Dinosaur carry bag with play mat

Here's the dinosaur carry bag with play mat I made. I think the pictures mostly speak for themselves.

Simple Rubber Band Gun and Ammo Pouch

I made these simple wooden rubber band guns with Mr 6 today. It was declared to be "epic" so many times I thought I'd share. I made a second one when Miss 4 came home, and the whole process (including "helping" took about 10 minutes)

Ingredients:
26mm diameter dowel stick. 7cm long*
1cm square stick. 18.5cm long*
1 wooden peg
2 nails
*note: all the measurements are approximate, done by eye, and measured later. We used scraps we had handy.

You also need:
wood glue
sandpaper
hand saw
hot melt glue

1. Sand all edges
2. Saw a small groove horizontally across the end of the square stick (for the rubber band to sit in)
3. Wood glue and nail the other end of the square stick to the round dowel.
4. Hot glue gun the peg to the top of the square stick
5. Test it out and paint it.

For the target, we made holes in the side of a cubby house box, and I taped plastic bags to the back of the holes to catch the rubber bands. It made it easier to see which hole the rubber band had gone through, and easier to get it back.

I also made an "ammo pouch", which consisted of a simple rectangle of fabric sewn into a tiny bag (sew sides and a triangle across the bottom corners). I sewed a pipe cleaner in the top hem, which gives it a stiff feel, so the pouch can be pinched shut or kept open.

Good quiet fun that's not going to actually injure someone when the rubber band hits (unlike the wooden sword which was Mr 5's first suggestion for a wood work project). And all done before the kids lost interest. Definitely a great thing to make on a quiet or rainy day.

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.

Water Colour Pencils and Raindrops

Before

After

This is the perfect activity for yet another rainy afternoon. The technique is easy, colour in a page using water colour pencils, take it out and hold it in the rain until you've collected enough raindrops on your picture.

Peg Board Fairy Garden

I recently saw this lovely post at Made by Joel to use a peg board and twigs to make a play scene. The idea was still fresh in my head when we happened to be visiting relatives, and I noticed a couple of large peg boards beside some twigs collected by the fireplace.

Flags of the World Project

Mr 5 has recently been interested in flags. And when he gets interested in something he tends to sit down and study it for hours. This month he was steadily learning all the flags of the world and the countries they belonged to, so I decided to give him a project to do. 

We printed out a free map outlining the countries of the world. I say we, as I got some technical help from Mr Crafty to print it A3 size. I got the map from here (map #3). I then used google images to find and then print out all the country flags on one A4 page (so they are nice and small), and gave Mr 5 his new "project".

He set to work immediately and cut and stuck in perfect happiness, using his kids atlas to identify the flags he didn't know yet, and find the country (or help me find the country). I'm not sure he'll stick with the project through all 260 flags, but really that hardly matters.

Toilet Roll Doll's Dresses

The other day the kids wanted to make some dolls to act out some stories using the story box Miss 3 and I had made. We made toilet paper roll dolls, and I thought I'd share how I made their very quick and very easy dresses.

1. Cut a strip of paper from an A4 sheet, the full length of the sheet, and about 10cm wide.

2. Fold it in half.

3. Cut a small slit at one end, about the width you'd like the dolls arm to be. 

4. Fold the paper below the cut over, making a triangle, and sticky tape in place.

5. Slip the toilet paper roll into the dress to measure how far to make the arm cut on the opposite side, and then cut it.

6. Fold the lower corner over and sticky tape it in place, in the same way as before.

7. Cut a small scoop for a neckline.

8. Put the dress on the toilet roll, and draw a face on.

Mr 5 thought they needed legs too.

Paperclip Chains

You can't get an activity much simpler than this. Paperclip chains (or necklaces or bracelets or houses) can be a pleasant way for the children to occupy themselves on a rainy day.

Catapults and Birds

The Catapult

I wanted to make the craft stick catapult from the tutorial on Storm the castle. We bought the popsicle sticks, and then decided to scale it down to one stick per side of the triangle, and 3 sticks for the launching arm.

It is such a simple, sturdy and nice design that I really could do it with the kids. Mr 5 made one triangle, I made the other 2, and Miss 3 made a house. We stuck them together and then all of us made the launch arm. We used a bottle top for the launch cup. I added some extra reinforcing sticky tape, and (after a few trials) stuck it to a bit of fiber board we had floating around.

