The Little Craft Box

Tambourine

noreply@blogger.com (Craft Mama) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:42:00 +0000

I planned to do this craft with my kids a long time ago but if you remembered me saying the shop that sells these bells had run out of stock. More like no longer selling them to me.

Anyway, I found Daiso selling the bells (much bigger and cheaper!) , 20 a pack for $2. I bought a pack. :)

My daughter fell asleep in the late evening today and was not able to sleep at her usual bedtime. So I decided to do this with her without my son. He can always do it on his own tomorrow. :)

Materials needed:

1 Paper Plate
10 Bells or any quatity you like
10 Pipe Cleaners or according to the no. of bells you have
Colouring Medium (optional)

How to do it:

If you like, draw a picture on the bottom of the plate for your child to colour.
'String' the bells with the pipe cleaners.
Punch holes on the edge of the plate leaving a side free for your child to hold later.
Twist pipe cleaner with the bell through the punched hole to secure it.
If your child is very young, you might want to tape the lose end of the pipe cleaners to the plate (side without the picture), so as not to poke him.
Now make so music!

Button Flowers

noreply@blogger.com (Craft Mama) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:43:00 +0000

This is an alternative to the craft I did with my daughter much earlier. We had intended to make these flowers for her teachers but the shop selling the bells had ran out of bells.

So I used buttons instead of bells. We gave each teacher 2 flowers of Bell and Button Flowers in a stalk each. It looked a lot more nicer.

I'm repeating the instructions here for easy reference.

Materials needed:

Cardboard Paper (We used index card)
Pipe Cleaner/Wire (We used wire)
Button
Colouring Medium (We used colour pens)

How to do it:

Draw the outline of a flower on the cardboard.
Cut out the flower.
Colour the flower.
Use a pencil to poke 2 small holes in the center of the flower.
Fold the wire into half.
Thread the wire through the holes of the button and through the holes on the paper.
The button should be in the middle of the pipe cleaner.
Twist the wire together.
Bent the flower forward and it's done.

Veggie Rose Card

noreply@blogger.com (Craft Mama) — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:16:00 +0000

This is part 2 of my son's Teachers' Day Gift and is soooo overdue.

I happened to cook xiao bai cai and kept the ends to do this. My son said it looked like a rose.

I had my son use it to stamp on cards and my daughter was just having a little fun stamping away on a piece of drawing paper.

Materials needed:

End of Xiao Bai Cai
Assorted Paints, acrylic paint preferred if you intend to colour over it.
Assorted Colour Pencils
Cardboard

How to do it:

Use a paper plate to hold the paints.
Dip veggie into paint.
Transfer to paper and stamp away.
Set aside to dry.
Colour using colour pencils over if you like.

Pipe Cleaner Bird

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:19:00 +0000

For this year's Teachers' Day gift, I'm helping my son do Memo Animal Clips for his teachers.

How they were done was purely accidental. I meant to do something else using straight pipe cleaners but the shops at my place here doesn't carry them anymore so I bought a similar one; those you use to tie on your plants during Chinese New Year. But I'm not able to use it to make the craft i intend to do.

However, after some twisting an twirling, the pipe cleaners became a ball. After adding some animal parts, the animal became visible. I think it's rather cute. My son's favourite is the Bird and mine is the Bee.

For this craft, I prepared the 'ball' as the head, cut all the parts required for the individual animals and my son did the bending and sticking. (Video instructions is at the end of this post)

click on the photo to enlarge

Materials required:

Clothes pegs
Wiggle eyes
'Bumpy' pipe cleaners
Straight pipe cleaners (optional for some animals)
Glue

Parts required for Bee:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as body
2 straight pipe cleaner long enough to go round the ball as strip on bee
2 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, bend to form wings
2 wiggle eyes

Parts required for Mouse:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as body
2 straight pipe cleaner, bend half as whiskers
1 straight pipe cleaner, twisted round a pencil as tail
2 wiggle eyes

Parts required for Bunny:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as head
2 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, bend to form ears
2 wiggle eyes

