Tag Archives: kids craft

Nov14

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.

 

Nov14

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.

Nov11

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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Nov11

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

Nov8

Crown Door Sign

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IMG_3608This 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Nov7

Paper Plate Fish

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I love crafting with paper plates, they have so many uses 🙂 This time we used them to make fish. A whole plate for its body, and a quarter plate for its tail. I cut a triangle out of L’s for a mouth, but A decided to draw a mouth on for herself. The kids used collage materials and paint pens to decorate their fish. Once they were dry I punched a hole in the top of them so that we could attach some string and hang them up.

Gluing.

Gluing.

Adding pom poms.

Adding pom poms.

Sticking on tissue paper.

Sticking on tissue paper.

A's fish hanging up.

A’s fish hanging up.

L's fish.

L’s fish.

Nov3

Jewellery Boxes

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A's jewellery box kit.

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 jewellery box kit.

 

 

 

 

 

L's finished box.

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....

Drying….

Painting.

Painting.

Painting.

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.

The glitter glue blob.

Adding stickers.

Adding stickers.

A's finished box.

A’s finished box.

Nov2

Egg Carton Caterpillars

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IMG_3595This is a craft that gets done a lot at pre-schools and playgroups, but never seems to lose its appeal. In the past we have decorated these caterpillars with paint, textas, stickers, and gluing on bits of paper, cellophane and fabric. Sometimes they are short caterpillars and sometimes long, but always fun!

Painting a caterpillar.

Painting a caterpillar.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for them to dry.

Waiting, waiting, waiting for them to dry.

We had half an egg carton left over from some other craft, so I cut this in half to make two caterpillars for A. She chose to paint one green and one red. She put so much paint on them that it took all day to dry… Eventually we got back to them and A decorated them. I punched two holes with my awl in the head of each caterpillar so that A could add pipe-cleaner antennae. She also glued on some googly eyes, and then used pompoms to decorate their bodies. She gave the red one a pompom nose. They are very cute!

Bending the antennae into shape.

Bending the antennae into shape.

Decorating a caterpillar.

Decorating a caterpillar.

Nov2

Threading Wall Decoration

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Threading a patty-pan case.

Threading a patty-pan case.

Today we gathered together some dry pasta, cut-up straws, patty pan cases in two sizes, cotton balls and some string and set to work making a wall decoration for A’s room. I had some large plastic needles that A could safely use to thread her items onto the string. A cut quite a long piece of string so that it would stretch across her wall. I tied it off at the end so that the threaded items wouldn’t fall off the end, and then she got started. She used the point of the needle to push through the patty-pan cases and the cotton wool balls. The latter were reasonably hard to get the needle through, and she required some help with this, but she liked the way they looked once they were on the string.

IMG_3570She found that the straw pieces disappeared into the pasta if they were put together, so they were best separated by the patty-pan cases or the cotton wool. She had fun counting the straw pieces and pasta as she threaded them on too.

Once she was finished, I tied the string off, and we hung it up in her room. It was too heavy for blu-tack alone, so we tied one end to the curtain rod, and the opposite end to a hook that was already on the wall, with the centre section held up with bits of blu-tack at various intervals to give it a scalloped look. It brightened up her wall, and she had fun making it.

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Nov1

Egg Carton Spiders

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We don’t normally do anything for Halloween, it’s not something we’ve really gotten into, but seeing all the decorations available in the shops put me in the mood for making some egg carton spiders. Luckily we have a large supply of egg cartons at the moment, so I pulled one out and cut it up into the individual cups.

Painting the egg carton cups.

Painting the egg carton cups.

The kids painted the egg cups inside and out with black paint (getting a lot on themselves in the process). We left these to dry for a while and then came back to add pipe-cleaner legs and googly eyes. I used an awl to punch the holes for the pipe-cleaner legs, making it easier for the kids to push the legs through. My awl is very sharp, and I didn’t allow the girls to touch it. A still had a lot of trouble putting legs on her spiders, so I helped her put them in and then shape them to give them knees and feet. L was able to put legs on her spiders and make them into a shape that she wanted.

 

Adding legs.

Adding legs.

Adding a mouth.

Adding a mouth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A added some red paint to two of her spiders and told me they were red-backs, and one got a big red mouth. L preferred hers just black. I punched a hole into the top of each spider and added some string and then attached them to the ceiling with blu-tack.

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Spiders hanging from the ceiling.

Spiders hanging from the ceiling.