We started with a rolled up ball of paper, which the kids launched at each other. But after a while this game lost its zing for Miss 3, so I suggested they try and knock down a pile of boxes.

What better creature to knock down boxes than a beloved angry bird, which I have been itching to make anyway?

The Birds

The angry birds were about as simple a project as they come. 

1. Fold an old piece of curtain with a white lining in two, with the lining on the inside. 

2. Trace around a bottle cap, and then sew the material together in a circle (mine was a fraction bigger than the traced line) being sure to leave a gap for reversing and filling. 

3. Turn the bag inside out.

4. Fill the bag with whatever you have to hand, I used rice.

5. Sew the hole up (hand stitching would look pretty. I just zig zag stitched on the machine, as I wanted to finish before the kids lost interest.

6. Google an image of angry birds, and copy the outline of a bird or pig on the bag, colouring it in with pen (or paint).

The results

The kids were delighted and had a great time piling up boxes and knocking the pig off, and even Mr Crafty thought it was worth a play.

Marshmallow Building

I've seen marshmallow and toothpick construction around a bit on the internet, and we just so happened to have some mini marshmallows in the house, a bunch of toothpicks, and yet another rainy day on our hands.

It was so much fun!

The marshmallows were just sticky enough, and firm enough and yet pliable enough to make really satisfying structures.

I started with a tetrahedron (triangular based pyramid), and then a house, and then something else made from more triangles and satisfyingly symmetric.

Miss 3 at first struggled to get the hang of it. She managed to get a lot of cotton bud type constructions, and then, with a bit of help she made a 2-D house. With a bit more help she started on 3-D structures that (in Mr Crafty's opinion) didn't worry too much about the laws of gravity.

Mr 5 instinctively started making things with lots of triangles, and had no problem building something big and fairly stable. He struggled more with not eating too many marshmallows.

We kept the structures until after dinner, and then broke them up and ate desert at the same time.

Wooden Parking Garage

 

When my son was younger he was cars obsessed, anything with wheels was much loved. We started with a cardboard garage when he was 1. We gave him a commercial plastic garage when he turned 2, but it just didn't last even though he's a fairly gentle child.

Eventually I decided it wouldn't be too much work to make a wooden, more robust version. Unfortunately it's so long ago now, I don't have any plans etc to share. Only the pictures of a much loved and well used wooden garage.

Sticker Book

My kids are always getting stickers, as rewards, or from the fruit shop, or from the school banking, or dentist. What ever they are, the kids love them. But the great question is what to do with them all that keeps the walls and furniture sticker free.

Miss 3 and I decided to make a sticker book. We took 4 pages of different coloured paper, and made them into a book in much the same way as the fairy book we made a few days ago; stapling to the outside from the centre of the book, folding over the staple ends, and covering the staple ends with sticky tape to stop them from catching on anything.

And then Miss 3 could happily stick stickers to her hearts content.

After a while I decided to get a bit educational on her, and add a counting activity. I drew some boxes and wrote a number under each box. She loved sticking the right number of stickers in each box and then she drew her own boxes with numbers on another page.

Pirate Accessories

Some simple accessories can turn a mundane morning into a pirate adventure. Grab the trusty washing-basket boat, make a treasure map, and off you go!

Kitchen Chemistry

One afternoon Mr 4 asked if we could do a science experiment, something he loves. He wanted to mix milk with water and see what happened. Seeing as I didn't think that would be a particularly long lasting or exciting experiment, I decided to also start another experiment with oil, vinegar, food colour and bi-carb of soda, at the same time.

First I put the oil and vinegar in the container and looked at the layers with the kids. Then I added a few drops of red food colouring, and we admired that for a while.

We shook it and the food colouring went into the vinegar but not the oil. Then we added bi-carb for a bit of fizz.

The kids liked that, but wanted to know what would happen if we added it all to the milk and water experiment. At first we got some interesting pink patterns.

And then we went and hung out the washing and had a play. When we came back, it had turned into this interesting (although somewhat icky) separated mixture. This was then carefully saved for Mr Crafty to see, although I'm not sure he fully appreciated it ;).

Bottle Cap Stamps

I once saw an idea to stick foam stickers on bottle caps to make your own stamps. We didn't have any foam stickers left, but we did have the empty sheet that a set of foam stickers came on, so the whole family spent a happy morning chopping it up and sticking it in different shapes on bottle caps and then stamping with them. 

