I was so excited to be able to create this mural for our local elementary school! Here’s a post with lots of images and details about the process. Student Collaboration Collaborating with the students was the first step in the process. I wanted to learn what they liked best about the library and see the...Continue Reading

My sister Lori and I are working together on a new album. The first track we finished is about rice krispie treats! It’s called Mellows On My Mind. My kids did a bunch of marshmallow cartoon drawings for the music video, so I decided to make them into a coloring sheet. My niece (photos below)...Continue Reading

In my excitement about the new Star Wars film, I got the bug to re-record this Star Wars inspired funk rap I wrote 20 years ago in my band days. Here is a quick music video I created with the help of some drawings from my 8 year old son. Also, you can download the...Continue Reading

Last week my 7 year old daughter asked me if she could do some embroidery. She made this pillow a couple of years ago, but hadn’t done much since. Sounded like fun to me! She does a lot of drawing, so I got out a disappearing fabric pen and let her create a design on...Continue Reading

Last night the kids could already hear some firecrackers going off, so this morning they wanted me to print out the fireworks coloring sheet I made last year. They took a very long time, carefully coloring in all of the little shapes. Nice! Printout is below, if you like. Happy 4th of July! Click on...Continue Reading

My daughter has been doing a little stitching at school, so I asked her if she’d like to do some embroidery at home. (I’ve been meaning to do this with her for months.) She was very excited and wanted to get started right then. For this first project, I told her to stitch wherever she...Continue Reading

Ever since I saw these awesome owls at El had a de papel, I’ve been wanting to try it out. Last week, my son got a Batman Lego set, and is very excited about all things Batman and Robin. So we made these! He loves them, and they were so fun to make!Continue Reading

Today it was decided that we needed more people for the dollhouse, so I got out some scrap wood and had the kids draw figures on the pieces. Then I took my woodburner and traced over their drawings and made some “doll blocks”. It was so fast and fun that I had to try making...Continue Reading

Last night I got out my paper scraps and glue to make a collage gift card for my friend’s birthday party. (He loves Datsun 510 wagons.) And once my kids saw what I was doing, they wanted to join in, too. So I gave them a piece of paper and let them dig through my...Continue Reading

I just finished this embroidered shirt, now that it’s getting to be long-sleeve weather here. The design is actually some flower pots from an old sketch I did for one of these coloring sheets. While I was making it, my son got a piece of paper and said he wanted to draw the design too....Continue Reading

Lately, my daughter is enjoying dressing up and wearing accessories, like purses and headbands. Having never made a dress-up toy before, I thought it would be fun to make a nice family of cats that could be dressed up like paper dolls. We’ve been calling them, “The Dressy Cats!” My son especially loves putting on...Continue Reading

We’re having a wonderful display of kid’s art over at the Made by Joel Facebook Page. I thought is was so much fun, I didn’t want anyone to miss out. If you like children’s art as much as I do, then come on over and join in on the fun. And feel free to upload...Continue Reading

We’ve been enjoying our first week of summer break, and spending a lot of time playing in the backyard. Planting sticks, I mean trees, playing in the playhouse I made two years ago, and drawing a lot of chalk art. A couple of weeks ago on the Made by Joel Facebook Page, I asked for...Continue Reading

I recently got to collaborate with 20 kids to create this toy bench for a school auction. I painted designs on the bench with black outline, then they got to paint on it like a big coloring book. The kids were 3-6 years old, so I did a little touching up at the end, but...Continue Reading

I’ve been busy during spring break, working on some new big projects for the blog. I think it will be worth the wait! Meanwhile, there is a lot of fun going on over at the Made by Joel Facebook Page. So many people are sharing photos and great ideas for kids crafts. Here are a...Continue Reading

I was asked to create a Paper City addition for Art Month Sydney. To launch the festival this year, Sydney’s National Art School hosted an ‘Art Month Art Adventure’ event for kids. The project (named Itty Bitty City) was driven by LMNOP magazine, and was based on my Paper City, but also included many other decorations...Continue Reading

After only three weeks, the Made by Joel Facebook Page is off to a booming start. It’s rapidly turning into a fantastic resource for all kinds of art, crafts, and kids activities. Here are a few of the photos that people have shared (used here with permission). A ring toss toy with multiple targets! Great...Continue Reading

A couple of years ago we bought some Stockmar Beeswax Crayons, and they came with a little plastic tool for doing Sgraffito.  Sgraffito comes from the Italian word sgraffiare (“to scratch”), and the technique works great with crayons.  All you do is make a light color background, then color a dark layer (black is best) over the...Continue Reading

I was digging around in my box of vintage wood scraps, and decided to make some little figures with a few of the small colorful pieces.  We used paint pens to draw on them, so it was an easy way to make a fun set of dolls to play with. And look at this great...Continue Reading

Yesterday we were drawing and decided to cut out some of the people and glue them onto cardboard.  Cutouts are always fun to make.  This time I taped on some little “kickstands” onto the backs so they stand up.  One of my characters was inspired by a certain movie character that my son is loving....Continue Reading