Author Archives: TodayWeDid

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About TodayWeDid

I spend my time sharing my love of reading, arts and crafts with my four children. I also review children's and YA books.

Terracotta Pots

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L's finished pots.

L’s finished pots.

The pot decoration kits we bought from Bunnings.

The pot decoration kits we bought from Bunnings.

I went to Bunnings looking for some terracotta pots for the kids to paint and decorate. There were lots of pots in all different sizes and shapes. And then we came across some kids craft packs to decorate three terracotta pots, including paint and rhinestones. That seemed like a very easy option, so we bought two kits.

The pots were only little, but perfect for L and A to decorate. We turned A’s pots upside down to make it easier for her to paint. She also painted the bottom of each pot. There was only one small brush with each kit, so we got out enough brushes to have one for each colour. That way we didn’t have to keep washing the brush all the time (it also meant we didn’t need a cup of water on the table that A could somehow manage to knock over…) A did some lovely painting on the outside of each pot, covering the entire surface. She used some sponge brushes to paint the little saucers for each pot, making smiley faces on them. L chose not to cover the whole of the pots in paint, instead she painted pictures, swirls and letters.

A painting her first pot.

A painting her first pot.

Painting the saucer.

Painting the saucer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

L painting a Christmas tree on one of her pots.

L painting a Christmas tree on one of her pots.

Once the paint was completely dry (which didn’t take very long at all), the kids got to add the rhinestones. Oh, how they love to decorate with rhinestones! We used PVA glue to attach the rhinestones. There was a mix of shapes, sizes and colours, and they used a variety on each pot.

Adding rhinestones.

Adding rhinestones.

More rhinestones.

More rhinestones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each kit came with some foam flower press outs to make up too. These could be used as a decoration in the pots if desired, but the kids wanted to put real plants into their pots, so the fake flowers were put aside to complete later to add to the vase they made a few weeks ago.

L and A want to give their finished pots (with little plant) to their teachers for Christmas this year, as an alternative to the traditional coffee cup or box of chocolates. The kids had a great time decorating them, and we hope their teachers will like them!

A's finished pots.

A’s finished pots.

Christmas Paper Chains

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IMG_3770I think most people have made paper chains for Christmas at some point during their childhoods. It is simple, fun, and they look very festive hanging up around the place. We had a scrap booking pad of Christmas papers, stickers and cut-outs from Lincraft, so we used some of the paper out of that to make the strips. I used a 30cm ruler to draw some lines on the back of the paper, so that the kids could cut along them to make the strips we would need. Each strip was the width of the ruler. L was quite good at cutting along these lines, A’s cutting was a bit more jagged, so she mostly left the cutting to L and I.  Once we had our strips, I showed the kids how to loop them and secure the ends together. L used the stapler to join hers, and A used sticky tape, as she found the stapler a bit hard to close.

Cutting the strips.

Cutting the strips.

Stapling the loops together.

Stapling the loops together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They continued to loop new strips together to make long chains. We then hung them up along the top of one of our doorways with blu-tack. It’s the start of our Christmas decorating. IMG_3769

Pipe Cleaner Spelling

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Cutting the pipe cleaners.

Cutting the pipe cleaners.

Another week, another spelling list! L made her words out of pipe cleaners this week. She cut the pipe cleaners to a suitable length and shaped them into each letter. I got her some paper to stick the pipe cleaner letters to, but she didn’t like getting the glue on her fingers. She asked me to do the gluing so she could stay clean…. I quite like using glue, so it suited me. L made all the letters, and then told me the order in which I needed to glue them down. This meant she practiced the spelling of each word several times during this activity.

Gluing the pipe cleaners down.

Gluing the pipe cleaners down.

It was a bit hard to stick these sheets into her spelling journal, so she took them to school to show her teacher. He was very impressed, and hung them up on the wall. This made L very happy.

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Scratch Painting

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IMG_3724This is a simple painting activity that can be done with just one colour. First the kids spread some paint across a white piece of paper. The paint needs to be thick enough to make marks in, but not so thick that the paper will take days to dry! Once the paint is spread across the paper with a fat brush, the kids then used the end of a thin brush to draw a picture in the paint. The end of the paint brush scrapes away the paint, leaving a lighter section behind it.

Spreading the paint.

Spreading the paint.

L scratching out her picture.

L scratching out her picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On A’s second painting, she used a fatter paintbrush to draw her picture (well swirls and squiggles anyway).

Done with a thicker paintbrush.

Done with a thicker paintbrush.

L also used this activity to practice her spelling words. It took a while for the paint to dry as L put it on a bit thick, but once it was dry, we stuck the page in her spelling journal so she could show her teacher.

Scratching out her spelling words.

Scratching out her spelling words.

Spelling words.

Spelling words.

Name Plate

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A, Baby T and I had a little trip to Bunnings to get a couple of things….. when I left Bunnings, my couple of things had turned into about a dozen things, and we’d spent an hour just wandering about. Some of our extra purchases included a wooden board, wooden letters and a packet of rhinestones to make a name plate for A’s door.

The base board and one of the letters before painting.