Speaking of bottle caps, I have a big teapot filled with lids which are used for everything from counting and sorting games, wheels on cardboard box cars, buttons on things that 3 year olds think need buttons, and even once as sushi on our very own sushi train. A wonderful versatile and free toy!

Cornflour Salt Dough vs Cornflour Soda Dough

I wanted to try making cornstarch dough after seeing the beautiful mushroom and beads by 5 Orange Potatoes. Her recipe calls for equal parts cornstarch, baking powder and water, mixed with half as much salt. That seemed like a lot of baking powder to me, so I searched around and found another cornstarch dough recipe for 2 parts salt to 1 part cornstarch plus water.

I decided to try and make both.

I was feeling a little lazy and so I didn't look up if it should be baking powder or bi-carb soda. In retrospect it was probably bi-carb soda, but seeing as I had more baking powder on hand, I used that. In the same way I assumed cornstarch was equivalent to cornflour. 

Both recipes were dead easy to make. The kids adored that it was fresh, home made and they helped to make it. Even better that they could keep and paint their creations when they dried.

The recipe with the baking powder was an opaque white colour (and a little dry and crumbly, I think I'd try and improve that next time). The cornstarch and salt dough had a beautiful slightly translucent white colour to it. I had a tiny paper cut on my finger, and working with the salt dough was like (to use a phrase) rubbing salt into a wound. Not very pleasant. Miss 3 had no problems with it, but I worried about the fingers of Mr 4 who suffers from eczema quite badly. The recipe with baking powder was not a problem and nice to work with.

In the photo above, the pink mushroom and balls were made using the salt dough, and the dolls house kitchen accessories and smaller mushroom were made with the baking powder recipe.

Magnetic Triangular Dominoes

I'm really happy with this magnetic triangular dominoes set I recently made. My kids have been enjoying using our Tantrix set, although it's a bit on the tricky side for Miss 3, and the pieces have a tendency to move around a bit when a new piece is added. I thought 3 sided dominoes would be perfect for them, especially if they were magnetic and therefore would stay where they were put (and give a satisfying click as they snap to the surface). And I just happened to have some old flat magnets that I was waiting to use to make something cool...

Instructions:

1. Take some old sheet magnets (our local real estate agents' advertising provide us with these free of charge :))

2. Glue a sheet of white paper on, to cover up any graphics on the magnet.

3. Print out some equilateral triangles (I used a free printable, and printed them at 250% size, so each triangle side is roughly an inch long). I used about 80 triangles.

4. Glue the triangles on the magnets.

5. Write all the combinations of 3 numbers on the triangles. E.g. [0,0,0] [0,0,1] [0,0,2] ... [0,1,1] [0,1,2] ... [1,1,1] [1,1,2] ... [5,5,5]

6. After a little experimentation I found I wanted to go back and make a second copy of all the triangles with 3 different numbers, with their numbers written counter-clockwise rather than clockwise. E.g. [1,2,3] compared to [1,3,2]. This makes it much easier to make a complete wheel from the pieces. Mr Crafty later told me he's played with a commercial version of this, and part of the fun and challenge of the game was that they didn't have the two versions of these tiles. That way if you did make a complete wheel it was a real achievement. This makes me wonder a little if the commercial version has been a little clever about which numbers to put where in these tiles. But for us, seeing as Mr 4 and Miss 3 are my target audience, I think it's much nicer to have the extra pieces.

7. Colour the numbers in. E.g. 0 = orange, 1 = red, 2 = yellow. Not really necessary, but lets face it, colouring can be a nice relaxing activity, and I have a soft spot for pretty coloured things.

8. Cut the triangles out.

9. Find a metal baking tray or metal surface to play on. We used our lovely Melissa and Doug magnetic chalk board, but for a great travel version you could also use a metal suitcase.

The kids (and their parents) really enjoy this one. And there even enough pieces to play two separate games at the same time. 

As an afterthought I covered them with small hexagonal pieces of clear contact paper. To protect them against wayward mothers who knock their glasses of water over on top of the pieces.. To do this, find a printout of hexagons e.g. this one, print it out to scale so that the triangle matches with 3 of the 6 corners from the hexagon, and wrap it on. A little fiddly, but it only took me an hour or so while I played a game with Mr 4 at the same time.

Target Practice

Such a simple little game, this peg catapult delighted the kids. I taped a bottle lid to a clothes peg, and then I taped the peg to a plate. We rolled up balls of paper, and made some target plates. All that took less than 5 minutes, and then I could make dinner while the kids played. 

The inspiration came from here.