Parts required for Cat:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as head
2 straight pipe cleaner, bend half as whiskers
1 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, half and bend to ears
2 wiggle eyes

Parts required for Spider:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as body
8 straight pipe cleaner, bend 30 degrees angle to form legs
2 wiggle eyes

Parts required for Duck:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as head
1 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, bend like a 'C' to form beak
2 wiggle eyes

Parts required for Elephant:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as head
2 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, bend to form ears
1 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, bend like a 'S' to form trunk
2 wiggle eyes

Parts required for Dog:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as head
2 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, bend to form ears
2 wiggle eyes

I know you will wonder what the materials looked like and how the ball is form. So here my video (my first!!) on how to assemble the bird, my son's favourite.

Parts required for the Bird are:

1 bumpy pipe cleaner ball, as body
1 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, half and bend to form wings
1 bump of bumpy pipe cleaner, cut 1/4 from tip to form beak
1 straight pipe cleaner, twisted round a pencil as tail
2 wiggle eyes

There isn't any rule to how you twist the pipe cleaner into a ball. You just need to cross it so it will not become a spring. After removing it from the pencil, all you need to do is to gently shape to make it rounder and for the mouse and bee, more oblong.

Hope you like this craft and have fun!

Paper Cup Daffodil

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 04:14:00 +0000

This is another easy flower craft I did with my daughter when my son is having tuition. But be warn first as it so easy and fast to make, your kid might pester you to make a dozen! :P

Does it look like a Daffodil to you? :P At least it looks like a flower. ;)

Materials Needed:

1 Large Pleated Paper Cup
2 Smaller Pleated Paper Cups
1 Ice cream stick
Glue

How to do it:

Flatten the larger cup slightly.
Put glue in the center.
Place the smaller cups in it.
Put glue on the one end of the ice cream stick.
Stick the paper cups on it.
Put some glue on the edge of the remaining paper cups and fold it in half.
Continue the above step till you get a small triangle.
Put some glue on the tip part and stick it to the ice cream stick.

Bell Flower

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:52:00 +0000

I have been very busy with my son's school work to do any craft. Plus since he is already attending extra Art lessons in school. My poor daugter kept asking me to make flowers with her.

Since my son is attending extra lessons in the evening now at a centre just below my flat, I had spare time with my daughter. So, yeah. There will be a few easy to make flower craft which I'm intending to use as Teachers' Day gift for her teachers. *wink*

Materials needed:

Cardboard Paper (We used index card)
Pipe Cleaner
Ball-shaped Bell
Colouring Medium (We used colour pens)

How to do it:

Draw the outline of a flower on the cardboard.
Cut out the flower.
Colour the flower.
Use a pencil to poke a small hole in the center of the flower.
Thread the pipe cleaner through the hole of the bell.
The bell should be in the middle of the pipe cleaner.
Bend the pipe cleaner in half and twist them together.
Thread the twisted pipe cleaner through the flower.
It's done when the bell is 'sitting' on the flower and you can bent the pipe cleaner.

Note:

Draw the flower in proportion to the bell you have.
The flower we did is the size of an adult palm.
If you have poked a big hole on the flower, you can use a tape to secure the pipe cleaner at the back of the flower.

AppleTree

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 04:21:00 +0000

A really simple craft for the kids. My son helped his sister cut out the tree top and I helped to paste the coloured paper for the tree trunk. I had intended for the kids to paint the trunk but that would mean that they have to wait for a few hours for the paint to dry before they can assemble the tree. If your kids are patient enough, let them paint. It will be a lot easier for little tots.

