Category: Craft Tips

Paint some stones and pebbles with your child. I have seen huge painted rocks too! Red acrylic paint (avoid oil based) and once dried, a black permanent marker pen (note: make sure you watch your child and take away the marker afterwards – not a great play pen!). These ladybugs were made by toddlers  – whose Mums I was invited to speak with – recently here from Iran and Iraq. Sweet aren’t they? The children loved this activity and travelled the lady bugs up and down my arms – smiling!

Spring is in the air! Travel round your garden with a little basket and collect flowers with your child. Find some heavy books (phone directories are great!). Place greaseproof paper between pages and lay out flowers. Close shut and wait, in a month take a peak and you have pressed and dried flowers ready to make bookmarks for presents or cards (lovely!). Great to do each spring time.

Moving pictures are a wonderful and simple craft activity to complete with children. All you need is a piece of card or paper (one large and one small), crayons, a stick from the garden or icy pole craft stick, sticky tape and scissors.

First think of something that moves, children love things from nature: butterflies, bugs, or the sea and a boat (remember the ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ story; this can be fun to make). Draw the background on the card. Use small pieces of card to draw the moving animal or object, then cut around and sticky tape on the stick. Make a slit in the large background card making sure you start away from the edges so it does not tear. Place the moving picture small card on a stick, through the slit and play away.

Moving pictures can be made into cards to give to loved ones on their birthday by your child, or as a rainy day activity. Try one yourself; make your child a moving picture card each year as a little gift on their birthday. This can be a special memorable rhythm.

Paper snowflakes  

These look great on your window or little ones hanging on branches in a pot on your seasonal table. A little note, make a special one on your child’s birthday, lay over the cake, sprinkle icing sugar over the top, lift it off and there will be a lovely sugar pattern on top of the cake (to your child’s delight!).

How to make a snowflake 

Get a piece of A4 paper, use a side plate to draw a circle on the paper and then cut out.

Fold the paper in half, then again into quarters (pizza shape) and again (ice cream cone shape).

With scissors cut small shapes from all of the edges of the ice cream cone, little cut out squares and triangles, when all sides including the top are finished, open up and take a look at your individual snowflake.

No two will ever be the same, like snowflakes in real life!

Click to view picture of Jessica (my daughter’s) heart snowflake.

Bulb planting is magical

Now is the time to plant bulbs (a child’s delight!). Visit your local garden centre or plant department of a hardware store and purchase a bag of spring time bulbs, my favourites are daffodils. Plant one in a special inside pot, your child can decorate with a flower picture to wraparound. Keep in a prominent place, your dinner table and/or kitchen window shelf, water once a week and watch the green shoots grow and flowers appear (magical!). Also plant bulbs in the garden or in outside pots, they will surprise your child and appear every year.   

Pinecone bird feeder (what fun!)

Do you have a pinecone at home, if you find some lying around in nature from now on keep them for this special winter craft activity (for children without nut allergies). You will need: a pine cone, jar of peanut butter (smooth), butter knife, bird seed, and a bowl or tray.

Let your child have fun spreading the peanut butter all over the pine cone, then roll in the birdseed (kept in bowl or tray) to cover the pine cone in seed. Tie with wool or string on to a garden tree branch or fence (preferably one you can see out of the window). The birds eat their winter treat, and when pecked clean, you can repeat this craft activity again!

Wonderful seasonal craft ideas in the book ‘Earthwise: environmental crafts and activities with young children’ Carol Petrash (Floris Books). Available from www.honeybeetoys.com.au

Autumn – I love this season and it is partially lovely for simple natural craft. Leaf Rubbings are so much fun with young children. Go to a park with lovely autumn leaves, or for a local nature walk, and find a big autumn tree. Choose some lovely big leaves with big veins. Once home, turn over the leaf so that the veins are sticking up, place a piece of paper over the top and rub with a large crayon. The leaf will miraculously appear on the paper. Leaf rubbings are fun for all ages! Try making a leaf crown (to be King or Queen of Autumn) too. All that is needed are big autumn leaves (and nothing else!) Use the stem to pin through the next leaf in a circle to make a ring (a bit like a daisy chain). Now you have a crown for your child’s head – wonderful! This is a fun activity with a picnic under a tree!

Making simple boats from nature

If you find seedpods, gather and store for ‘boat’ fun craft! Simply fill with clay or playdough, make a sail from a twig and coloured paper, assemble and you have a boat for the seasonal table and play. Even simpler, from nature collect bark, sticks and leaves, assemble to make boats. An instant winner at the river (closely supervise your child!), buckets of water in the garden, and does it float in the bath? This is what we like free craft!