Christmas Arts & Crafts #2

Apologies for the radio silence.  I have been fighting a cough and it has been winning.  I will try and get more Christmas items posted asap because, well, it is nearly here already!

Christmas Trees 

This isn't a hard one but it is a fun one to make.  Nothing special but it gives the kids something to make for Christmas and to take home.

Either collect Ice Lolly sticks or buy them from a craft shop.  If you are lucky they will have coloured ones.  If not then you will just have to get the kids to paint them before hand.

One stick is needed for the 'trunk' of the tree and at least two more to cut/snap as the branches.  Use glitter, stickers, paints, pens....whatever you want to decorate your tree.  Be creative or just let the kids decide from a bunch of different items.

St Nick Sacks

Here in Austria we celebrate St Nikolaus on the 6th of December.  So this is really for this particular fest.  However you could use the same idea for Santa Claus as well.

If you are having a Christmas event where the kids will get to collect sweets & fruit like a stocking then this is a nice craft idea.

The sacks were ordered from a craft catalogue and the rest is just pieces of paper and felt we had left lying around.  Oh and come cotton wool.

This may also be a nice way to pack up presents for the parents or maybe you can think of something else you can use it for.  They definitely look good hanging up around the room before Christmas.

Paper Stars

This is a very easy one but a nice item to make on one of those rainy/snowy Winter days.  They look nice hanging around the room and you can use up your left overs or splash out for some cool shiny paper if you want.

Draw the star on some coloured paper and let the children cut them out themselves.  Wind some glittery thread or ribbon around the star and add some shiny stones or whatever you have lying around.

These are easy and quick to make.  You can make them as simple or as extravagant as you want.  Use your imagination or better yet, make a sample, show the kids and then let them create their own!  You may be surprised at the ideas they have!

Christmas Arts & Crafts #1

Christmas is one of those busy times of the year.  Not only are you busy privately but in work there is loads to do.  Making presents for the parents?  Decorating the room?  Here are a couple of ideas you can use!  More to come!

Glue Stars 

This is extremely easy to make and very nice to decorate the room or to give as presents.

All you need is baking paper, a glue gun and glitter.

Draw a star shape on the baking paper so the kids have a guide.   Then use the glue gun (help the kids!  This is hot stuff!) and trace the star using the glue.  Then fill the star with glue strands.

Before the glue dries you can sprinkle glitter on the stars.  They harden and get cool pretty quickly but make sure you check before letting the kids touch them.  Brush off excess glitter somewhere you want glitter to fall ;)  Then you can put them on a pretty ribbon and hang them up,  hang them on the windows or pack them up as presents.

Nespresso Angels

I am always looking for ways to recycle my Nespresso coffee capsules.  A couple of  years ago I came up with this idea.  Angels!

You need a ball for the head.  We used polystyrene balls but you can also use fimo or anything else that springs to mind.

The wings are made from feathers.  You could also use tin foil, coloured paper or something else you have lying around.  Be creative and try and recycle!

For the hair we used up some glitter pipe cleaners we had left over from something or other.  Although this wasn't out first choice it was something we had and could spare.  One of the good things about these angels is that we used stuff we just had left over from other projects.

The legs/feet were just thin ribbons.  These went up through the capsule (the used capsules have holes already in the top) and ball and also served as the band to hang up the angels.

The children drew faces on the angels and each angel was so different from another.  It was amazing.  The capsules can also be coated with glitter for an extra Christmassy shine!

Make sure you prepare the capsules before hand and clean them!  They start to smell otherwise.  Also make sure that there are no sharp edges left over when you remove the foil on the capsule to empty out the coffee grinds.  I have cut myself a couple of times and you don't want that to happen to the kids!

Snowmen Photo Holders

These cuties were Christmas Presents for the parents from the children.

The metal holders were ordered but you could also make them yourself if you really want to save money.  The wire needs to be thick enough though.

The snowmen are made out of Fimo (I am sure you can use other modeling clays).  A small ball for the head.  Bigger ball for the body.  Add a black hat, eyes and mouth.  To make them look more colourful we added scarves.

Make these as big or small as you want.  Make sure you have all the colours you need and let the kids choose from a variety of colours for the scarves.

