Tag Archives: kids craft

Nov8

Flower Lei

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IMG_5633Summer is coming! Warm weather, sun, sand, surf… The thought of the beach put me in the mood to make flower leis with the kids.

Fabric flowers.

Fabric flowers.

This is a very simple lacing activity using fabric flowers and cut up plastic drinking straws. I bought the flowers from Educational Experience, an online educational supply store. These flowers have little holes in the centre of each one, perfect for threading. You could also make your own fabric flowers from fabric scraps, or use paper/tissue paper for the flowers.

Threading flowers and straws.

Threading flowers and straws.

We cut pieces of yarn roughly a metre long, and tied a big knot in one end to prevent the flowers from slipping off. The kids alternated flowers and straws until they had filled their yarn up. I helped them tie the ends together to form a loop, and the leis were ready to wear.

The younger kids had some trouble keeping the plastic yarn needle on the yarn, so I tied the needle on for them. This allowed them to focus on the threading without the frustration of needing to re-thread the needle all the time. Once they were finished, we just cut the needle off and tied the ends together. The boys (who are only two) did very well with this activity, carefully threading their flowers and straws on. This is a great activity for fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and concentration. And it makes some lovely, bright leis for dressing up with!

 

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May23

Hand-print Bookmarks

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IMG_4472For Mother’s Day this year we made bookmarks using the hand-prints of the kids. I found some old scrapbooking papers that had pink or blue heart patterns on them to use as our base for the hand-prints.

Using the paint pad.

Using the paint pad.

A's hand-prints.

A’s hand-prints.

Each child chose the background paper to use, and the colour of paint for their hand-print. Predictably A chose pink on pink for her bookmarks. L used the rainbow paint pad for her hand-prints on the back on the blue paper.  Unfortunately the rainbow paint didn’t come out as clearly as the other paint, but L liked it as it was. The boys used blue paint on blue paper. Using paint pads for hand-prints makes it easy to get a good amount of paint on the hand, and is much less messy than using conventional paint.

Hand-prints.

Hand-prints.

After the hand-prints were dry, I carefully cut around each hand. The kids wrote some lovely messages on the back of one of their hands using a marker. A pushed down her marker quite hard, and the ink is visible through the hand-print. She also drew a lot of love hearts! I love it because it is so unique.

Writing a message on the back of the hand-print.

Writing a message on the back of the hand-print.

To finish the bookmarks I laminated the hand-prints. I arranged the hand-prints so that A’s hands and Baby T’s hands were together to make a bigger bookmark each, while L’s hand-print was big enough as one. I also did a single print of my hand to make a bookmark for my mum. Once laminated, I carefully cut around the hand-prints so that there was a small amount of plastic laminate around each one. The kids were happy with their bookmarks.

One of the boy's bookmarks.

One of the boy’s bookmarks.

A hand-print bookmark in my latest read.

A hand-print bookmark in my latest read.

Mar1

Butterfly Card

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IMG_3849A simple card that the kids can make quickly and easily.

Tissue paper set of wings.

Tissue paper set of wings.

We started with a plain red card. A chose a couple of tissue paper circles to use for her butterfly wings, which were pink and orange. Each circle was scrunched into the centre to form a bow shape. Rectangles or squares of tissue paper would have made good wings too. I helped A to glue the scrunched up piece of the wings onto the front of the card, then we left it to dry.

Drying butterfly wings.

Drying butterfly wings.

A drew the bodies and antennae of her butterflies on once the wings were dry. She used a heavy black marker for this. She also did some drawings inside the card using metallic markers and wrote her birthday message.

 

Dec24

Christmas Garland

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IMG_3248Tucked away in the craft drawers I found a packet of cardboard Christmas garland shapes. It consisted of ten pieces of alternating bauble and snowflake shapes that could be decorated and then combined to string across the wall or the top of a door or window.

Shaking on glitter.

Shaking on glitter.

Glitter was the only decorating material we considered, so we took the glitter tub and the cardboard garlands outside. The kids painted on glue with paintbrushes and then shook glitter onto the glue.

Creating patterns with the glitter.

Creating patterns with the glitter.

L made some interesting patterns on her baubles and snowflakes. She added glue in a swirl shape and covered it with one colour of glitter, and then blew the excess off. Then, she placed glue in the plain section and added a different colour of glitter to this glue. She also did some stripes using the same method. These look great.

Some of the garlands hanging up to dry.

Some of the garlands hanging up to dry.

Glitter patterns.

Glitter patterns.