Materials needed:

Empty kitchen paper roll
Brown Coloured Paper
Double Sided Tape
Crepe Paper, cut into squares and squeezed into ball-like
A3 paper or 2 pcs A4 paper
Glue
Colouring Medium

How to do it:

Fold A3 paper into half and draw the outline of a tree top.
Colour the tree top green. You can colour only 1 side if you want. 2 sides will look nicer though.
Cut out the tree top.
Glue crepe paper balls to the tree top.
Put aside to dry.
Paste brown colour paper on to the paper roll using either glue or double sided tape. Using tape will be easier but for younger kids glue will be easier and painting it the easiest.
Tape the inside of the tree top with double sided tape once the glue is dried.
Remove the tape backing and stick the base of the tree top to the top of the tree trunk. Remember to 'open' the tree top. The tree trunk should be inside the tree top.
Stick the sides of the tree top together and your apple tree is done.

Macaroni Necklace

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:00:00 +0000

I found half a bag of Penne (pasta) in my store. Since I'm the only one at home who eat it, I decided to use it for something else to quickly finish it. :P

I gave my daughter a string and she eagerly starts threading them. She couldn't stop with just one necklace. She did 2! And 2 bracelets too!

For older kids, you can get them to paint the penne first. You will get very nice and colourful necklaces instead.

Materials needed:

Penne Pasta (elbow pasta works well too)
Strings, desired length.

How to do it:

Help the child tie a penne pasta to one tie of the string, so the rest will not slip through.
Let the child string the pasta one a time till he/she attain the desired length. Tape the end of the string with sticky tape if it's to 'soft' for the child to thread
Help the child remove the end pasta and tie a knot to secure.
Done. Your child can now wear his/her food.

* It's never to old to thread *

* Macaroni Necklaces and Bracelets *

Papier-mache Easter Egg

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:52:00 +0000

I meant to post this during the Easter week but alas, I'm too busy. You can always use the same concept to make other stuff. We are planning to make our pumpkin container for Halloween!

My son used this to store the chocolate Easter eggs for his friends in school. Yeah, he brought that big Easter Egg we made to school. *show-off :P*

For this craft, we used 3 days to complete. The longest time taking craft we ever made and everyone was involved in the making. Everyone (hubby and little sis included) helped with the pasting of paper because we wanted to make it as sturdy as we can. I helped with some of the painting.

It was fun to see how the Easter Egg turn out.

Material needed:

1 Balloon
Assorted Paints
Lots of newspaper
Lots of glue #see far bottom for instructions to make your own glue

Addition items needed:

1 bucket to sit the balloon in
2 Pipe Cleaners to secure the cover to the base if turning it to a container

How to do it:

Tear newspaper into pieces and set aside.
Blow balloon to desired size.
Sit balloon on a bucket so it will not roll about.
Spread glue thinly on paper and paste it on the balloon.
Leave out the 'tail' of the balloon.
Paste paper around the 'tail'. You need to use that to remove the balloon from the completed Papier-mache Egg.
Repeatedly paste paper in layers till you desired thickness. You can set aside to let it dry first before deciding if you wish to add more layers.
Hold the tail of the balloon, poke the balloon and let the air out.
Slowly pull the airless balloon out of the Papier-mache.
Paste some more papers to cover the hole and let it dry.
Once, it is completed dried, you can start painting the Papier-mache. We painted a base coat first.
Again, let it dry and you will have your Papier-mache Easter Egg but it would be easy to hide it.

Note:

If you want to turn it to a container, get an adult to use a cutter to cut the top off.
If you like, paint the inside and let it dry completely.
Punch holes on the top and bottom and use pipe cleaners to secure it.

How to make you own glue:
You will need a lot for glue for this craft. So to save money on glue you can make your own. It is easy.

All you need is plain or all purpose flour and water. Just mix them both till there are no lumps. It should not be watery or thick. (Sorry I forgotten to measure the amount required).

To test, just dip your finger in the glue mixture. Your finger should get coated easily and when you remove your finger from the mixture, it's not dripping too much.

If mixture is too runny or watery, the paper will tear easily and will be difficult to handle. And when it's too thick, it difficult to spread on the paper.

* the making of an Easter Egg *

* Papier-mache Easter Egg *

Glitter Globe

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 06:32:00 +0000

I haven't been updating this blog. In fact, I haven't been doing crafts with the kids. Unless you count abstract painting as craft. *laughs* This is our first craft for the year.

