April Showers

Today it is wet and miserable here, not so much April showers as April down pours. Bleurgh. It did remind of a lovely little decoration I'd been inspired to make after seeing a similar one.  A simple cloud, which I felt simply needed the addition of raindrops.  So I immediately got to work.  I used:

• some thick beading wire
• my heart punch 
• some white paper
• some insulation tape
• some thin white cotton
• some normal sticky tape

I shaped the beading wire into the cloud shape I was after and then wrapped it with the blue insulation tape to make it stand out a bit. Next I punched out several hearts and used those to create the rain drops (cut in half and slightly shaped).  I tied the cotton onto the cloud shape and added my half heart rain drops to the cotton and that was it.  I was finished.  Tah Dah.  A nice easy peasy craft that still looks super effective now.

I think you could possibly make this work as a coat hanger too, a flat bottom to the cloud, without the raindrops, and then add a hook to the top.  That would make it into something useful, as opposed to just looking pretty.

Egyptian Minecraft Project

I showed you the Tudor house that the rest of my family created on Minecraft a little while ago.  

They have been working on a number of other projects since then, mainly inspired by the kids school work, or by their hobbies (we have an open air gymnastics stadium on Minecraft too.  All the projects have been created in Survival mode too, so they have been learning about collecting and managing their own resources!)

This time I want to show you the Egyptian project they decided on.  The Sphinx.  It is pretty big and you can see if from quite far away - just like the real thing!

As you get closer the details become clearer, you can see the colours they used - made by dying sheep so that when they sheared them, the wool was the right colour already.  You can also dye the wool after the sheep have been sheared, so it is more like real life if you wish, but it takes longer and uses more dye.

Now you can see the sand blocks on either side are in fact his legs.

From a slightly different angle he still looks cool.

I'm always impressed with the amount of work they are prepared to put in, especially when this is coming from pictures, either on the internet, or in books.  He has some glow stone eyes, so he looks pretty cool at night too.

Oranges/Satsuma Pumpkins

Does that title even make sense?  Maybe not, but that is what we made.  We used plain sticky labels, well actually I think we used old computer disc labels.  Do you remember them?  Weird to think my kids have no idea what we're talking about when the Husband and I discuss them.

Anyway all you need is some sticky labels you can cut and colour and then stick onto whatever fruit you have to hand.  We chose oranges because that is what I had.  Each one got a face lift on both sides as the kids really did enjoy this activity.

I thought that the stickers would be a good idea because then I would still feel comfortable eating the fruit after Halloween.  Though originally I got the idea from here and they drew straight on to the fruit with sharpies.  I know they have a thick peel, but I would have been worrying about whether there were any toxins that had seeped through that I needed to worry about.

We didn't do this last year, I didn't have any of the right coloured fruit, but I must remember to get some in this year for some half term holiday fun.

More Monsters

As well as the crocheted monsters we made photo props of monster mouths.  We saw the idea here, but decided to make our own.  It was surprisingly easy.  We just drew out our shapes and coloured them in bright felt tips, cut them out, laminated them and stuck them to straws.  We all made some, but I think the kids ones were my favourites as they were more "out there".  Each guest had their photo taken with a monster mouth and then we used those pictures on their thank you notes.

I loved the idea of the playdough monster pots, but budget didn't really allow us to provide that at their parties, so we made a playdough pack for each guest as part of their party bag.  We made home made playdough and used a variety of colours for each batch we made.

We split the home made playdough into a small pot that we had bough in packs of eight from Poundland, and added a few bits and bobs to design their monster - cut up pipe cleaners, googly eyes, pom poms, foam hands and feet, feathers etc.  

We then packaged all that up in a clear card bag like these with a little note suggesting that their new owner created them and then stored them under their bed/in their wardrobe, 'cos obviously that is where all monster live. 

I'm sure the parents appreciated soggy playdough being put under their children's beds!!

The playdough recipe I used is one my Mum always used when I was little.  The only change I made was to use food colouring pastes to make the colours brighter.  I've also added various essences (vanilla/strawberry flavouring/peppermint etc) to make the playdough smell.  I did try adding glitter to the mixture once.  It looked pretty, but it went everywhere.... you've been warned!  This recipe makes a slightly squishier playdough than the bought stuff, the longer you cook it the less squishy it gets, but cook it too long and you get dry flaky bits.  It lasts a while in an airtight container, but not forever, you'll be able to tell as it goes sort of slimy.  urrggh.

