A quick children's craft - design your own room

This craft is something that I remember doing with my Mum when I was little. She used to receive a mail order catalogue and when the new one came we could have the old one to cut up. I used to like choosing my favourite items to glue on to a cardboard house. You just need a thick catalogue with plenty of pictures of furniture, homeware, toys and so on. Ours was a Tesco one, and the Argos one would work well too.

I'm working with Harry on his scissor skills at the moment, and he's doing pretty well at it. We went through the catalogue and I got him to cut out pictures of things that he'd like in his bedroom, then we stuck them all down on to some coloured paper to make his dream room. This is it:

This craft provides a very interesting and often amusing insight into your child's mind. Harry chose a bed with the same bedding that he has at home anyway, but then chose some very pink, girly accessories including a dresser. I was pleased to see that storage was important to him, less pleased to see that he considered a large television essential. He also picked out some smart bookshelves and he really wanted to include a display cabinet, which isn't something that we have in our house. I asked him what he was going to put on display and he said "my stuff".

The good thing about this activity was that it kept Mia entertained as well with her own little pot of glue and the off cuts of paper. A really quick, easy and cheap activity and lots of fun!

Some brilliant summer crafts from Red Ted Art

Today I am delighted to welcome a guest post from Maggy at Red Ted Art with some fantastic crafty ideas. Enjoy!

HELLO! I am Maggy from Red Ted Art and I am so pleased to be here today, sharing some our favourite crafts! Thank you so much for having me and share some of crafty favourites!

Excuse the crazy photo - I made it a while back for my+ account and I can't resist using it! Anyway, I digress. Our favourite thing over at Red Ted Art is KIDS CRAFTS! We are craft crazy and we love making things as often as we can! (We do also like doing other things, btw, like cooking and gardening, but you will have to read about that over at Life At The Zoo and Theatre, Books and Movies!!!). And whilst Jennifer is have a break, we thought we would share some of our Summer favourites!



Bottle Top Stamps We love these bottle top stamps - as they are soooo simple to make. Most households have these materials to hand (or at least substitutes for these materials), the variations are endless AND once you have made them you can have a great arty crafty session. So almost a "two in one" if you wish. We have used our stamps, for creating pictures, for simply stamping and for making wrapping paper. Perfect. Check out this post for more bottle top craft ideas.

 

Saltdough (Hearts) Next up our easy salt dough recipe - in this case we made hearts to decorate Christmas and Valentine's with. But really you can make anything - use cookie cutters to make shapes and ornaments or mold it like playdough. We have added colours to our salt dough in the past, so you don't necessarily have to paint them afterwards. Find more salt dough crafts here.

 

Butterfly Cards Going to a birthday party and need a card in a hurry? What to write a thank you note to the children's teacher? Make these sweet and bright butterfly cards and you are all sorted. I share a little template over on Red Ted Art to make it easier for you too!

   

Snowglobes Yes! Another childhood "classic" of ours. Every child NEEDS to have made a DIY snowglobe at some point. A great opportunity to recycle some old jars (I particularly like using small jars e.g. from baby food) as well as some of that "plastic tat" kids get in party bags or kinder surprises.

 
Great Artists for Kids

Or how about getting Arty? I have a series of "Art with Kids" posts - some looking at Great Artists, like here Andy Warhol and creating art in the style of these artists and the others are open ended activities that promote creativity - easy to set up and do!    

Well, I do hope that that keeps you going! Some ideas to have lots of fun with. If you liked what you saw and fancy a lovely Craft Book for your kids, I have just brought out Red Ted Art, Cute and Easy Crafts for Kids! It is packed with crafty ideas to keep you busy for a long long time. This makes for a fantastic gift too, so please do check it out. Read the reviews and see how many people enjoy it already! Thank you Jennifer, for having me!

A simple flower mosaic craft for children

I was really pleased with this simple flower mosaic that I made with Harry. His scissor control is really improving, and I love that as he gets older his attention span is increasing and he is able to finish more complicated projects.

I drew around a small plate on some white cardboard and let Harry cut out the circle. Then I drew a flower on some scrap paper for him to copy. We talked about what colours to use and he decided that he wanted to make a daisy. Then I helped him to cut the coloured paper into small pieces and he glued it into the pattern.

So simple, and I think it looks really good!

