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Tissue paper flowers

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I think Spring has finally, definitely sprung. These tissue paper flowers are a pretty craft to welcome Spring into your home. Easy to make, you need just three ingredients: green sugarpaper, tissuepaper squares in your favourite petal colours and sticky tape – that’s all!

First take a sheet of green sugarpaper and roll up to make a tube.

Next, use sticky tape to hold your paper tube together. This is your stem.

Take two tissue paper squares and lay them as shown in the picture below.

Then use your finger and thumb to scrunch the squares together in the centre and give them a little twist. This makes your petals.

Use some stickytape to fasten your petals onto your stem.

Make a few more, using your favourite colours, and you have a beautiful Spring bouquet.

And if you have an empty toilet roll tube in your making box you can make a vase to display them in.

And if you love flowers you might also like to make these daffodil windmills.

Happily shared with Tired Need Sleep and Today’s Creative Blog

Lollypop stick puppets

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The great thing about having a craft box stocked up with materials is that when the creative urge strikes you can make your vision a reality.

Big was bored today. It’s getting near the end of a two week school holiday and she was mooching around, in need of an idea she said. I suggested she have a look at the craft shelf to she what she could find and hey presto, a short while later she presented me with these:

 

That’s me with the long swooshing shirt. She’s the one in the red dress.

She re-arranged the sofa cushions to make a theatre and put on a puppet show. Out of boredom comes creativity.

And it seems lollypop stick puppets are The Thing this week. Helen Rawlinson made some fantastic ones from a Boden catalogue, which you should go see. Have you got some lollysticks? What could you make?

Easter chick pompoms

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Little is taking part in an Easter Parade at pre-school tomorrow and needs an Easter bonnet. She’s also crazy about chicks, ever since one of the kids at school brought some into class. So, what would suit her better than a bonnet full of chicks?  These pompom chicks are really easy to make, and if you use a thick wool they’re quick too. Pre-schoolers will probably need some help in case they get in a tangle but Big can make them by herself with no problem.

You need: some wool (you can stick with one colour or mix a couple together depending on how you want your chick to look), scissors,2 rings per chick cut from cardboard, card to make eyes and a beak.

The size of the rings will determine how big your chicks will be.

All you need to do is follow the photos below:

Place the two cardboard rings together.  Take a length of wool (say 75cm-ish) and start winding round the two rings. Keep winding! When you wool runs out, get another length and wind that in. Keep winding and adding more wool. Once the ring is full (fuller = fluffier chick), cut around the outer egde of the ring with your scissors. Take another length of wool and use it to tie a knot INSIDE the two cardboard rings. This is going to hold the chick together so make it a tight knot. Tear off the cardboard rings and your pompom is finished. Any bits of wool sticking out can be trimmed to size. You can trim off the extra length of wool which you used tie your knot, or leave it long so you can hang it up (or tie it on to your bonnet).

Glue on some eyes and a beak and your chick is ready. You can use this as an Easter decoration or play with it.

Or, make a family of them and tie them round your bonnet.

Happily shared with  arty crafty party

 

 

Wordless Wednesday : Junk

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Boat by Little

This is Little’s boat – the first thing she’s made all by herself from our ‘making box’ full of household junk on the way to be recycled. I love how she’s explored the three dimensional nature of the box by colouring each plane in a different colour. And how she thought to make a door so her passengers could come aboard.

Our Making Box

Do you have a making box? What kind of things are in yours?

Like to see what’s in our other craft box?

Sponge painting shapes

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Here’s  a quick idea you could try to explore shapes with your child.

Take a kitchen washing-up sponge and cut it into different shapes using some scissors. We made rectangles, squares and triangles. Talk with your child about the shapes: How many sides do they have? What are they called? Can they see anything in the room the same shape? What pictures could you make with the shapes?

Then place some paint onto a shallow dish and show your child how you can dip a sponge shapes into the paint and then press it on to a piece of paper to make a print. Have fun experimenting to see what you can create… a house, a train, a spaceship?

Vanilla-scented ice cream playdough

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Here’s a recipe for homemade vanilla-scented playdough in pretty ice-cream shades – together with some play ideas to encourage your kids to explore and learn.

no cook playdough recipe

 

Playdough is such a wonderful material for chidren to explore as there are so many ways for them to play with it. It’s an open-ended activity so it allows them to use their imagination and be creative with what they make. It’s very good when there’s a mixed age group of children playing as they can all join in a way that suits their age and interests. It promotes language development too if you’re sat chatting about what you’re making or co-operating over sharing materials.

You can add in other resources from time to time to spark ideas for new ways to play – maybe provide some matchsticks, lollypop sticks, cake cases, bottletops or feathers. You can also use a change of location to extend the play possibilities. It’s not a very messy substance, and cleans up fairly easily if you don’t leave it to harden. (Best on hard surfaces rather than carpet though.) It would be interesting to watch how your children use playdough in the garden, in the toy kitchen or in the dolls house.

I’ve been using this family recipe to make playdough for a while but a recent post by Jen over at the The Mad House suggested using essential oils in the mixture to add scent. I loved this idea but as  I wasn’t completely sure the children playing here would keep the dough out of their mouths I’ve used vanilla essence here instead. The addition of natural food colourings produces lovely ice cream-like shades which I much prefer to the lurid shop bought colours. I also like the texture of homemade playdough and it’s so cheap and easy to make. Give it a try and I think you’ll be making your own from now on.

Here’s the recipe – using a measuring jug instead of weighing scales to make it easy.

Warm 750ml of water in a large pan. Add 375 ml of salt, 750ml of flour, 45ml of sunflower oil, 30ml of cream of tartar and 10ml of vanilla essence.

Stir the ingredients together over a low heat. Use a whisk at first to get rid of any lumps and then a wooden spoon until the dough comes together.

Remove the pan from the heat and tip the dough into a large bowl. (If you want to make several different colours you can split the dough into separate bowls at this stage and add a different colour to each bowl. )

Add a few drops of food colouring and knead for a couple of minutes until the colour is evenly spread through the dough.

Let it cool a little and then it’s ready to play with. Store in an air-tight jar and it should last for at least a couple of months.

More playdough recipes

How about a chocolate playdough recipe? Valentine’s playdough? Outer space playdough?

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