Pop Up Cards

The kids have really loved doing these.  It's just a matter of adding a few slits into some card and adding anything you want to the pop up mechanism.  Have a look at this website for more instructions and photo's of the mechanism.  I think we are going to do all of our Christmas cards this way.  x

http://lahinks.blogspot.com/2009/07/whatever-wednesday-pop-up-zoo-birthday.html

Foam sheet or paper Dinosaur with movable parts and button toes.

Materials required:

• Coloured card or Foam Sheets
• Scissors
• Hole Punch
• Pattern from here: http://crafts.kaboose.com/img/craft_images/moveable_paper_dinosaur.pdf
• Buttons (one for eye and some for toenails)
• Googly eye
• 4 x split pins

Method:

1.  Cut out all the pieces as per pattern and punch holes as per pattern.

  

2.  Match up all the holes and work out where you will put the spikes on the back

3.  Glue down the spikes.  Glue down the extra button where the eye will go and then glue on the googly eye.



4.  Glue on the buttons for toenails.

5.  Where the holes line up put in the split pins.  (mine were a little long but worked ok).

6.  My kids were happy for them to be plain but you could easily use sequins for scales etc to add another dimension. 

The boys loved doing the dinosaur roar!!!!

Cardstock Robots with button parts

 

Materials required

• Scissors
• Glue
• Various Cardstock (the shinier the better)
• Assorted Buttons
• Pipe cleaners
• Sticky dots
• Scatter stars (or sticker stars)
• Black heavy paper for background

Method: 

1.  Firstly cut out a oval head shape. 

2  Just below the centre cut the oval in half

3  Assemble it so that it looks like the robot has an open mouth.  When happy glue it onto the paper....see below:

4.  Then cut out some feet, hands and a rectangle body. Place them slightly apart on the page and glue down

5.  Between the body and hands/feet glue down pieces of pipecleaner.  You can twirl them if you wish.

6.  Stick on the 2 stickers for eyes and add some button eyes. 

7.  Cut a smaller rectangle and place it onto the body of the robot and then glue it down.  Add some buttons for the robot components and also glue in place.

8.  Finally add some scatter starts to the page so it looks like the robot is standing against a twinkling sky.  You can also add other items such as rockets etc :)

The Girl Robot

The Boy Robot

Easter Cards

I think Easter Cards are a lovely thing to be presented with at Easter.  I love my kids putting their personal touches on things and they can really do whatever they want with cards.  For this activity though we decided to use "Food Colour" for painting to make our eggs: 

(see earlier post "Food colour painting" http://kidslovecraft.blogspot.com/2011/03/crayon-oil-pastels-and-food-colour.html)

What you will need:

• Cardstock / Coloured Card
• White paper
• Food Colour mixed with a little water
• Paint Brushes
• Embelishments / glitter / ribbon etc
• Scissors / ruler

Method:

1. Put paint all over the paper randomly.  Wait to dry and then cut into egg shapes.
2. Fold a sheet of coloured paper in half.
3. Tear around the edges of another piece of coloured card so that it fits within the dimensions of the front of the card.  (use a ruler to use as a tearing guide or use scissors if you wish)
4. Add your egg shapes where you wish.
5. Stick on your embelishments / glitter / ribbon etc.

Easy pain free activity the kids and card receiver will love.  Here are some different examples:

Easter Egg Baskets

These baskets are so effective and it was a joy to make them actually. 

Materials needed:

• Square sheet of cardstock (I cut mine down to 27cm x 27cm)
• Ruler
• Glue
• Sticky tape
• Scissors or a guillotine
• Stickers / items to glue on
• Shredded paper

Method:

There are a couple of really good sites that will show you how to do these see one link below:

http://seilifestyle.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-to-make-easter-basket.html

Each square equated to 9cm by 9cm.  I basically divied up the 27 x 27 cm sheet into 9 equal squares.  It shows which lines needed to be cut on the S.E.I website.  See their pic below. 

Very easy once scored and cut to bring it all together.....

These are a couple we made that we filled with shredded paper after decorating with stickers.  Each child had letter stickers to add their names to their baskets.

I think the kids will find them perfect for collecting those eggs during their easter egg hunt!!!

Butterfly kids craft with lentil trees / leaves

Materials needed:

1. Brown paper (tree trunk)
2. A couple of different papers for butterfly wings
3. Decorations / circles etc for wings (optional)
4. Scissors
5. Glue
6. Pipecleaners (antenna)
7. Lentils

Cut out some tree trunk shapes using the brown paper and stick onto your background sheet.

Cut out 2 sets of wings in different colours.  Each pair of wings is a direct mirror image of each other so you need to cut out the shapes 2 at a time (2 pieces of paper on top of each other to cut an exact replica)

See the 2 sets above.  Glue these down onto the paper with slight gap between them where you will place the butterfly body.  Decorate the wings further if you wish using circles or whatever.

