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Playing with pegs

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playing with clothespegs

We had a great response to our posts about treasure baskets for babies and shoebox play, so I thought I’d look at another everyday item that makes a great un-toy: clothes pegs. Here’s how my children love to play with clothes pegs – and we’d love the hear some more ideas from you.

  • A bowl of soapy water, some clothes to wash and a washing line  = a hour’s worth of contented role play. (Wish I still found so much bliss in doing laundry!)

    • how to make peg dolls

  • Take a clothes peg and the contents of your making box, add some imagination and what can you make? Superheros, pirates, mermaids – have a look at our ‘how to make a peg doll‘ slide show for some more ideas.

    • how to make a clothes peg butterfly

  • Clothes pegs make wonderful butterflies too. Here’s how we make our clothespeg butterfly and here’s another beautiful version that My Kids Make shared with our  Play Academy idea swap.

How do your children play with clothes pegs? Please share an idea (or a link) in the comments – we’d love some new ideas!

happily shared with preschool creations and abcand123 and we play and  Made By You Monday and  learning laboratory and the Resource Centre

How to make a wedding bouquet

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wedding costume dressing up

It’s all about weddings at the moment. I don’t think L knows there’s a royal wedding on the way but maybe it’s just a case of love in the air because all of a sudden she wants to wear a wedding costume and dress up as a bride. And every bride needs some flowers right? Here’s our quick and easy version of how to make a wedding bouquet.

make tissue paper flowers

We used the same technique we used when we made our opulent tissue paper flowers for our Mothers’ Day flower craft (follow the link for full instructions). Once we had five or six flowers we simply fastened the drinking straw stems together with sticky tape and the blushing bride had her beautiful bouquet.

how to make a dressing up pretend bouquet

Easy-peasy and ever so pretty. A wedding bouquet fit for a queen!

happily shared with get your craft on and homemaker monday and  inspire me monday and kids get crafty

Roller painting with cars

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painting with cars

We had fun this week roller-painting with cars. We started off with paint on some plates and we dipped the cars’ wheels in before we took them for a drive on the paper. Then B decided we should put some splodges of paint directly on the paper and let the cars roll through.

The children loved the process and there was lots of chat about traffic jams and short cuts – and the finished result was beautiful too.

With sunny weather forecast for the coming week I’m thinking this would be a great activity for outside messy play. How about a long roll of paper laid down the slide or a ramp, with the cars rolling down?

Have you ever tried painting with cars with your children?

Spring craft ebook

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spring craft ideas

Here’s a spring gift to all of you – a fabulous Spring crafts and activities ebook!

The book is full of wonderful ideas for children of all ages: egg crafts, rainy days ideas, things to try in the garden and lots more. It has been compiled by Mandi from Life…Your Way and Allie from No Time For Flashcards. It features ideas from fifteen bloggers from around the world – including me! Take a look at their ideas and click though to their blogs to find lots more inspiration.

The Spring craft ebook is free to download – please help yourself and I hope you have fun trying out the ideas in it!

Click here to download your free Spring Craft eBook

 

happily shared with Tot Tuesday and Inspire Me Monday and Making Monday Marvelous and  Tot school and  Craft Schooling Sunday and arty crafty party Friday’s Nature Table and the Resource Centre and Preschool Corner and  Something for the Weekend and  Frugal Friday and  For the Kids Friday

Junk model snake

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After big sister’s guide on how to make a dinosaur world yesterday, today little sister is taking over the blogging reigns with her design for how to make a junk model snake.

To make a snake like L’s you will need: toilet roll tubes, scissors, paint, a long ribbon, stapler

 

snake craft idea

 

Start by cutting each toilet roll tube into three. Paint them in your favourite colours adding extra stripes and spots to make them fancy. Mix some colours together to try out some new shades too. Our favourite was purple.

 

how to make a snake

 

Once the paint is dry, choose one hoop to be your snake’s head. Thread the ribbon through and staple it in place. Cut the end of the ribbon to make it look like a snake’s tongue.

 

junk modeling

 

Thread all the other hoops on to the ribbon to make your long snake.

make a snake

 

To fasten the last one in place and stop your snake falling to pieces, loop the ribbon round the last hoop and fasten it with a knot.

junk model snake

 

Add some nostrils and some eyes and your snake is ready to go a-slithering.

 

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