magnetic diorama

Last week we received some beautiful hand-me-down toys. One of them was a simple road-themed shape puzzle. Although my son is a little too old for this type of puzzle, I gave it to him because the vehicles were so nice. He really liked arranging the vehicles outside the puzzle on our coffee table, especially making the tow truck tow the others. We tried putting magnets on the backs so he could arrange them on the fridge instead and it worked out really well. He had a lot of fun with it and it only took a few minutes to make. A couple of the pieces were missing from the vintage puzzle, so I felt alright about repurposing the pieces.

If you would like to keep your child out of the way of the fridge for awhile, a cookie tray makes a good diorama back, too.

We used a glue gun because it's so fast. Otherwise regular glue, or wood glue left overnight will work.
Craft stores, dollar stores and stationery stores all carry small magnets.

kitchen sink crafts

Last week we took out a book of arts + crafts projects from the library called "Create with Maisy". My son found two projects he wanted to try: "making a food picture" and "paper lanterns". There are now paper lanterns (if you'd like to make some you'll find more here) all over our place now. The project I photographed was the food picture. We live in a fairly small space, so I like any craft project that allows carefree messiness which can be easily vaccuumed. The Maisy book has a different version of this classic project than the one below, which is also very good.

This is such a simple project, you've probably done it many times! I put out some small bowls on the table (a muffin tin would also work well) and some open cannisters of dried foods. Then I gave my son, aged 3, a small 1/8 cup measuring scoop. He could scoop a full measure of any of them into the bowls. This was a really fun part of the project for him. When he was done, I put away the canisters, put a big pad of paper onto the table and gave him some washable children's glue (the kind with the squirty top).

I arranged the little bowls around the paper and made sure everything was in reach. I also gave him a wet cloth to wipe the glue off his hands and left him to it.

Setting up crafts and making them comfortable has become a big priority here: as low stress as possible for both of us. Having a wet cloth next to his work was really helpful. He didn't need to stop to ask for help from me or become frustrated. He knew what to do when his hands became uncomfortably sticky. The other thing I found helpful was only giving him items that could be easily vaccuumed or picked up. If we were in the backyard, turmeric or cinnamon would have been really fun to use, but we used lentils, pasta, bay leaves, rice, pumpkin seeds and other things that are easy to clean up.

Please let us know if you have any good tips for keeping your craft times relaxed and autonomous, we'd love to hear them.

5-minute pinwheel

I found this very easy pinwheel photo-tutorial from Petit Poulou which we pinned to our Windy board on pinterest. To make on, you will need: square paper, hole punch, brass paper fastener, bbq skewer or chopstick and scissors. It took me 5 minutes to make and when I photographed it outside it spun like...a pinwheel ^_^

The only paper fasteners I had were fancy fabric covered ones for some reason, so it looks like I've added a button or something, but it's just a paper fastener. For square paper, I used origami paper — mine is white on one side, so I glue-sticked two pieces together. It looked like they paper was buckling when I did it, but it looked smooth when folded. I used a chopstick instead of a skewer. 

This is the pinwheel blowing like mad.

This shows the fastener wrapped around the chopstick at the back.

This is Windy's pinwheel from Sunny.

a drawing stuffy

Hi again! Between quite a succession of colds and coughs and the beautiful weather, we haven't had a lot of structured craft time at home for awhile. So we are behind on our weekly posts, but there are several queued up now, so visit again next week for more.

I've been working on some sun hats — moving forward slowly :)

Yesterday I had the sewing machine out, and my son was drawing. I asked him if he wanted to draw on some of my fabric and we decided to make a stuffy. He was planning to make Snufkin, so we found some green linen on my fabric box. However, to nobody's surprise he eventually made a truck and he loves it (secretly, to us, it does look quite a bit like a creature, but that tail is a ramp and those legs are wheels). In a perfect world, we would have had fabric markers around, but our home is quite far from perfect and we used a pencil & felt pen instead. This is how we made it.

materials

· 2 big scraps of fabric
· tape
· pencil, felt pen or other marker
· scissors
· pins
· sewing machine
· needle & thread
· stuffing (you can also use scraps of fabric, yarn, rice or dried beans)

to think about before getting started

· if you're using new fabric, or fabric that's been stored a long time, you may want to wash and dry the fabric first — especially if it will be cuddled by a young child.

