Category Archives: Toddler and Preschool activities

Dec12

Home Made Christmas Cards – Kids Craft

Posted on December 12, 2012 by thestick81

Unlike most of our projects, where I get inspired by Pinterest or something else, I actually thought this up myself!

Really easy messy fun for all ages. Just take some coloured paper and draw some simple Christmas shapes. If drawing is not your thing, trace around some cookie cutters.

Cover inside the outline with a thick layer of craft glue. Smear around with a paintbrush or a finger tip if you don’t mind getting sticky.

Then sprinkle christmas theme sequins randomly over the glued area. Try to cover the outline as much as possible too.

When you can’t see much of the paper within the shape, give it a light shake. Then drizzle some more glue over the top to hold down any loose ones.

Allow to dry. We left them for 24 hours.

Once dry, Use some large sharp scissors, cut around the shape. If you can’t see the outline on the front, just follow the lines that went through the page as demonstrated above.

Once the shapes are cut out, we added some double sided mounting tape (commonly used for scrap booking) to give them a slightly more 3D effect on the card, but you could just use standard double sided tape or glue.

Position on the cards as you please, and there you have it. Sparkly Christmas cards. Mini ones of these would also make cute Gift Tags. Just line the other side with another piece of paper to write on and use a hole punch to make somewhere to secure with ribbon.

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: Cover with a thick layer of glue

: spread glue around

: Sprinkle heavily with sequins

: Covering with sequins

: Drizzle another thin layer of glue all over

: Allow to dry thoroughly.

: Once dry, cut out the shape

: Cutting out the shape

: The cut out shapes.

: Mounting tape.

: Finished product

: Finished cards,

: Hanging up.

Dec10

Christmas Cards, Kids Craft

Posted on December 10, 2012 by thestick81

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I couldn’t get my hand on any decent glitter paint pens to finish these, so this is just part one of the process.

To make these decorated cards, all you need is a hot glue gun, strips of wrapping paper, card and either some large buttons or as we used, some plastic jewels.

Cut strips of Christmas paper, approximately 3 – 4 cm wide and 30 – 40cm long. Fold back and forth to create a zig zag, approximately 1cm wide. As demonstrated by Mr 7 below.

Once folded the whole way to the end, glue both ends together. You can get the kids to do this with craft glue, but I chose to use the glue gun as it dries so much quicker.

Once the glue has dried, put a circle of hot glue onto the card where you want to place your decoration

Carefully turn the paper in at one side and out on the other, to create a flower type shape. Trying not to let it all go at the same time as you can see on the right above. The first one is the hardest!

Then cover the back of your jewel of button with hot glue and place in the centre. Repeat until you have as many decorations on each card as you like. You can experiment with different thicknesses of paper to create bigger and smaller ones.

Dec3

Quick Kids Craft – Christmas Themed

Posted on December 3, 2012 by thestick81

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Mr 7 actually came up with this by himself. He was not home when we did the leaf pictures, but he used that idea for inspiration.

Some craft glue, a marker, coloured paper, leaves and flowers and a brush.

I drew the basic outline for him, while he and Ms 3 collected some fine leaves and flowers from the garden.

Spread the paint into the area you want to cover.

Then he painted the glue on.

and start sticking

The finished product.

Too easy! Next time we might frame them. Or cut out the shape and put it on some different coloured backing.

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: Some craft glue, a marker, coloured paper, leaves and flowers and a brush.

: Spread the paint into the area you want to cover.

: and start sticking

: Ms 3 and Mr 7 sticking on the flowers and leaves

: The finished product.

Dec2

Not your every day tree – Christmas Craft

Posted on December 2, 2012 by thestick81

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Not your every day tree – Christmas Craft

This idea actually came from a Woolworths Fresh Magazine idea, but I have also seen similar things on Pinterest and other blogs. I went slightly over the top compared to theirs – so unlike me.

We went for a walk around the local park lands and collected some sticks that I thought would be good for the job.

The branches

Then I gave them a light spray of white paint.

Spray painting the branches

Left in the sun to dry for a few hours, which resulted in this

The painted branches

The original idea I was looking at used a rusty bucket for the pot, but as I don’t have one of those laying around, I had to come up with something else. I found an empty plastic pot and decided we could work with that.

Covering the plastic pot with aluminium foil

I covered it in a layer of aluminium foil, before a layer of transparent cellophane just to give it a bit more shine.

Then a layer of cellophane to go with your colour theme

Once we were happy with the finish of that, we collected some rocks from the garden to fill the pot and hold the branches into position.

Filled the pot with rocks to secure the branches and to stop it tipping over.

Then it was time to decorate!

Decorating the tree

Outside, to try to catch the sparkle

With LEDs around the base

I am really struggling to get a good photo of this thing, just like the bauble tree, because the camera takes away all the sparkle. It really stands out in real life. I might have to read my camera manual.

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: The branches

: Spray painting the branches

: The painted branches

: Covering the plastic pot with aluminium foil

: Then a layer of cellophane to go with your colour theme

: The pot

: Filled the pot with rocks to secure the branches and to stop it tipping over.

: Decorating the tree

: Outside, to try to catch the sparkle

: The ‘Tree’

: With LEDs around the base

Nov30

Easy Christmas Craft – Mini Christmas Trees

Posted on November 30, 2012 by thestick81

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Easy Christmas Craft – Mini Christmas Trees

Inspiration for this idea came from something I saw at Spotlight. They used buttons though, which looked good, but buying enough buttons for the project would have blown the budget. I can’t believe how expensive those things are?

Anyway, What you need.

styrofoam tree shapes, sewing pins, aluminium foil, sequins and sticky tape.

