Category Archives: Kits

Nov11

Plaster Christmas Decorations

Posted on November 11, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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.

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 🙂

Nov8

Crown Door Sign

Posted on November 8, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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This was another craft kit that was given to L for her birthday this year. There were a few bits to glue together, but most of it was painting and decorating.

The paints that came with the kit were pinks and purples, but unfortunately they had dried out so much that I was unable to revive them. So I grabbed out some paint from our paint supplies,

Painting.

and let L pick whatever colours she wanted. L has recently decided that her favourite colour is no longer pink, so she chose blue, white, yellow and orange to paint with instead. She did get a little paint on the whiteboard section, but it was easy to wipe off with a damp cloth.

Adding shapes to the crown.

The hardest part for L to do was getting the little sliding panel on. It required the small panel to be placed between the runners just so, for it to be able to slide and not fall out of the grooves. Under the panel she could place stickers from the kit, one says ‘I don’t want to be bothered now’ and the other says ‘Come in and visit me’. L can slide the panel across to display only the one she wants to show.

Decorating.

There were some little wooden shapes in the kit for decoration. L painted these and glued them on. Then she added some glitter glue, rhinestones and stickers to finish the crown off. The kit came with a pink feathery string to add to the crown’s points (you can see it on the box), but L decided it didn’t suit her blue and orange crown, so she saved it for another day.

It had a little whiteboard piece in the centre of the crown to write something on. L wrote her name on this bit before hanging it on her door.

Ready for L to write her name on and hang it up.

Nov3

Jewellery Boxes

Posted on November 3, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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A’s jewellery box kit.

All our friends and family know how much we love doing craft, so the kids are often given craft kits as presents. This year for their birthdays the kids were both given a kit for making a jewellery box. L’s kit contained the box, along with some gel pens and stickers for decorating it. A’s kit was much more complicated, and involved actually building the box prior to painting and decorating it with glitter glue, rhinestones and stickers.

L’s jewellery box kit.

L’s finished box.

L got to work on hers, adding some stickers, and drawing on it. She decided that she would give the finished box to me, as she already has a lovely jewellery box, so she used alphabet stickers to put my name on it. She wrote some things on it like ‘I love you’ and ‘smiles on a rainy day’. She finished hers quite quickly.

There was no way A would have been able to glue her box together. It had almost thirty pieces, and it was a bit fiddly to get it together. The kit came with glue, but it wasn’t very good, and there wasn’t nearly enough of it, so I used PVA instead. I eventually finished gluing it (with much glue all over me too), and then we had to let it dry. A was quite impatient for it to dry. While we waited we checked out the paint pots that had come with the kit. The paint had dried out a lot, but I managed to revive it by adding some water to it. It was still a bit lumpy, but it was good enough to use. A got to painting the outside in different colours, and then painted the drawers as well. She did most of the painting, just asking me to smooth out the edges for her, and she seemed happy with the result.

Drying….

Painting.

Once the paint dried, A glued on some rhinestones to the drawer handles, and then put stickers on it. Lastly she added some glitter glue… and by some, I really mean a lot, all in one big blob on the top. We managed to spread it out, but it still took quite a while to dry. She was happy though. Now she is going to keep some of her play jewellery in it.

The glitter glue blob.

Adding stickers.

A’s finished box.

Oct29

Dinosaur Dig

Posted on October 29, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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Sporting some stylish eye protection.

Another of our purchases from Lincraft was a Dinosaur Dig Kit, including a sand block containing a dinosaur skeleton, some goggles, and some tools for excavating the bones. L loves dinosaurs, and she was super excited to get into a dig. Big L set her up at the table after A was in bed. He placed the block on a wooden board to minimise the mess. L donned the goggles, and got to work. She worked patiently and carefully, concentrating hard on her excavation. Using the mallet and peg, she dislodged some of the block to reveal a small section of bone. She was able to use the paintbrush to remove some of the dust from the protruding bones carefully.

Using the mallet.

The dig site shut when it was time for L to go to bed, and re-opened the following night. It took four or five nights for her to completely uncover the skeleton, which was in pieces.

Using the paintbrush to clean off the bones.

She soaked the pieces in some water to loosen any sand that was left. She utilised a toothpick to clean out some of the grooves and holes on the skeleton. Once all the pieces were clean and dry, she assembled the skeleton to make her dinosaur.

Soaking the bones.

Using a toothpick to scrape out some sand.

L really enjoyed the whole process of the dinosaur dig, and she definitely wants to try another one.

A girl happy with her dino.

Oct26

Sticky Mosaics Tiara

Posted on October 26, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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One of our purchases at the new Lincraft Store was a sticky mosaics kit to make a tiara. Sticky mosaics are a bit like paint by numbers, but using foam stickers instead of paint. Just peel the sticker off and place it on the corresponding number and you’re away. There is also a sticky mosaics range for younger kids, which uses shapes instead of numbers and the foam pieces are bigger. We’ve had a number of sticky mosaics and both L and A love them. They are easy and fun, and they help with number/shape recognition, using a key, and fine motor skills.

Placing the stickers onto the tiara.

A chose this tiara as she loves playing princesses and wearing sparkly crowns. Though she has done several of the shape sticky mosaics, this was her first attempt at a number one. She did really well with it, and easily followed the numbers. She also managed the smaller pieces very well. She was very pleased with the finished product!

Finished tiara.

Oct6

Headbands

Posted on October 6, 2013 by TodayWeDid

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The headband craft kit box.

A was given this craft kit for making headbands recently. She was very keen to have a go at it, so we set out all the contents on the table and talked about the design of the headbands. Since there were three headbands to decorate, A picked one, and offered to let L decorate one too. That left one, which A suggested I might like to make up…. and then she could wear my creation 🙂 I was very pleased that she was sharing so nicely with L.

Three beautiful headbands.

After much discussion about design, A insisted on making hers just like the one on the box. L just wanted the pink spotty ribbon and feathers on hers, and I got what was left. We started with the thin ribbons, which were meant to wrap around the plain satin headbands. The glue that came with the kit was terrible, so I used some silicone craft glue that we have for our craft projects. The kids found it difficult to wrap the ribbon around evenly, so I did that part for them.

Ribbons drying on the headbands.

I helped A glue the heart crystal onto the pink flower along with a pink feather. Then I made a bow with the purple ribbon and glued some feathers to it. Once these were dry we stuck them onto the headbands.

Decorations ready for placement on the headbands.

L used some little diamantes to decorate hers, along with some small feathers out of our craft box (the feather left in the craft kit was too big for what she wanted to do). I really like how hers turned out.

It took a little while for the headbands to dry, and the kids were not particularly patient during this time, but we got there eventually. They modeled the headbands for me, and they have been wearing them around a lot. I did most of the gluing in this activity as it was a bit fiddly to get the ribbon and the decorations onto the curved surface of the headband. Despite this, the kids really enjoyed designing and decorating, and then wearing the headbands. And we had some lovely time together whilst doing it.