials, paper, felt, and pom-poms.

I’m back with another community event at our local library, and this time, I made cakes from recycled materials and set up the table for still-life paintings. Children used oil pastels and liquid watercolor (my favorite combination) to draw and paint what they see! Supplies needed for Still-Life Cake Paintings: ~ Recycled cakes (I’ll go…

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All content on this blog is copyright and owned by Art Bar Blog unless otherise stated. I would be flattered if you wanted to use an image from one of my posts! But please, ask me first. I would also ask that if it involves DIY instructions with a list of supplies that you don't repost any of that stuff because then nobody would have a reason to click back to my original post!

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About Me

There are two things that I'm passionate about: Children + Art. As an art teacher, author, graphic designer, and mom to 3 creative thinkers, I get to explore my passions every day! Learn more...

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A newly printed t-shirt lies on a table showing off the freezer paper stencil technique using bright blue ink on a muted green shirt with a Noah Kahan quote from his song Orbiter.

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