She also made chocolate dipped strawberries for her mom.

She found a recipe on line; bought the supplies with her own money, laid everything out, topped the strawberries, melted the baker's chocolate, dipped and dried them.

She did forget the toothpicks, so she used wood skewers. I cut them down shorter afterward

She's an awesome kid.

Dipping...

And done...

Two blocks of chocolate covered 16 of the large berries.

She sliced and sugared the rest to use on the Mother's Day waffle breakfast her mom prepared for her mom.

Cute niece and it is so refreshing to see a young one being responsible. I am sorry I do not know anything about art supplies. I can not draw. I have no idea how I make the glass do what it does for me. LOL

I did buy some colored pencils at the dollar store and markers too. Sadly some times those are already dried up.

Hi Shades!

I had a heck of a time getting back on Smaller Homes.

Your glass work is pure art! Did you take classes, or read books, or take internet courses?

Thank you Caroline. I never had a class in art of any kind. Just the school art classes way back in another century. I remember nothing from them. I will be perfectly honest I am clueless how I do what I do. I just sit down with a vague idea of what I would like to see and most of the time the end result is totally different. Some times good some times not so good. I just let the glass speak to me. I know sounds crazy. Mostly I pick the colors I want to use and since most of it is all scrap it is in bits and pieces anyway. I start pushing them around and some thing starts to happen and I get in the groove.

I am working on a memorial window I started yesterday. It is pieced from my late friends kitchen and some added pieces of my own. Mostly lids with no bottoms she never threw anything away. I do not have it far enough along to photo yet. Well it was but I had to remove and number the lids to do the background fill in. It is going along fairly quickly so I will photo and show it when I get it done.

I am from a family of artists - always loved art supplies. Especially my mom's jars of pure pigments! Amazingly beautiful but not for kids.

An enthusiastic second on the Prismacolors. They are wonderful! I like watercolor pencils too. Craypas or pastels. Ink. Also a decent pencil sharpener. Pens or pencils with a very fine point. A variety of paper. Good old crayolas.

Generally speaking buy fewer supplies of a better quality. I don't mean break the bank or anything - but there are some really awful products. Very frustrating to work with when inspiration hits.

Sidenote: When I was a bit older than your niece I went off to boarding school. My somewhat Victorian artist grandmother was worried about her bumpkin granddaughter living among civilized people and produced a daunting list of necessities for me to acquire. Flannel nighties and dressing gowns and such. Anyway for my August birthday she gave me nothing on the list. Instead a bright orange heavy electric pencil sharpener because nothing is more important that crisp pencil lines.

If you go to www.dickblick.com you'll find everything. Michael's is limited when it comes to art supplies.

I'm a colored pencil artist and instructor. Prismacolors are a good start. Get the regular sets, not the scholar sets as there's more pigment in the regular pencils.

Another wonderful thing is Neocolor II crayons. They can be used like crayons, or wet for watercolor effects.

A good electric pencil sharpener that makes shavings like sawdust. Not the kind that makes shavings that look like what you get when you peel a potato. Trust me there is a difference.

Buy her a pad or two of Stonehenge paper. The quality is far better than the crappy so called drawing papers but it's still a reasonable cost.

A set of graphite pencils.

A kneaded eraser and hard erasers.

Watercolor brushes in various sizes.

A decent set of watercolors. I suggest tubes over the cake pans.

Books on techniques of different materials.

I firmly believe in buying decent quality materials and not the stuff that are geared to children, if the child has a genuine interest in art. The child geared stuff will just frustrate her.

I didn't read the other posts, but my almost 11 yo loves her oil and chalk pastels, nice colored pencils and grown up type coloring books. It's not "art" maybe, but she and her friends also love sewing both by hand and with the machine:)

My DD loves to create and my father has been making fabulous art my whole life (I think My creative gene just came out different) and quality items like a good set of pencils from Prisma Color can be expensive if bought at once. I tend to spend a lot of time in places like Michaels myself, so I have slow built the collection. They sell the pencils, (markers and graphite pencils), singly so picking things up one here and there is not that bad. I keep a list of color numbers on my phone.....and always have Michaels coupons on me. We also have other art supply places near us (art college downtown), so I sign up for the store's emails. Usually mix way through the school year they have some sort of clearance sale. Last year I picked her up these great watercolored pencils.... you color like normal, then you can make them need like watercolor by rubbing them with water (Prisma Color). I got my dad an easel there and a bunch of canvases for Christmas also.

My point is no need to buy all at once, little buy little. There is a huge world of supplies and as her talent grows her interest will change and you will even find cool things to inspire her.

Good luck.

Many interesting books on arts techniques, etc. can be purchased used, very inexpensively. Thankfully the ideas and lessons are evergreen, regardless of the age of the book. Additionally, if it doesn't resonate, hoepfully easier to pass on or give away. I could not live without art, what a really nice gift.