Crafty Birds - Kid-made baby gift

Using fabric markers on plain burp cloths, the girls and boys made sweet gifts for baby Molly.

This is Nola's gift - a mummy with a baby inside.

Crafty Birds - Making Cat and Rabbit Masks (and Tails)

The girls are into playing dress-up these days. They especially like being animals - cats and rabbits are favorites in our house.

Materials:

Cardboard

Felt

Scrap material

Elastic

Pen

Scissors

Glue and brush

Needle and thread

Step 1: Draw and cut animal shapes out of cardboard. To make the masks their own, let your child draw their own animal - Kira made a cat and Nola made a rabbit.

Step 2: Hold the mask up to your child and mark the eye holes. Cut out the eye holes.

Step 3: Paint the glue onto the cardboard mask and attach it to the felt.

Step 4: Cut the felt around the outside of the cardboard.

Step 5: Decorate with scrap material.

Step 6: Hold the mask up to your child so they can see through the eye holes. Mark where the elastic should fit. Make two slits in the cardboard and thread the elastic through the slits.

Step 7: Make sure the elastic is comfortable around your child's head and finish off the elastic by stitching a little cross.

To Make the Tails...

For the cat: cut out and sew a tail shape from scrap material, stuff and attach to ribbon.

For the rabbit: Make a large pom pom, tie a piece of ribbon around the middle of the pom pom that is long enough to tie around your child...

Life-Sized Drawings

Today we had a very fun art play date with our friend Wynn. We made life-sized drawings of the girls and then they colored themselves in. I have done this project several times before, but it never gets old. Each time we repeat, I have a perfect record of their size and ability. It also makes a great gift for out-of-town family members.

Crafty Birds - Making a Bug Viewer

This craft couldn't be simpler... Grab an old jam jar (one with a canning lid), cut a piece of material to fit and you have yourself a fancy bug viewer.

Crafty Birds - Making Flying Fairies

Holley of Girlish Whimsy and the girls made these adorable fairies last Thursday. They have been flying all around our house and have even been to the park. We are on a bit of a fairy kick lately (see our fairy house). Enjoy...

Materials:

Box

Lollypop stick

Ribbon

Feathers

Pipe cleaner

Blue painters tape

Paint

Brush

Black Sharpie

Scissors

Diorama

Step 1: Cut the front off the box and make a slit in the top of the box.

Step 2: Paint the box with grass, sky and stars.

Fairy

Step 1: Draw a face on the lollypop stick.

Step 2: With painters tape, attach several feathers on the bottom half of the lollypop stick for a skirt. Attach one feather on the top of the stick for hair.

Step 3: Wrap pipe cleaners around the middle of the lollypop stick for arms.

Step 4: To make the fairy fly... make a loop with the ribbon - attach one end of the ribbon to the back of the fairy and the other end to an additional lollypop stick.  

Step 5: Hang the fairy in the diorama by sliding the top stick through the box slit.

Play, play, play!

Holley, by the way, is a very talented artist, musician, and graphic designer. She basically creates whatever pops into my mind including my blog header and all of our birthday party invitations (see our ice cream social and pond party.) And lucky for you, she can design whatever you may fancy too!

Crafty Birds - Making a Fairy House

Today was one of those perfect days when I re-lived my childhood through my girls. We spent the morning making a fariy house - complete with beds and a play area.

We made the house by finding the perfect spot under the tree. We transplanted moss, flowers and pinecones for the floor and walls. We made a little path out of small stones.

To make the beds we used a hot glue gun to attach 4 sticks (cut the same length) to the bottom of a piece of wood. Of course, we needed two beds. Petals and a large leaf were put on the beds for pillows and blankets.

Even I live in hope that a couple of little faries will move in. Golly, these tree-hugging girls of mine are swell.

More Toilet Roll Fun - Chutes

Today we made a ball chute from toilet paper rolls and removable adhesive putty. It was one of those perfect Saturday afternoons of family fun.

The idea came from this month's Mothering Magazine in an article all about making an indoor playground.

Teapots on The Crafty Crow

I am so excited that our teapot craft was featured on The Crafty Crow today - yea!! Check it out - today's theme was England.

Crafty Birds - Making Cardboard Teapots

Last week The Crafty Crow posted a call for celebrating crafts from around the world. As I'm from England, and the girls have recently learned to sing "I'm a Little Teapot," I thought it would be awfully fun to make teapots...

Materials:
Great, big piece of cardboard - we used foam board, but you could also use a large box
Paint and brush
Ribbon
Colored paper
Glue
Tape
Pen
Exacto knife or scissors

Step 1: Draw teapot on cardboard

 

Step 2: Paint

Step 3: Cut out teapot

Step 4: Cut out decorations for teapot (the girls asked for circles and flowers)

Step 5: When the teapot paint is dry, glue decorations

Step 6: With heavy tape (we used white duct tae) measure and attach ribbon to back

Step 7: Sing "I'm a Little Teapot"

Nature Words

This is a simple craft for a pretty day.

As a family we collected leaves, stones, dead flowers, sand, and sticks.  It was really fun to find creative ways to use the nature finds to write the girls' names. Nola and Kira loved seeing their names in a new way - all day Kira said "My name is beautiful!"

Crafty Birds - Making a Pine Cone Bird Feeder

Materials:

Pine Cones

Peanut butter

Bird seed

String

Knife

Step 1: Wrap a 12 inch piece of string around the top of the pine cone. 

Step 2: Slather pine cone with peanut butter.

Step 3: Sprinkle bird seed over peanut butter.

Step 4: Hang pine cone - we hung two on our feeder and one in a tree.

As the girls were patiently waiting for birds to come to the feeder...

A squirrel ate the pine cone in the tree!

Crafty Birds - Making Snowmen/girls out of Cotton Wool

Last week the girls were so sad that their real snowman melted. Today we decided to make snowmen that would always be here...

Materials:

Plastic juice bottles

Large cotton wool balls

Felt (we used left-over felted wool sweaters)

Glue

Scissors

Paint brush

A kid or two

Step 1: Fill bottle with an inch of dry rice and replace cap.

Step 2: Paint bottle with a generous amount of glue.

Step 3: Unroll cotton balls and cover bottle.

Step 4: Cut out a scarf, a carrot, 2 hats, and 7 stones (per snowman).

Step 5: Glue hat together.

Step 6: Glue hat, scarf, eyes, nose and mouth onto snowman.

I think they look like an old married couple, but the girls insist that they are twin snowgirls. So sweet.

Crafty Birds - Making Trees out of Toilet Rolls

We made these sweet autum trees out of toilet paper rolls, burlap, and dried leaves.

Materials

Toilet paper rolls

Dried leaves

Card stock

Burlap

Elmer's Glue

Paint brush

Sharpie

Step 1: Draw the tree top on green card stock.

Step 2: With Elmer's Glue attach leaves - let dry

Step 3: Cut burlap to fit the toilet paper roll and attach with Elmer's Glue

Step 4: Let dry and have lunch

Step 5: Cut 2 slits in the burlap-covered toilet paper roll and attach tree top to trunk

Step 6: Cut out tree animals on card stock (we used squirrels and hedgehog)

Step 7: Glue animals on tree

Step 8: Play!