A simple flower mosaic craft for children

Tactile alphabet cards

This month I'm joining in the PinAddicts Challenge with a craft that appealed to me as soon as I saw it - some tactile alphabet cards which I pinned from Fairy Dust Teaching. I probably don't spend enough time working on letters with Harry at the moment, I tend to think that it is something that he'll pick up easily enough when he starts school. But I loved how bright and colourful these alphabet cards were, and it looked like something that would be a lot of fun for us to make together.

For the cards I cut up an old, sturdy nappy box. Each card measures approximately 8cm x 12cm. We painted the backgrounds in a variety of different colours, then before we started putting letters on I planned the layout in advance so that I was happy with the spread of the colours.

Then we made our letters. I drew an outline in pencil, and let Harry glue on the different things. I was a bit worried that I would struggle to think of 26 different things to use, but once I started I kept thinking of more and more ideas! I loved watching Harry's fine motor skills at work. He's also enjoying patterning at the moment, so some of the letters are made using patterns in the colours.

I used lowercase letters instead of the uppercase letters in the original pin, because those are the ones that I want him to become familiar with first. Perhaps we'll go on to make an uppercase set next!

Here's what I used for the different letters:

a - star eyelets, b - small beads, c - curtain hooks, d - sequins, e - cord , f - macaroni pasta, g - red lentils , h - gold stars, i - cotton wool, j - small stones, k - ribbon , l - lollipop stick, m - pipecleaner, n - felt , o - scraps of wool, p - large beads, q - pom poms, r - shredded paper, s - glitter , t - washi tape , u - scrap of fabric, v - lace, w - nails, x - sandpaper, y - tin foil , z - paperclips.

The cards are still loose at the moment but I'm planning on attaching them to his bedroom wall somehow, perhaps gluing them on to a larger piece of cardboard as a background.

If you would like to follow me on Pinterest I would love to see you, you can find my Pinterest boards here. If you pin a lot, why not challenge yourself to make some of those things that you are busy pinning!

How to make a simple garden mobile

Today I have a guest post published over at Woodyatt Curtains, how to make a mobile for the garden.

This simple garden mobile is a great craft for kids, and will bring some cheerful colour to the garden. The mobile uses simple materials from around the house, and is very easy to make. You can let younger children choose their own design and help them to put it together, whereas older children will be able to string the pieces together themselves. It won’t last forever, but it should last for the summer, and you can always make another one next year!

For the rest of the article please visit How to Make a Garden Mobile

A penguin craft for "Ping Pong Are Best Friends (Mostly)" book review

We've been talking a lot about penguins lately. Mainly because we've been playing our walk to pre-school game, and because it's been so cold still the talk has turned towards Antartica. We also received the book Ping and Pong are Best Friends (mostly) by Tim Hopgood to review by Tim Hopgood, so I thought that I'd introduce a bit of a penguin theme.

The book is about Ping and Pong who are best penguin friends. But no matter what Ping does, Pong always does it better. So Ping becomes discouraged, until he finds out that there is one thing that Ping is the best at.

Harry loves being read to, but he is also starting to show an interest in reading for himself. He's a way off actually learning to read yet, and I'm not pushing him in any way, but I've found that if I read him a simple story a couple of times he can repeat it back to himself with surprising accuracy. This story was perfect for that because it is so easy to understand, with lovely clear illustrations. The story also has an important message about the importance of friendship.

After the success of our book inspired Lucy Ladybird craft the other week, I thought that this time we'd try a penguin picture. This time I let Harry do all the cutting out, which was really good scissor practice for him. Then he cut out lots of small squares in white and we used them to make an igloo, before sticking on cotton wool for the snow. Lovely!

 



 

 

We were sent the book to review, Amazon links are affiliate.

Book review and craft - Lucy Ladybird by Sharon King-Chai

Lucy Ladybird is the debut picture book from writer and designer Sharon King-Chai. The story follows Lucy Ladybird, who is different to the other ladybirds because she has no spots. She goes on a journey through different seasons, collecting some brightly coloured spots from her friends along the way. When she returns home, she is sad when she realises that she is still different to her ladybird friends with their black spots. But when the other ladybirds see her they like her new spots so much that they decide it's actually best to be different.