· choose a time when you won't be rushed — this will take about an hour to finish and more if one of the steps goes wrong. you could even do one part before school and the second part after school.

· place your iron, pins and scissors out of reach of your child while you are sewing so you can relax while you make. before you begin you can explain the different tools to your child: how they work and how to be safe around them.

· if you are using permanent markers, place a mat under the fabric so you won't mark up your table. the pen is likely to bleed through. we used a washable marker.

to make

1. Take one piece of fabric (Fabric A) and lay it on a work surface. Tape down the edges at intervals so your child can draw without the fabric slipping around too much.

2. When they've completed their drawing, you can use a pencil or chalk to draw a line around the drawing. This will be your line for cutting — leave about 1/2 an inch of space all around the drawing. Before you do this, explain what you are drawing to your child. Draw your line slowly and check with your child as you go so that they are choosing the shape. An older child can draw this line herself.

3. Place a second piece of fabric (Fabric B) under your Fabric A. Use a few pins to hold them together and then cut around your line from Step 2. You will have two pieces of fabric cut in the shape of your child's drawing.

4. Unpin the pieces. By the way, a young child who has trouble pinning may enjoy pulling out the pins and putting them back in the pin box. This was one of my son's favourite parts. Flip the pieces over so that the drawing is facing the inside. Repin

5. Sew around the edges using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Leave a gap so you can turn the stuffy inside out and stuff.

6. Before turning right side out, cut notches into the seam where there are curves.

7. Turn inside out. You may need a chopstick, tweezers and some patience to get the skinny areas turned out. Stuff. We used a mixture of store-bought stuffing and some old scraps of fabric and quilt batting. You can decorate with scraps of felt or buttons (we didn't).

8. Done! We made some fun videos starring the stuffy, too.

easter origami baskets

Our first Easter post was bunny origami, from the book Windy. Here is another Easter origami craft. This one is origami easter baskets — adapted from this pattern for a newspaper bin from origami club (I found following the animation easier than following the diagram, by the way) which I found via pinterest on my paper board.

I don't like buying a lot of plastic Easter materials which only live in the house a few days. Here is an upcycled basket which is fun to make. Oh, I did break down and buy some commercial stickers ^_^

I tried these out with some friends and neighbours. This basket is by our neighbour W., aged 4.

origami easter baskets

M A T E R I A L S

—sheet of newspaper (or very large sheet of rectangular paper)
—glue
— 1 or 2 strips of paper about 1/2 -inch by 11 inches (you can cut a strip lengthwise from a standard) letter-size sheet of paper or use lucky star strips, which we did)
— decorations such as feathers, stickers, rhinestones, washi tape
— extra newspaper or coloured paper cut into strips to be filling for the basket (optional)

I N S T R U C T I O N S

— fold newspaper according to the instructions from origami club. You might need to do a couple before you get it right, that's ok.

— put a little glue at the bottom, between the bottom flap and the bottom of the basket — this will give it extra support for holding eggs. Give it time to dry. You can decorate the eggs and basket while it dries.

— attach the handles using a stapler. I used a mini-stapler. If you use a standard stapler, staple sideways to be sure the handle is punched through and won't slip out.

— decorate your basket. We did letters for each child's name on the side of the basket with washi tape.

E G G S


For the eggs we used some kool-aid dye:

1 packet of kool-aid + 2/3 cup tap water. The koolaid is nice because it smells good and costs about 30¢ a packet. It does a great job.

We also made some food colouring dye:

5-10 drop food colouring + 1/2 cup tap water + 1 tablespoon vinegar.

— put stuffing & eggs in basket and you're done. Good job!

cotton ball farm

Update :)

It is almost spring and it's a good time to begin looking at plants, seeds and root systems. Two days ago we planted some beans in cotton balls to watch the root systems develop, and they are already sprouting! Later this week I'll add in pictures if they sprout leaves. The tutorial comes from The Imagination Tree, which has lots of great projects. All you need is a jar, some cotton balls and a couple of dried beans. We used a black bean and a black-eyed pea. You don't want the cotton balls to get too wet, so I would suggest measuring out a small amount of water for your child to sprinkle on the cotton balls.

You can find more indoor growing experiments here, including growing carrot tops, avocado stones, growing a cutting and growing sprouts.