What better way to relive summer memories rather than putting all the wonderful pictures into a scrapbook?  Scrapbooking is a method of showing and arranging memories in the form of an album.  This is a worldwide and venerable hobby, with the oldest scrapbooks dating from the 15th century.

Kristy Hart, art teacher at Beijing International Bilingual Academy (BIBA) in Shunyi shows us how to make scrapbooking fun. Hart hails from Wisconsin in the US and has been teaching for two years in Beijing, enjoying the nature and art scene that the city has to offer.  She showed two Grade 1 students, Miracle and Gaia, both seven years old, how to make paper more interesting by creating crayon resist, an action where two materials repel each other. In this art project, crayon and watercolor resist and repel. The space in between the crayon drawings will later be filled in with watercolor.

Both Gaia’s and Miracle’s favorite classes are art and PE, so they both had a great time, especially Gaia who was very focused.  She added pictures of the Great Wall and cut the paper with the edging scissors to remind her of her Great Wall adventure.

Materials

• Construction paper

• Watercolor paper

• Crayons

• Scissors

• Dubbed sided tape

• Texture

• Watercolor

Instructions

1. Make a pattern on paper with crayon.
2. Paint the complete paper with water color and let it dry. 
3. Design the pages of the book; paper can be layered.
4. Cut the dried paper to size and stick on the paper.
5. Stick the photos on the paper with double sided tape.
6. Add captions by the pictures.

Photos by Uni You

This article originally appeared on p. 30-31 of beijingkids March Issue. Download a copy here.