Lucy Ladybird is a firm favourite in this household already. The story is simple, and what really makes the book special are the gorgeous, bright illustrations. The final page is a fold-out surprise page - a marvellous spread of  cheerful ladybirds and other insects covered in their colourful spots. Once Harry discovered this he couldn't stop unfolding it to look at it, and Mia was captivated by the bright colours.

This is a book which immediately lent itself to a related craft activity. We cut out simple ladybird bodies from red card, then I cut out a head, face and lots of coloured spots. The little ones glued the spots onto the ladybird body, then we glued all the pieces together and drew on a face. I love books that you can do more with than just reading!

There is also a Lucy Ladybird website to enhance the ejnoyment of the book further, including some colouring pages to print. Lucy Ladybird will also soon be available as an interactive e-book. It's definitely a book that I can recommend!



We were sent a copy of Lucy Ladybird to review. Amazon links are affiliate links.

Crafting with the toddler that eats everything - a follow-up post

So the other day I posted about my crafting problems. I was having terrible trouble doing any of the crafty activities that we love with Mia, because she just kept eating everything that we were using. Thanks to the comments I was glad to see that I wasn't alone, and so I've come up with some alternatives that I've been trying out, to tide us over until she has learned that craft materials are not for eating!

Glue

Bek suggested that we could make our own glue from flour and water. I have fond memories of my parents making this for us, when we visited our Grandma who wasn't as well stocked with craft materials as we were at home. I looked about online and made up a recipe based on several different versions that I found.

I put two tablespoons of flour and one teaspoon of sugar into a saucepan, then added water gradually over a low heat, whisking continually. It thickened very quickly and became very lumpy, but by adding a bit more water I managed to make a paste. I gave it to the children with our usual glue spreaders, and to my surprise it worked really well. It stuck nicely, and would be particularly good for large scale gluing projects like papier mâché. It went lumpy as it cooled so you'd need to make it fresh each time, but it was definitely a success.

Yes, Mia did eat quite a bit of it, but I tried a little bit myself and it was actually quite tasty so I don't blame her!

Playdough

Bek also reminded me about homemade playdough. A little while back I found a great non-cook playdough recipe from The Imagination Tree for chocolate playdough, which was easy to make and very successful. It's still quite salty, so I wouldn't want Mia to eat lots of it, but it must be better for her than the commercial alternative. You can find everything you could possibly need to know about making homemade playdough here.

Paint and edible messy play

I found these sachets of custard powder and flavoured dessert mix in Asda, they were no more than 14p per sachet. Sainsbury's also do similar versions.

I made up the custard powder with hot water as per the instructions and the dessert mix with cold water (rather than the milk that you would use if you were actually going to eat it for dessert), and I put out a selection of different things to play with it.

It didn't stay this tidy for long!

Among other things we used bits and pieces from the toy kitchen, cars, ice cube trays and paintbrushes. It kept them both entertained for a very long time, and after that they both went straight into the bath, making this a fantastic activity which kept them happily occupied for an entire morning. It was a resounding success, and an activity that we have repeated several times over the last week!

So if you are experiencing the same problem that I am, I hope that you have found something here to inspire you while you wait for this phase to pass!

Crafting problems (and a cheeky request)

I'm starting to have a bit of an issue when I do crafts with the children. We often just do some simple things - we get out the glue and stick pictures onto coloured paper or we get out the paints and mix colours and paint toilet roll tubes and boxes. I also like getting out the play dough and the cutters.

The problem that I have is that Mia just tries to eat everything. If I give her a pot of glue and a glue spreader she will eat it as eagerly as if I've given her a bowl of ice cream and a spoon. If I give her a paintbrush she has it in her mouth within seconds. If I give her a lump of play dough she nibbles at it like biscuit dough.

I remember the first time I gave Harry all these things, they went in his mouth, I said "No, not in your mouth" and he never did it again. Mia has had all these things multiple times and it just keeps going in. I'm sure that it can't be doing her much good!

It's difficult because Harry can now occupy himself for a good amount of time, and I want to join in with him. But I have to remove Mia and put her down on the floor, where she whinges and tries to climb back up, meaning that our creative sessions keep having to be cut short. Now that she no longer naps I don't have any opportunities to do these things with Harry without her being around.

Any tips? Or do I just have to wait for her to grow out of it?