A liked to use lots of different colours all over hers, which also look great. At least twice, the lid of one of the glitter tubes came off, dumping a heap of glitter onto the shapes. As there was a lot of glitter left on the muck mat, I painted glue all over the last two pieces of garland, and then pressed them glue side down into the excess glitter. The glitter colours were very mixed up, but I liked the way they came up, and we didn’t waste too much glitter!

Ready to be combined to make a lovely glittery garland string.

Ready to be combined to make a lovely glittery garland string.

Once the garland pieces were completely dry, I stapled them together, end to end. We tied the finished garland from the curtain rod on our large lounge room windows. It is quite festive!

Hanging from the curtain rod.

Hanging from the curtain rod.

Dec21

Fingerprint Christmas Cards

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There were Christmas craft ideas in some of the email newsletters from Educational Experience in the lead up to Christmas. One of the ideas was to create fingerprint Christmas cards. We tried this out at home, making Christmas trees and candy canes with our fingers.

A liked to smudge her fingerprints together for her trees.

A liked to smudge her fingerprints together for her trees.

L carefully creating a tree.

L carefully creating a tree.

We started with plain white cards. The kids used green paint to create a triangle for the tree, and then brown paint for the trunk. The candy canes were alternating red and white fingerprints in a cane shape.

A making a candy cane.

A making a candy cane.

To finish the cards, we added sparkly star stickers to the top of the trees, and little Christmas stickers in the corners of the candy cane cards.

This was a quick activity with minimal mess. And the end result looked good. We gave these cards to teachers and staff at the kids’ school. The card’s recipients were very impressed. On the back of each card I wrote the name of the child that painted the card, along with the year and the class that the kids were in.

Dec9

Paper Doily Angels

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Laying out the wings.

Laying out the wings.

Doilies make pretty angel wings and skirts. We cut a triangular section from a doily, and used this piece as the angel’s skirt, while the rest of the doily was turned upside down and became the wings. We glued the pieces of doily to an oversized pop-stick (like the tongue depressors the doctor uses to look in your throat). This formed the body of the angel.

Attaching the skirt and face.

Attaching the skirt and face.

I cut out circles of white felt to use as the angel’s face, and a third of a pipe cleaner (chenille stick) was bent around to form a halo. The halo was glued to the back of the felt head piece. The kids decorated their angels with glitter glue and glitter paint, and added little googly eyes. The middle angel in the picture above is actually covered in glitter, but it can’t be seen in the photo.

Painting an angel.

Painting an angel.

We stuck the angels up on the window next to where our Christmas tree is.

A halo.

A halo.

The doilies are quite light and will not stay up on their own, and will droop without further support. We used blu-tack to stick the wings to the window, but we could have added another pop-stick (or two) onto the back of the angel to support the wings independent of where the angel was being displayed.

A's angel.

A’s angel.

Dec7

Pop-stick Christmas Decorations

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Pop-sticks are so versatile, and they can be used to make simple and fun Christmas decorations. We made stars and trees using the regular sized pop-sticks, and some small stars with mini pop-sticks.

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Gluing the pop-sticks together.

Gluing the pop-sticks together.

Triangles ready to be glued together.

Triangles ready to be glued together.

For the larger stars, we made two triangles with the pop-sticks by gluing the ends together. Then we placed one of the triangles on top of the other one, so that one triangle was point up, and the other one was point down. We glued the triangles together like this, and got our star. To finish them off we added glitter glue and once they were dry, I tied a loop of string to one of the points so it could be hung on the tree.

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Christmas trees.

Christmas trees.

Adding glitter glue.

Adding glitter glue.

The Christmas trees were made with a triangle of green pop-sticks, and a natural coloured pop-stick glued behind the triangle to form the trunk. We had coloured pop-sticks, but natural pop-sticks could be easily painted green before construction. Glitter glue finished off the trees. Later, a loop of string was added so the tree could be hung up.

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Gluing mini pop-sticks together.

Gluing mini pop-sticks together.

The little stars were made by stacking the mini pop-sticks at different angles to produce eight points. A small dab of glue was all that was necessary to keep the pop-sticks together. Once dry, we tied some string around the stars to hang them from.

These decorations all look great hanging on our Christmas tree!

 

Dec7

Foam Christmas Spoons

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IMG_2860A found these foam spoon kits in Riot Art & Craft last week. She picked out two for her and two for L (who was not with us at the time). They were only a couple of dollars each, and they gave us an hour or so of Christmas crafting fun.

Each pack contained a foam spoon and all the bits to attach to the spoon to make a penguin, Santa or reindeer.

Sticking on the reindeer's head.