Don't forget to make a hole in the snowman using one of the metal holders before you bake the fimo!!  Otherwise you can't add the stand!  The stand also needs a little glue to stay attached!

Add a photo to the presents!  We took pictures of the children with a santa hat on.  You can also use reindeer antlers etc.

Lantern/St Martin's Arts & Crafts #1

Lantern Fest otherwise known as St Martins is celebrated every November in Austrian Kindergartens.  For years it was a festival I couldn't relate to because I had never heard of it before moving here and working in a Kindergarten.

There are no songs in English I could use except Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and not much else I could offer in English except some stories about it being light and dark.  However over the years I have written my own songs and even made some lanterns.  Here are a couple of my lanterns...

Star Lanterns

These lanterns are really easy to make if you like working with paper mache.  Collect those free newspapers and get yourself some wallpaper paste and you are off to a good start.

I used balloons to get the right shape and if you have something flat to stick to the bottom (round cheese boxes are good) before adding the paper mache then they will stand up on their own.  Otherwise you will have to make a dent in the bottom when they are dry.

This can be a messy project but it is a lot of fun for the kids and they love getting their hands into the wallpaper paste.  I hung the covered balloons on a piece of wool to let them dry and if you can make these on a Friday and leave them over the weekend you won't have to put up with them hanging around all over the room.

The kids picked which colour to paint the lanterns once they were dry and the balloon had been taken out.  I then cut off the top added a metal handle.  We only use LED candles nowadays so there is no way the kids are burning themselves.

Because St Martins is also about sharing I cut five stars out of each lantern.  I placed them all in a box and each child was allowed to pick five stars out of the box to glue onto their lantern.  So we all shared a part of our lantern with others.

Pumpkin Lantern

Halloween and Lantern Fest are pretty close together so this is a nice time saving lantern to make.

It is the same lantern as above but made into a pumpkin.  You can make them for Halloween and then use them for Lantern Fest and save yourself a lot of hassle and stress.

You can make the pumpkin for Halloween and then in the days up until Lantern fest you can 'pimp' him up a little by adding some glitter or even changing his face.  You can also cut a second face on the back of the lantern.  There are many possibilities.  Just take a few moments to think about it.

Traditional Lantern

The traditional lanterns you see here are made of the round boxes you get cheese triangles in.  You either save them up all year or order them with the paper that fits the boxes.

There are so many ways you can decorate the lanterns and I have seen so many different ones over the years.  However this is one I made a couple of years ago that I really liked.

First we got two kids who wanted to 'share' their lanterns with each other and they picked two coloured (you can pick more if you want but we didn't want to go overboard) wax crayons and sharpened them. The kids collected the shavings and put them between their two transparent waxy like papers (you can order to make your lanterns).  The using a clothes iron I melted the wax between the two papers.  Now you can also use one piece of lantern paper and baking paper but that seems a little wasteful when you have so many kids ;)

This makes some wonderful patterns but it seemed a little boring and easy for our older kids.  So using black paper the kids made a 'street' silhouette, cut out some windows and added colourful tissue paper.  The result is what you see in the picture above.

Each one was different and unique.  The kids loved them and the parents commented on them too.  It wasn't easy and there were a lot of steps but it was well worth it to see them glowing on St Marins!

Do you have any Lantern Arts & crafts ideas you want to share? 

Feel free to add them in the comments section!

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Halloween Arts & Crafts #4

One of the most important things to make for Halloween is a Trick or Treat Bag to collect the sweets ;)  Every year I try and make something a little different or unusual and here are a few of my past successes!

Pumpkin Bags

This is a messy one but really fun for kids who need or like that kind of thing.  First you need some paper bags.  We bought ours but there are some shops that have plain bags that you can collect.  You can even ask a shop for free bags even if they have a logo on one side.  They may actually be happy for the free advertisement.

To make the pumpkin you need some wool.  I used a wool that was mainly orange but had streaks of yellow and green in it.  You can't see it very well in the picture above but it looked really cool.  You could use lots of different colours if you want but after all the classic pumpkin is orange ;)

Help the kids draw a pumpkin shape in pencil on the bag.  Otherwise you will just have a mess that will resemble a smashed pumpkin ;)  Then dunk strips of wool into a watery glue (Marvin) mixture and lay them on the bag and leave them to dry.  Tip : Don't mix the glue with too much water because it will just get the bag very wet and will take longer to dry.