In other news, the BritMums BiB (Brilliance in Blogging) Awards are now open for nominations. If you are looking for blogs to nominate I would love for you to consider Jennifer's Little World, perhaps in the Crafts or Travel categories. Thank you so much! Find out more here.

That's not lipstick...

Simple Easter papier mache gift bowls

I've been meaning to try papier mache for a little while now with Harry, and I thought that making some simple little bowls would be a good way to start. Filled with treats, they would be a lovely gift for Easter or Mother's Day.

To make the paper mache bowls, first you need to choose a couple of bowls that are a suitable size. I'd recommend starting small! I used two small bowls from Ikea. You also need some cling film, lots of small pieces of torn up paper and lots of glue. I used watered down PVA (white) glue.

Cover the bowls in cling film and smooth it down as much as you can. Then all you have to do is cover the bowl with glue and paste on pieces of paper in layers. You can use newspaper, but if you make the first and last layers using white paper it will be easier to paint afterwards. Be aware that if you are making this with young children you will end up doing most of the paper yourself! Allow it to dry a little in between layers, ideally by placing on a radiator. You will need at least eight layers to make it sturdy enough, but you can do as many more as you like depending on how thick you want your bowl to be.

When you have finished gluing the paper, allow to dry thoroughly before releasing the papier mache bowl from the mould. It should slide off easily. You may want to do a last layer of paper to overlap the rim of the bowl and make it look neater.

Then you are ready to decorate. We used poster paints - first we painted the bowl yellow then when it was dry we decorated with a sponge 'leaf' print and used cotton buds to make coloured dots.

There are so many different ways that you could decorate the bowls - you could add a layer of coloured tissue paper or napkins, add glitter and sequins, use dried flowers or leaves, glue on pictures from magazines or just paint designs using a fine brush.

Valentine's Day toilet roll tube gift boxes

I love crafting with toilet rolls. For sweet little Valentine's Day gifts I took an idea which I used to make toilet roll Easter Bunnies and toilet roll Easter Chicks and made some little Valentine's Day bug gift boxes.

They are so easy to make, and even young children can help. Simply paint a toilet roll red (I used one whole roll and one cut in half). Then stick on some collage bits - scraps of tissue paper, coloured paper, lace and ribbon. The heart cut outs were left over from making our wedding invitations - six years ago!

Glue a heart shaped piece of red card to the bottom to make feet and a base. Then fill with sweets - chocolate hearts, or anything in red or pink paper or foil. Don't forget the googly eyes, and top with some shredded red paper to be the hair. This would be a great little gift if you were making them in large numbers for a whole class, and when the sweets have been eaten they can be used to store small treasures or pens.

Easy Valentine's Day collage bunting

Decorating for different celebrations is a really good way to get children involved, and this bunting is so easy that as long as a child can hold a glue spreader they can join in.

First you need to cut some heart shapes from red and pink cardboard. I drew a heart free hand, but an easy way to make a heart is to use the shapes from Microsoft Word or similar and print them out. Then collect together an assortment of appropriate collage materials in red and pink - scraps of tissue paper, paper napkins, bits of lace or ribbon, coloured paper, sequins and so on.

Let the children decorate the hearts with plenty of glue. Then when they are dry string them together with some coloured ribbon or string, hang up and enjoy!

Easter craft - Easter chick egg holders from toilet roll tubes

Last Easter I shared some easy to make Easter bunny egg holders from toilet roll tubes. They were based on something that I used to make for my family when I was little as a little Easter gift, sized perfectly for a Cadbury's Creme Egg or similar. Another craft which is just as easy is these cute little Easter chicks.

They are made from a toilet roll tube cut in half and painted yellow. The feet are made from some shaped cardboard painted orange, and some wings can be glued on with yellow tissue paper. Then just add some details for the face, I used googly eyes and a triangle of orange felt.

These are so easy for young children to make, and if you let them stick on the accessories they can give each chick its own personality. They would make great Easter gifts for friends or classmates.

Here they are along with their Easter bunny friends, and of course you can't celebrate Easter without some rice crispie cakes filled with Mini Eggs!

 

 

If you are looking for more Easter crafts and activities to do with Easter chicks, have a look over on my other blog, Toddler Things - Easter Chicks.