Sticking on the reindeer’s head.

The penguin packs had foam with a sticky backing so all we had to do was peel off the backing paper, and stick it where it had to go. The only problem with this was that the sticky area of the body pieces were much wider than the spoon, leaving the back of the body with nothing to stick to. The reindeer and Santa packs weren’t self-sticking, so we used craft glue to attach the foam pieces to the spoon.

Placing tiny bells on the reindeer's antlers.

Placing tiny bells on the reindeer’s antlers.

L and A very carefully followed the pictures to create their spoons. For some reason A’s penguin pack had two wings the same, instead of a left and right wing! She didn’t really care though, she just stuck the second wing on upside down and told me the penguin was waving.

Sticking on the penguin's beak.

Sticking on the penguin’s beak.

We have displayed these Christmas spoons up on the wall. They are very cute!

 

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Nov23

Felt Christmas Tree Decorations

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IMG_2659I was browsing in Riot Art & Craft the other day and we came across these little felt decoration kits. They looked like fun, so I bought two.

Sorted and ready to go.

Sorted and ready to go.

The circles came pre-punched in felt rectangles, so the kids popped them all out then put the scraps in the bin. Once we’d sorted the circles into piles of different sizes, I noticed that we were short a few circles, and the kids had to go and get them from the bin (luckily they were in a new bin bag so there wasn’t anything yucky in there!). We sorted the piles from biggest to smallest to make it easier to pick up the right sized circles.

Threading the felt circles.

Threading the felt circles.

We tied knots in the end of the silver string and threaded the plastic needles. Then the kids got to work, first adding the cylindrical bead for the tree trunk, and then the felt circles in descending order and finally the star bead. This was where it got a little tricky however, because then the instructions suggested making a loop and taking the thread back through the beads and circles to tie it off at the base where we started. I had to help the kids do this, and the star bead mostly popped off when we tried to tie the thread at the opposite end. The star was easy to thread back on, and then I added a knot above it to stop it slipping off again.

I have added a drop of craft glue to the bottom of the trunk bead and the top of the star bead to prevent the thread pulling through in the future. And I trimmed the end of the thread ready to hang on the Christmas tree.

L (7 years) found this an easy and enjoyable activity that she could complete herself. On the other hand, A (5 years), had more difficulties and required more help with tying the knots and getting the thread back through everything. Putting on the beads and felt circles was easy enough, but she kept letting the thread go, and she had trouble re-threading the needle. A made several trees with help, and still enjoyed it, but L could have done this as a solo activity.

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Oct26

Calico Bags

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A spotty calico bag.

A spotty calico bag.

We have re-usable bags of all shapes, sizes, and colours. Some of my favourite bags are the calico ones, they are lightweight and scrunch up small enough to carry in my bag. They are great for shopping and make perfect library bags, but they can be a bit boring to look at, so we took fabric paint to some new calico bags to make them unique and appealing.

The tin of fabric paint.

The tin of fabric paint.

Squeezy bottles of paint.

Squeezy bottles of paint.

A while ago my mother had given me a tin of old fabric paint tubes. She wasn’t sure if they were any good, but thought I might like to try them out. As we went through the tin we found only a couple of the tubes were dried out completely, but almost all of the nozzles were clogged. For these tubes, I cut the end off them to access the paint. There were also some 3D fabric paints in squeezy bottles that were still fine to use too.

Making hand prints.

Making hand prints.

We set out our calico bags with a piece of cardboard inside to prevent the paint from seeping through to the other side, and pegged the bag taunt to make it easier to paint. The kids did hand prints, used stampers, paint brushes, and squeezed the 3D paint directly onto the bags to make each one special. They had a ball. And when all the bags were finished, we waited until then were touch dry, and turned them over and did the other side.

Stamping.

Stamping.

Squeezing on 3D paint.

Squeezing on 3D paint.

Brushing on paint.

Brushing on paint.

Splotching paint on.

Splotching paint on.

Spreading the paint.

Spreading the paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we were finished, we were all covered in paint, but we had had fun. Some of the paint didn’t come off as easily as others, and I needed to use some mineral turpentine to remove it from our hands and brushes. The kids thought it was super disgusting! Next time we buy fabric paint I will be checking to make sure it will wash off with soapy water.

Once fully dry, I heat set the paint with the iron. I used a tea towel over the design whilst ironing to protect the design, and prevent any stray bits of paint adhering to my iron. The finished bags look great, and are much more fun than the plain ones!

Dinosaur stamped bag.

Dinosaur stamped bag.

Hand print bag.

Hand print bag.