Spotlight also didn’t have any of the cone shape styrofoam in stock, so I bought that from Riot Art and Craft. They are available in different sizes, I just chose 3 small ones to avoid arguments.

Wrap the foil around the cone and secure with clear tape. I crumpled up a ball of foil before spreading it out on one, to create a more rippled affect. I actually prefer how that one turned out.

Once you have the foil secured and are happy with the finish, start placing the pins! Be careful when working at the top of the cone to point them down towards the bottom as you insert, so you don’t go straight through and poke yourself on the other side. The kids managed this fine, even Miss 3. We only had one ouchy, and that was actually me!

Thread sequins onto pin and insert.

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Nov19

Christmas Kids Craft, Flat Christmas Tree Decoration.

Posted on November 19, 2012 by thestick81

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Christmas Kids Craft, Flat Christmas Tree Decoration.

So our rainy weekend craft continued into Sunday afternoon. We started making Christmas decorations!

Materials; scrap card, and any shiny, sparkly or pretty things you have on hand! We had a pack of Christmas themed sequins from last year that came in handy

We just used a plastic cup to trace around, leaving a small section for the top of the bauble.

We all decorated 2 each. Some of the decorations had sticky stuff on the back, others required glue. The kids made sure they used 500 times more glue than they needed – as you’d expect.

Due to excess glue, we left them over night to dry. Yes, all that white stuff is glue.

Draw half the tree

Using a large piece of card board ($1.50 from a news agent), draw the silhouette of one side the tree, starting at the top of the page to get the most out of your $1.50

Fold over and cut out the tree to create a symmetrical shape.

Fold the card over and cut along the line, so both sides are identical.

Fold in half down the centre of the tree and cut along outline, to create a symmetrical tree. Or, if you’re not OCD about that kind of thing like me, just draw a tree and cut it out!

Loosely position everything to make sure it fits, then start sticking. We used double sided photo mounting tape so we didn’t have to wait even longer for glue to dry. The tinsel is stapled at each edge.

And there you have it!

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Nov19

Quick Toddler Craft – Tissue Paper Butterfly Mobile

Posted on November 19, 2012 by thestick81

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Quick Toddler Craft – Tissue Paper Butterfly Mobile

After 2 days of rain the daughter was really tearing her hair out – or was that mine? I had plenty of work to do, but figured I best take some time out to entertain her. Once again inspired by ABC Play School They were making paper butterflies to blow in the wind, so I thought we’d just extend on that idea.

What you’ll need for tissue paper butterflies

What you’ll need; tissue paper (crepe paper would probably work just as well) pipe cleaners, scissors, plastic ribbon and a coat hanger (not pictured)

Twist the paper in the middle

Cut squares or rectangles out of the paper and twist in the middle – as demonstrated by Miss 3.

Twist a pipe cleaner around the middle.

Twist a pipe cleaner around the middle. This is not entirely necessary, but I liked the addition of an extra colour and texture, as well as the antennae look it created.

Attach the string or ribbonAT

Attach your string or ribbon, keep attaching as many as you would like. We just did 3 on each string x 3 strings.

As a mobile

In the window

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And there you have it. Took less than 10 minutes to create and she thinks they are awesome.

Nov16

Easy Toddler Craft – Leaf Animals.

Posted on November 16, 2012 by thestick81

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Inspired by ABC Play School. Today we made leaf animal pictures. It was super easy with minimal mess.

Layla cuts some leaves off our pot plant

DD3 cuts some leaves from our garden.

What you need.

What you will need; Some coloured paper, leaves, marker pens, craft glue and scissors (craft eyes optional)

Draw some simple animals to add the leaves too, like this bird.

Draw the outline of some simple shapes on the paper using your makers.

Glue on the best shaped leaf for the job!

Start gluing on the leaves that best suit the picture.

We used the same leaf configuration each time to finish off this bird.

We used the tips of a China doll branch to create this picture.

Adding the finishing touches.

Adding some boggle eyes, because every kids loves those (ok, and maybe I do too)

One of my favourites

The finished products

The finished masterpieces, drying on a flat surface.

All dried and ready for display.

All dry and ready to display.

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Nov4

Glitter Play Dough (Home made)

Posted on November 4, 2012 by thestick81

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After establishing my daughter has low muscle tone, it was suggested by her occupational therapist that we use play dough to warm up her hands before any writing or drawing activities. Obviously it also has many other benefits, like fine motor, creativity, blah blah, but anyway. After buying all the different brands and them still ending up dry and ‘ordinary’ after a week, I decided it was time I got off my little b-hind and made our own. Unfortunately I only had blue food colouring on hand (because the kids always want some in the bath, so we go through a lot :s ) . I chose this recipe, as it had a 5 star rating. The only problem is I don’t have nor have ever bought cream of tartar? So some googling suggested I could omit it for baking powder and vinegar, but the vinegar was going to mess with the liquid content and ohhh, it all seemed too hard. So, as I do, I figured I’d just do a splash of this and a bit of that. I used about 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and 2 tablespoons of baking soda.

What you need

I mixed all the dry ingredients with a whisk, then added the water and the rest of the wet ingredients. It was very wet.

All mixed together.

The recipe does not actually tell you how hot to cook it, so I just went with 4, which is just below half way on my cooktop. This worked well.

After just a few minutes it starts to thicken.

I continued working with the whisk to avoid lumps, but eventually it became too thick and was all getting stuck in the middle of the whisk.

I’d call that done.

Soon enough, this is what we had. I used my fingers to test (first time they came away all sticky, much like a skewer in cake) but then it was just about right. Surprisingly even though it was still over the heat, it was not very hot to touch.