Painted Wooden Spoons

 

So it's that time of year again. Time for craft and teachers presents. These are some spoons Miss 4 and Mr 6 painted up for teacher gifts. They had such fun doing it, and are very much looking forward to giving them to their teachers. Mr 6 is usually not a painter, but this is a project he really enjoyed.

Melty Bead Christmas Tree Ornaments

So it might not be Christmas season right now, but it is cold and wintery weather, and perfect for a bit of quiet indoor craft time.

I was very proud of Mr 6's own design of Christmas tree. I think he worked on it for a couple of hours.

Recyled Christmas Tree Ornaments

More Christmas ornaments made from recycling:

A stellated dodecahedron using the printable from Mini Eco. I started by gluing two sheets of the junk mail paper together to give it extra strength. With Mr 5 helping it took us less than an hour.

I love the patterns from the inside of the old envelopes on these ones.

So simple even a 3y/o can manage this one.

And the link to my tutorial on chocolate wrapper pompoms.

Recycled Christmas Pompoms

Mr 5's school class are making a Christmas tree decorated entirely in things made from recycled material. Here's a tutorial for some chocolate wrapper pompoms I came up with.

 

Take 2 empty chocolate wrappers.

 Cut them in half.

Pile them together and use a small piece of sticky tape at each end to stop them from getting away from you.

Carefully cut small slits on each side of the wrapper. The slits need to stop just before the centre line (so that you don't end up with many small strips of wrapper).

Roll the wrappers up.

Tie them up with a piece of string or wool, pulling them together as tight as you can.

Fluff them up, and they're ready to hang!

Christmas Tree Craft

I needed something for the kids to do last week, and so we made our own paper Christmas tree which the kids decorated with stickers. They had such fun, I thought I'd draw one up that I could use for playgroup craft. I thought I'd share the printable tree for anyone else looking for a super easy Christmas craft. Just print it off and find some cheap little Christmas stickers. Alternatively draw your own on a large sheet of paper.

Free printables:

Coloured outline tree 

Full colour tree

Black and white tree

Nature Prints in Air Dry Clay

I had some air dry clay left over from another project and wanted to give some nature prints a go. I remember seeing them previously here. Now that I look at them and compare them again, I see that my edges are more rustic. But they were definitely fun to make, and should work nicely for a Christmas tree ornament or piece of jewelry. Next time I'd like to try this recipe for home-made air dry clay. Just as soon as I figure out what school glue is, and where to buy it.

Miss 3 also enjoyed this craft and had great fun making her own circles and impressions. We rolled a small ball of clay in our hands, and then pressed it flat using a milk bottle top. We put the leaf on the clay and again pushed it in using the milk bottle top. We poked a hole using a toothpick and then left them to dry.

Once dry they could be painted. They could also be used to make some interesting rubbing drawings.

Woolen Snowflake

With the cold weather here we needed some indoor craft activities. I had some left over wool and thought it would be fun to make some snowflakes to decorate the room. After I made the first one, Miss 3 and Mr 5 decided they'd like to make their own. Miss 3 needed some help to hold it while she wound for the first half, and they both needed help to change colours, but once I wrote numbers on the sticks Mr 5 did really well winding by himself.

I started by putting a small roll of sticky tape between the paddle pop sticks to keep them in place. I then put a slip knot arond one stick and did a few cross overs in the centre to get the kids started.

The weaving went around first going over the top of the stick and then under: over 1, under 1, over 2, under 2 etc. We tried to tuck any joining thread ends to the back.

To finish I left a tail of wool to hang it up and tied a few knots. That was when the snow flake stopped being a snowflake and started being a kite. The kids took them outside and had a good run around.