NurtureStore » Crafts

Valentine touchy-feely hearts

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:00:52 +0000

Show your babies and toddlers some love this Valentines day with some sensory play that’s adaptable to include even the youngest children. These love hearts are oh so touchy feely! A wonderful creative project for kids to make and explore.

This activity is part of the heart project: a collaboration of over 100 creative ideas raising money for the American Heart Foundation. You’ll need to check back tomorrow to find out all about the project but for now, here’s how to make these touchy feely hearts.

Valentine touchy feely hearts

Start by drawing lots of heart shapes on some card – all shapes and sizes, let the kids have a go!

Spread on some strong clear drying PVA / craft glue and your love heart canvas is ready to decorate.

Invite the children to sprinkle and press on all sorts of materials. Try to provide as many different textures as you can find.

Ideas to try include
:: tissue paper :: wrapping paper :: tin foil :: sequins :: glitter :: sandpaper :: wool :: string :: card :: ribbon :: velvet :: bubble wrap :: sand :: rice :: pasta :: cotton fabric :: lentils :: silk :: hessian :: chiffon

Toddlers can certainly join in with all this and even babies might help. If your baby is too young to do some sticking they can explore some of the materials while older siblings (or you!) create the hearts for them to explore once they’re finished.

As you’re using a strong craft glue most items should stick well to the hearts and still allow you to feel the full variety of different textures. If you’re using small items, such as glitter and sequins, an extra layer of glue over the top helps to hold the materials together. Adding extra folds and crinkles to the papers and fabrics adds even more texture.

The finished hearts look wonderful as a touchy feely art gallery. Hang them where your children can reach them to feel the different textures. You could also stick them in to a journal or scrap book to create a sensory book to share with babies, but be sure to read the book along with them to make sure none of the materials get free and end up in their mouths.

This project is one of over 100 creative ideas joining the very special heart project. Find out all about it here

But if you really can’t wait, why not have a look at our other Valentine craft ideas, such as our water painted hearts and our valentine gratitude tree and our symmetry art love hearts.

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Symmetry art: love hearts

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:11:14 +0000

Symmetry art is a classic childhood painting activity and it works so well as a Valentine craft. I’m very excited to share this post with you today because it’s part of a much bigger, very special project – but more of that in a minute! First up: how to make symmetry art love hearts

Symmetry art: love hearts

To start you’ll need lots and lots of love hearts. We used white card to make ours. Folding the card in half makes it easier to cut out your shapes, as you’ll want both halves of the heart to be the same size so the symmetry magic works. The children can of course have a go – the hearts can be any size they like.

Then your hearts are ready to paint.

We decided to go with traditional valentine colours of red and pink.

Time to start adding the colour – and you need to paint on just one half of the heart. (Folding the heart and hiding one side makes it easier to resist the temptation to paint all over at this stage!) You could use paintbrushes, stamps or fingerprints.

Once you’ve painted one side, fold your heart together and gently press to spread the paint inside.

Carefully peel open your heart and ta -da! A magical symmetrical painting appears.

The hearts are wonderful as a project all by themselves but also look great glued onto cards, strung as garlands or fasten a pin on the back and you can wear your heart on your sleeve.

This project is one of over 100 beautiful creative ideas joining the heart project. Be sure to check back here on 1st February and I’ll tell you all about it! (updated: find out about the heart project here)

If you can’t wait, why not have a look at our other Valentine craft ideas, such as our water painted hearts and our valentine gratitude tree.

Playdough and cocktail sticks

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:54:20 +0000

Many of the play ideas I post here happen as a result of my children taking some everyday materials and experimenting. Having a well stocked making box (which really doesn’t mean lots of expensive art materials) and permission to help themselves to some of our kitchen supplies often leads to all sorts of creativity and learning. Today’s post is an example of how a fusion of two materials can produce lots of thinking about maths, dimensions, construction, creativity, roleplay and of course plenty of fun.

Play dough and cocktail sticks

You know we use play dough at lot in our house. I think it might just be the one play material we’d pick above all others. We’ve played with it week in week out for almost nine years! I’ve talked before about how much learning can be included in playdough play but the key thing to get the most from it is to mix things up a little. In my Let’s Play Dough e-book (which you can download for free, just click on the link) I’ve given you a list of 52 different materials to combine with your dough – so if you want, you can have a whole year’s worth of new play dough experiences. Take a look and see if there’s something there you’ve never used.

This week we’ve been mixing things up by adding cocktail sticks to our playdough. If you saw our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party you’ll know the cocktail sticks were intended to make an edible hedgehog – but B knows a great playdough idea when she sees one!

She wondered if the playdough would work as a ‘glue’ to hold the cocktail sticks together – and look what happened.

Triangles and squares began to appear – and lots of wondering and experimenting started happening. Could you make it bigger? Could you mix different shapes together? Could you build up?

L was playing along to, and she discovered the cocktail sticks give your playdough extra strength, to build tall strong creatures…

and re-inforced homes for them to live in.

Mix up your play dough

Are you playing with play dough this week? What could you add in to give your children a different experience this time?

If you’ve already tried playdough with cocktail sticks maybe you could try twigs, straws, art , shells or candles?

happily shared with link and learn

Contact paper art

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:09:52 +0000

This idea for contact paper art is the result of my 5-year-old’s love of scissors. She sat listening to an audio book last week, all the while cutting away at a pack of drinking straws with her scissors. I’m not quite sure what it is about snipping she finds so appealing but she loves it at the moment and will cut paper, playdough, card, whatever. Not wanting to put a stop to her current craze, but also not wanting to see all our art supplies vanish into pieces quite so quickly, we gathered up all the drinking straw remnants to use for some contact paper art.

Contact paper art

We decided to make some frames from card and drew out some irregular shapes.

Once the frames were cut out we placed them onto contact paper (which you might also know as sticky backed plastic).

Then it was time to fill in our gallery with the drinking straws.

Putting the contact paper frames up in the window, with the light shining through, creates a beautiful effect. With the bowl of drinking straws placed on the window ledge it’s an invitation for whoever is passing to add a few pieces. The contact paper is strong enough to hold the straws in place, but it’s very easy to peel them off, move them around and try different arrangements.

You can fill in the whole frame, make faces, create a stained glass effect, make stripes, patchwork, whatever you like. Have you ever tried contact paper art with your kids?

Join the Kids Art Explorers

If you enjoy trying out new art materials and techniques why not join the Kids Art Explorers project?

happily shared with friday’s nature table and it’s playtime and kids get crafty

A junk model birthday tribute

Cathy @ NurtureStore — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:00:35 +0000

Happy birthday Miss B!

My lovely B is celebrating her ninth birthday this weekend. She’s having a book-themed party completed with Mad Hatters Tea party.

In honour of her birthday I’m featuring some of our favourite creations from my Queen of Junk Modeling – that’s her Giraffe above.

She was also the instigator of our lunar landing.

She’s the one who made a marvellous marble run.

The riding stables were all her idea.

And here she is in a terrifying video.