Some themed toddler craft and activity ideas for Christmas

Over on Toddler Things, I've been putting together some themed Christmas craft and activity ideas for toddlers and pre-schoolers. I'm sharing them here, and I hope that you find something fun to do with your children in the build-up to Christmas!

Snowmen crafts, activities and resources



Reindeer crafts, activities and resources

Angels crafts, activities and resources

Robins crafts, activities and resources

Holly crafts, activities and resources

I will be away on holiday for a couple of weeks, but I have a few posts scheduled for while I am away, and I may be able to pop in from time to time. To start with, look out on Thursday for instructions on how to make a super easy Shepherd's Nativity costume from a pillowcase!

Reindeer handprint Christmas cards

This week, the theme for the Counting Down to Christmas Blog Hop is Cards. One of the first Christmas tasks is sending out the Christmas cards, and as we are going away for two weeks during the build up to Christmas I need to start thinking about them early this year.

I must admit that this handprint reindeer Christmas card is not an original idea. Harry brought one back from nursery last year and I fell in love with it, so much so that I kept it close by all year long. I decided to replicate it this year, this time with Mia's handprint and Harry's help for the details.

All you need to do is make some handprints with brown paint onto coloured paper or card. It's worth making far more than you need so that you can choose the best. Then just add two googly eyes and a red nose! I cut out the reindeer and Harry helped me to glue them onto some contrasting coloured card, this way you don't need to worry too much if you end up with some duff handprints. We used different sized googly eyes for some variety. They are so easy, and I think they look really sweet!

This Christmas card post is part of the Counting Down to Christmas Blog Hop, which is being co-hosted by the following blogs:

Rainy Day Mum ~ Making Boys Men ~ Here come the girls ~ TheBoyandMe ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners ~Mummy..Mummy.MUM!!

Make sure to have a look at some of the other great ideas linked up below, and do link up your own Christmas card crafts below! And if you like reindeer, here are some more reindeer crafts.

Easy homemade Advent Calendar to make with kids

It might seem early, but it won't be long until Christmas is upon us! Today I'm sharing how Harry and I made a really simple homemade Advent Calendar. This is a really good project to do with children, as they can do a lot of it themselves, and it's a good way to begin the Christmas crafting. This post is also part of a Counting Down to Christmas Blog Hop, so if you have an Advent craft of your own to share then please do add it to the linky at the bottom of the post.

The template for the Advent calendar is made using Microsoft Word or similar. Firstly set up the page so that the margins are much smaller than usual, then use the drawing tool to make 24 rectangles in various sizes. Try and leave a reasonable gap between the boxes. Then print out two copies - I printed out one copy onto white paper and one onto green paper. The white piece is the background, so it needs to be strengthened by glueing it onto a sheet of thick card. The green piece will be the front.

Then you need to collect together some Christmas images. I mainly used my collection of cuttings from old Christmas cards, which I also use for gift tags. The cardboard meant that they made the Advent calendar a bit sturdier. You could also look for pictures on Christmas wrapping paper, Christmas catalogues and gift guides from shops, magazines with Christmas articles or just use Google images to search for Christmas pictures which you can print out. Cut the pictures to the sizes of the different rectangles and stick them down on top. Try and let them overlap the sides of the boxes a little.

While they are drying, use a craft knife to cut out the windows on the top (green) sheet of paper. Make sure that you have both pieces of paper the same way up, and cut along the top, bottom and right hand side of each box.

Then glue the top piece of paper down onto the background. Only use a minimal amount of glue, you don't want the windows to end up glued down! Make sure that the windows are lined up with the pictures underneath.

When it's all dry, you can use felt pens to write on the numbers for the doors, and bling it up with some glitter glue and sequins. Harry loved helping with this bit, your child can really get involved with personalising their own Advent calendar.

If you have a wooden Advent calendar with boxes, don't forget to have a look at my post with ideas for gifts to fill a wooden Advent calendar!

This Blog Hop is being hosted by the following blogs:

Rainy Day Mum ~ Mummy Mummy Mum! ~ Life at the Zoo ~ Here Come the Girls

The Fairy and The Frog ~ Jennifer's Little World ~ Playful Learners

Making Boys Men and The Boy and Me

There are lots of other fantastic ideas in the linky list below, and don't forget to link up your own Advent crafts!