Playdough Recipe:

2 cups (you can use a mug instead of a cooking "cup") of plain(all purpose) flour

2 cups of water

1 cup of salt

2 tablespoons for oil

2 teaspoons of cream of tartar

Few drops of food colouring

Cook the mixture in a pan over a medium heat

Stirring all the time to prevent sticking

Remove from thee heat when the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan

Knead well and store in an airtight container

Mini Monsters

A while ago my children feel in love with Moshi Monsters.  I was quite happy for them to play on it as they seemed to be learning a lot while they were doing so (I think they can recognise more flags than I can).  When it came to their birthdays Moshi Monster parties were in order.

I'll admit some of the links to Moshi Monster were a little loose, but they seemed to enjoy it.  Phew. One of the activities we did with for my daughter's party was to design their own moshlings.  I crocheted some little monsters, the pattern I used can be found here. We didn't sew on the details, I just bought some fabric glue and lots of little crafty bits - eyes, foam hands and feet, felt, mini pom poms etc and we stuck on the details.

We had some awesome little guys from this project.

For my son's party, as they were younger, we pre-made the moshlings and they "adopted" them as their prize for the treasure hunt they completed.

I love that they are all so very, very different.

Paper Bunnies

Getting ready for Easter I was thinking about what crafts we could do and what we have done in the past.  We have made some lovely bunny paper punch art a couple of years ago.  For this one I used 2 different sized circle punches and then cut out a couple of ear shapes and used some cotton wool for the tail and drew on the whiskers.  It is an easy Easter card to recreate.

Another bunny paper punch art, but this time no bottoms!  We used an egg/oval shaped hole punch and then added a couple of cut out ear shapes and a little paper punched heart.  Googly eyes and some whiskers and you're done!

Whilst looking for rabbit related crafts, I came across this on the Crafty Crow blog. Sadly when I followed the link, this particular cut out was no longer available.  So I have created my own and thought I would share.

I designed it to fit on a piece of A5 paper.  Print it out landscape onto A4, cut off the large blank expanse, fold in half and then cut out the shaded bits to create the rabbit in the frame.  I hope you like it. :o)

Rabbit Template PDF

Cowabunga Dudes

I've wanted to make slime for ages, but all the recipes I'd seen to make homemade slime seemed to involve borax.  Now I don't think I have a problem with borax, but I certainly do have a problem finding borax to buy.  Then a couple of days ago I came across this on pinterest.  The ingredients for "Bubble Dough" are cornflour and Washing Up liquid and they are things that are nearly always available in our house.  Almost immediately we had to have a go.

We actually had friends over when we started this and the kids decided to try and add some other materials to the mixture.  Other things included a little water, glue, and hand soap.  We still ended up with a silky smooth feeling slime.

We've made gloop before with cornflour and water.  That is weird stuff, you can shape it but it collapses immediately.  This stuff doesn't.  It collapses slowly and is less messy.

I think this would make an excellent slime for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Party.  Either as something they made at the party, or as little party favours of ready made stuff.

Talking of TMNT, here is a little artwork I did for my son this week.  I love a craft that only involves cutting out rectangles!

Heart Art

We have done some heart artwork over the years, some stuff I thought I would share.

I loved these layered cardboard hearts from A Little Learning For Two, and I thought we would have a go.  I traced around my heart cookie cutters, the inside and the outside to make 6 hearts.  Though I'm sure most people would just be able to create their own.  I also cut the hearts out of thick cardboard, as the kids were a couple of years younger.  However, if we re-do this project the kids will be tracing and cutting their own hearts onto thinner cardboard.

They picked their own colours.  My daughter wanted pink, so we used various shades between red and white.  It is slightly more obvious in real life than in this photo (but only just, I was a bit liberal with the red paint when we started!)

My son basically picked all the colours we had at the time!  I do love it though.

We also tried printing with toilet roll insides. My daughter wanted to create hearts, so we simply bent the toilet roll inside to look heart shaped.  I don't know how she managed to pick up enough paint to fill some of the hearts, but I like it.

This isn't our art I'll admit (how amazing would that be!), but pretty nonetheless.  It is the Red Arrows performing their heart formation.  You can just see them completing it at the bottom of the picture. 

I think this is one of my favourite crafts we have ever done.  DIY air drying clay , we have done it a couple of times, I like using the little cutters we have to create toppers for cards.  Here I just used the clay as it came, but it can be painted too.  If it is rolled thin it dries pretty quick, in about 24hrs.  Thicker stuff takes a while.  It is quite brittle, so I don't think I could make it into jewellery, but it is fine for cards.  

Here is another heart related card.  I still haven't sent this one, everytime I look at it I think of the Beatles.  I guess it is the colours.

So these were some of the heart projects we have done in the past.  I'll share some of things we've been doing recently soon.