Cut out 2 body oblong body shapes to fill the gap you left between the wings.



See them glued onto each butterfly above.

Roll the top of each end of a pipecleaner to create some antenna.  

Glue antenna onto the top of each body.

Butterfly number 2.

If you have been using a glue stick it's time to change to regular PVA for sticking on the lentils.  Choose where you want to group them and use it liberally to make sure that lentils will stick.

I finished them off by cutting out their names to add to their work.



Nicely done kids!

Torn paper car picture

Time for a drive in the country with your

family!

These were kind of groovy.  Very easy torn paper car shapes and a couple of circles torn out, maybe a headlight or exhaust and done!
My daughter enjoyed adding some people to her car picture.  Very Cute.

Car shape torn out below

When it's all put together.

Christmas Craft - Torn paper trees and presents

This present picture is just two pieces of A4 coloured card, one A5 piece, some ribbon and scatters.  Tear around one A4 pieces edge and around that of the A5. Glue them one on top of each other (see above).  Then glue on the ribbon and scatters and there you have your christmas present artwork.

The christmas tree is similar to above using just two pieces of A4 coloured card, one A5 piece and then a smaller piece for the tree trunk.  This time we used buttons for the baubles but scatters would be ok too.  We used a fiskars star punch to cut out the tree star.  Easy for my 5 year old to do.

Dragonflies

3 Different Dragonflies

These different dragonflies were very easy to make and really the materials you could use are endless.  Here I've provided 3 different types with some doubling up of materials.  I think the look quite effective!



Card stock Dragonfly

 Materials required:

• A few different colours or types of card/paper (we used 4 different types)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Fiskars large and medium circle squeeze punches (if you have them.....)
• Fiskars medium rectangle squeeze punch
• 2 googly eyes

Method:

• Cut out 4 oval wing shapes
• Cut out 2 round medium sized eyes
• Cut out 1 large round shape for the head
• Cut out 2 Oval shapes for the body (one slightly bigger than the other)
• Cut out approx 5 small rectangles for the tail

First Glue the wings onto the paper.  The head and eye's come next followed by the large oval body shape and then the smaller stuck on top.  Lastly glue on the rectangle shapes for the tail and you are done!!

Pompom and Button Dragonfly

Materials required:

• Glue
• Buttons (approx. 2 large and a variety of smaller ones.....roughly 8)
• Pompoms
• Card stock /paper
• Scissors

 Method

1. Cut out a circle shape for the head
2. Cut out 4 oval shapes for the wings
3. Glue the centre of the wings on the paper (slightly fold up either side of the centre so that the wings are not glued to the paper but slightly elevated)
4. Glue the circle shape above the head and add a couple of buttons for the eye's (smaller ones can be used too for the middle of the eye's)
5. We used 3 pompoms for the body (glue these on now) but ther may be more or less depending on the size of the wings and the pompoms.

 

Finish off by gluing some smaller buttons below the body to form the tail.



Clothespin / Peg and button Dragonfly

Materials required:

• Clothespin (I broke off one of the leg's to form more of a dragonfly shape)
• Buttons (1 x large for head, 2 eye's, 1 long one for the body or a few smaller ones and approx 5 for the tail)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Card stock (cut into 4 oval wing shapes)

Method: 

1. Glue the 4 oval wing shapes onto the back of the clothespin
2. Glue on the 2 smaller buttons to the larger button to form the eye's on the head 
3. Glue the head on the clothespin
4. Glue on a couple of medium size buttons to make the body or one long oval one.
5. Finally add approx. 5 button's onto the 1 remaining leg to for the tail

And there you are done!

There, 3 easy dragonflies to make!



Cardboard Tube Flowers

• You will need a flower shape. You can print off a template here:
  http://familyfun.go.com/assets/cms/pdf/printables/0207_egggarden.pdf
• Cut out 2 flower shapes in whatever coloured paper/card you have
• Cardboard tube
• Green coloured card/paper
• Cotton Wool
• Buttons
• Glue
• Scissors

Now cut out a piece of Green paper the right size to wrap around the cardboard tube. Cover the paper in glue and then roll the tube over it. If there is any excess cut it off.

Cover the top edge of the cardboard tube in glue and then stick the first flower shape onto it. Press all around the edge of the top of tube so that it sits firmly.

Add a second amount of glue to the centre of the first flower shape that you stuck on.

Now attach the second flower shape but only onto the middle of the first shape.

Add another layer of glue to the middle of the flower. A nice squirt here. We will attach 3 cotton balls to make the centre of flower.

Another reasonable amount of glue squirted over the top of the cotton balls (don't use a brush as the cotton wool will stick to it and it will become a mess) then start sticking on some buttons.

We finished it by cutting out a couple of leaf shapes and sticking it to the green paper covered cardboard tube. And that's all there is to it............done!!