Your Emotions are Written All Over Your Face [craft]

When I saw The Art Annex’s Silly Faces activity, I knew it was a future art project for my son. I pinned it until the time was right. Since my diagnosis with breast cancer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about its impact on my kids, particularly my almost-7-year-old son.

The time was right to do this project. It could open up a conversation about emotions -  how he’s feeling and how I am, too. Plus, it was just good old-fashioned fun. Before we got our art on, we read a wonderful book about feelings. I’d recommend it for kids of all ages – toddler on up.

Now I gave my son some fun scrapbooking papers to choose from for a background, a cut-out of a face, and some chipboard I’d cut from an empty cereal box.

Download a PDF of this face template here.

First, he drew hair on his head. I made one too, but used brown paper to replicate my bob hairstyle.

Now, he glued the patterned paper onto the chipboard and then glued the face in the center of it, using a glue stick.

I encourage you to visit Doris’ blog; she recommends using a hand drill and large plastic needles with an eye. Since I don’t have either, we made do without, but I’m sure these tools would have made the project easier.

Instead we used my husband’s cordless drill to poke holes in the face template’s open circles (6 for each face: 2 for each eye and 2 for the mouth).

When this was done, we clipped pieces of yarn and folded them in half. Then to make it easier to thread the yarn through the holes, I used some scotch tape at the ends (like the end of a shoestring). 

Once through the holes, I tied knots in the back, making sure to leave slack so the yarn eyebrows and mouth could be manipulated into a variety of expressions.

Lastly, we glued on some big googly eyes. The next day when the eyes were dry, we both played with our faces, going through a whole gamut of feelings. It was bonding at its best.

NOTE: If you’re not following Doris’ art blog, start now. There are SO many wonderful ideas on The Art Annex!!