The base board and one of the letters before painting.

I laid some newspaper on the table to protect it, and I pulled out the box of paints. When I asked A what colour she wanted to paint the base board, she answered “All of them!” So all of them it was…. a little of each in random patches to cover the entire board. She seemed to really enjoy this painting, making it a rainbow, and mixing the colours.

Painting the base board.

Painting the base board.

When it came to painting the letters, I suggested she paint each of them a single colour to help them stand out against the colourful background. She chose the colour for each letter, and painted the tops of them, but needed some help getting the paint all around the edges. She put several coats of the paint on the letters to make the colours bolder.

One of the letters painted.

One of the letters painted.

Once all the paint was dry, we had to glue the letters to the base board. A wanted them fairly straight across the board. She used a paintbrush to add glue to the back of each letter, and I placed them carefully in a line on the baseboard. Then she decorated the letters with some rhinestones, and she was finished.

Placing the rhinestones.

Placing the rhinestones.

Gluing the rhinestones down.

Gluing the rhinestones down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ready to hang on her door.

Ready to hang on her door.

 

Flower Picture

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A few weeks back at playgroup the craft activity was making a banner of flowers. The stems and leaves were drawn on in crayon, and the flowers were patty pan and muffin cases. Today A made a smaller version of this flower picture at home, with the addition of some muffin case leaves.

Adding glue.

Adding glue.

Placing the muffin cases.

Placing the muffin cases.

A drew some stems on where she wanted her flowers to be, and then she began adding the muffin cases. We had a mix of red, blue, yellow and green cases. Some of the cases were glued to the stems whole to represent open flowers, while others were folded in quarters as budding flowers.

The open flowers received a pom pom centre and the green cases were folded into eighths to make leaves. A glued these onto some of the stems. She also added some crayon grass to the bottom of the picture to complete the scene.

Finished flowers.

Finished flowers.

Plaster Christmas Decorations

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Christmas decoration kits, one boot and one angel.

Christmas decoration kits, one boot and one angel.

I picked up these little plaster decoration kits at Coles whilst doing the grocery shopping last week. The kids picked one each, and sat down to paint them yesterday. Each kit came with a little paintbrush and three paint pots in the primary colours. I suggested they could mix the colours to form new colours. They did a little bit of colour mixing, but mostly they just wanted to paint with the colours they were given.

A painting her decoration.

A painting her decoration.

L painting her angel.

L painting her angel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had fun painting these decorations, and can’t wait to hang them up on the Christmas tree. Until then, A has hung hers up above her bed because she likes it so much 🙂

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Paper Plate Santa

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November seems to be passing rather quickly now, so it’s time to break out the Christmas craft!

This Santa uses two paper plates, one for the face, and a second cut in quarters to use for his hat and his beard. A painted one of the quarters bright red, and then we left it to dry. I glued another of the quarters to the bottom of the plate so that the edges of the quarter were against the edges of the plate, leaving a triangle to form the beard on. A painted the main plate a pale pink for skin. Once all the paint was dry I glued the red quarter to the opposite side of the plate to the beard quarter, again lining up the edges.

Painting the hat.

Painting the hat.

And now for the fun of gluing on cotton balls! A used PVA to attach cotton balls all over the bottom triangle and part way up the plate to form a white woolly beard. She continued the cotton balls up the sides of the plate for hair. She also put cotton balls along the bottom edge of the red quarter to make a furry edge for the hat. One cotton ball went onto the point of the hat too.

To finish Santa’s face, A used a light pink pom pom for Santa’s nose, and drew two green circles in texta for eyes. I added some black dots to the eyes for pupils. IMG_3673

Sugar Picture

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IMG_3655I had initially planned to use salt for this activity, but alas, we had run out of table saltIMG_3659, so we substituted white sugar instead. I’m pretty sure the results would have been the same either way.

I placed some coloured paper into the bottom of a clean baking tray and then let A paint with some PVA glue on the sheet of paper. While the glue was still wet, she sprinkled (dumped) the sugar onto the paper. I shook the tray around to spread the sugar out, making sure all the glue was covered. Then I shook the excess sugar off the paper back into the baking tray, before pouring it into a bowl with a funnel for the next picture.

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A also tried using the glue straight out of the bottle, but it was really too thick. The sugar started to dissolve where the glue was thick so it wasn’t as easy to see. However, when it dried it did create a 3D picture, which was pretty neat.

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Stencils with Paint

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IMG_3671A rainy day resulted in lots of craft and art today, so since we had the paints out I dug out our packet of stencils. They are A4 sized plastic stencils, perfect for the kids to use. I put out several sponge applicators, but A decided to use a paintbrush on most of hers.IMG_3670

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One of the stencils has the alphabet on it in both upper and lower case, as well as numbers and some punctuation. L used this to paint out her spelling words this week. It was a bit tricky, as the stencil had to be held up off the previous letters so as not to smudge the paint. There was still some smudging, which might have been reduced if we’d wiped down the stencil in between doing each letter. She used one of the sponge applicators to apply the paint, and had some help from Big L with holding the stencil.

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