When the pumpkin is dry all you need to do is cut out some eyes, a nose and mouth and maybe a little green stalk.  All done!

I am pretty sure that wallpaper paste would also work.  An easier and less messy version would be to just put glue on the bag and let the kids add the wool but that isn't as much fun ;)

Black Cat Boxes

This is one of my favourite ideas up until now and it all came about because I didn't want to throw my Whiskas cat treat boxes away.  They looked too cool to just put in the bin and so I kept collecting them and hoped that one day I would have a use for them.  Then Halloween came along and my moment came!

Of course if you aren't a cat owner you won't have access to these boxes but maybe you know someone who does or you can even ask the parents.  The boxes are pink but I took off the labels and we painted them black.  Be careful what paint you use for this.  A lot of paints will just flake off so I used an Acrylic paint.

When the paint was dry we added wiggly eyes, tissue paper ears and nose, black bast for the whiskers and painted on a mouth.  The cat also got a nice black pipe cleaner tail which you can just about see on the side.

The result was better than I expected and the kids loved having their own witch's cat!  They even called them 'Wilburs' like the cat from their favourite series, Winnie the Witch.

Please note that these boxes are not very big and will not hold a lot of sweets.  This is good for us because we only give out a certain amount which fit in this box nicely.  There is a bigger size but they aren't the kind my kitties prefer so make sure you collect the ones you really want.

Pumpkin Boxes

After making the cat boxes I decided to start collecting the cat treat boxes from a different company called Multi Fit.  They are round in shape and I hoped I would also find a use for them someday.  I love to recycle stuff if I can.  It is good for the kids to see that they don't always need something new and that old stuff can still be useful!

Anyway, with Halloween on the way I came up with this idea!  The Pumpkin box!  Really easy to make and I think they look pretty cool!

I just peeled off the labels and painted the box orange.  I used black moosgummi (foam rubber) to cut out the eyes, nose and mouth and then added a green pipe cleaner to the top.  Later I added some black stripes/markings with a permanent pen because it looked a little bland.  Now I think it looks great.

I didn't have to glue on the face because I added the pieces while the paint was still wet!  So maybe you want to get your kids to cut those pieces out before painting.

Once again these boxes aren't big but big enough for our treats.  You could also use other containers you have lying around.  Maybe there is a food product in your country that has the right shape?  Always be on the look out for things you can use again.

Do you have any Treat bags arts & crafts ideas you want to share? 

Feel free to add them in the comments section!

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Autumn Arts & Crafts #2

Autumn is the best Season for Arts & Crafts because Mother Nature gives us so many cool and unusual materials to use!

Leaves, twigs, conkers and many more interesting items can be found and used in a variety of ways and here are just a couple of ideas!

Conker Shell Hedgehogs

First you will need some conkers shells so make sure your kids don't just throw them away and keep the prize inside! ;)  After all the shells are just as prickly and spiky as hedgehogs!  You will also need some modeling clay that air dries or salt dough (salzteig).  

This one is pretty easy and a lot of fun.  Just let the kids pick a conker shell and then let them add clay/dough legs, face and tail (not sure if hedgehogs have such long tails but the kids added it!)  To make the eyes and mouth you will need toothpicks/cocktail sticks but you can also use a sharp pencil.

Obviously the parts need some time to dry and sometimes you will need to add some glue if the clay/dough doesn't stay attached to the conker shell (some do...some don't...not sure why!)  But the end result is cute and it is always fun to see what kind of faces the children give their hedgehogs!

Conker People

I have seen lots of conker arts & crafts projects with conkers using toothpicks/cocktail sticks to make people or animals but they also fall apart so easily.  So one year I made these conker people.

The kids pick a conker and add some wool as hair and make a tiny hat out of paper.  The feet are also cut out and help keep the conker standing up when glued on.  Lastly a couple of eyes, nose and mouth complete the conker person.

Each one looks different because everyone used a different combination of colours.  Also this project used up all those bits and pieces of coloured paper and wool we had been saving up for this kind of rainy day activity.  Basically just recycling.  Hardly any hassle, no need to prepare anything and the most important thing, the kids loved it!

So enjoy a nice long Autumn walk with your kids and get collecting!  

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