The family has been taking turn to fall ill since last December. Plus my kids has lots of homework from school. *pant*

I finally found time for my son to so this simple craft as he was home due to a viral fever ... again.

Try this. It takes less then 5 minutes to complete but it's endless fun ... for my daughter that is. *wink*

Oh! If you have noticed, this blog had been over-hauled! Hope you like the new look! Check out the rotating header by pressing the F5 key. *wink*

Materials needed:

1 empty glass or clear plastic jar with screw cap (we used a baby food jar)
Different coloured Glitters
Various Sequins
Water
Strong glue (optional)

How to do it:

Remove any label on the jar.
Pour some different coloured glitters each into the jar.
Pour water into the jar till 4/5 full.
Put the sequins in the jar.
Screw on the cap back on the jar.
Glue the cap to the jar to fully secure it if you like.
When the glue is dried, your child can now shake the bottle to see the glittering jar.

Note:
You can also use other light items but not those that float.

* Boy at Work *

* the Glitter Jar *

Happy Lunar New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:59:00 +0000

Paper Cups Christmas Tree

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 02:45:00 +0000

The other day when we were at Starbucks, I saw one of their decorations in their store. It looks like a white tree made out of thick strips of paper. I didn't take a closer look at it but it looks interesting to me and had given me an idea. I thought I'll try to make a similar Christmas Tree with my son and well, it became my personal favourite now. Oh, I did help with curling here because it will take him ages to curl all the strips.

Christmas is around the corner. If you do not have a Christmas tree at home, why not make it to add it a bit of festive feel?

Materials needed:

10 Paper Cups
1 Rubber Band
1 (Balloon) Stick
2 Stickers of the same size and shape
Some Paper Clay or any Self Dry Clay

Tools needed:

Scissors
Pencil
Thick Cloth

How to do it:

Measure 0.5cm from the rim of the cup and draw around it.
Increase the measurement by 0.5cm for the next cup, ie, Cup No. 2 will be 1cm, No.3 - 1.5cm, No.4 - 2cm and so on.
Cut the rim according to the line drew above. Now all the cups will be of different height.
Label the cups with the tallest cup as 10 and the shortest cup as 1.
Have a thick cloth or folded cloth on your table.
Place a cup on the cloth, bottom down.
Position the tip of the pencil to the middle of the cup.
Pierce the cup to get a hole but don't pierce the pencil through as the hole may be too big.
Cut the cup in strips. Don't have to worry about the thickness. Irregular thickness looks nicer in my opinion.
Curl the strips using the stick or pencil *hardest part for kids*.
Tie a rubber band round the stick to use it as a 'stopper' to prevent the cups from slipping down.
Position it 12cm from the base of the stick.
Pierce the top of the stick through the cup with the base facing outwards, starting from No. 10, leaving a bit of space in between 2 cups.
Put aside.
Roll the clay to form a ball, flatten the base slightly.
Push the stick with the cups into the base to hold it.
Stick on the stickers, back to back, between the tip of the stick or alternatively, you can use cut out pictures and stick with double-sided tape.
Cut off excess stick.
Now you have your own Christmas Tree!

Note:
I wrapped the dried clay with flower paper (whatever you call that). You can leave it as it is or paint it if you like.

* Boy at Work *

* Our Christmas Tree *

Christmas Flower Memo Clip

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:04:00 +0000

Today's the last day of school and it's party day for the kids at school. We did some candy cane butterfly for my son's classmates.

His Chinese Teacher will still be teaching him next year but not for his English Teacher, Mrs Eunice. She is a really good teacher. My son kept telling me Mrs Eunice taught me this and that. Hopefully, his new English Teacher will be as good as Mrs Eunice.

Anyway, we did Christmas presents for the teachers too for all the hard work and patience they put in to nurture the kids. I told my son it's Christmas Flowers that we are doing so we are going to paint it in shades of red but he wanted it in blue and green too. He said they looked more like pinwheels and wind mills! Oh well!

We had planned to paint the base too but the clay took longer than we thought to dry, so we had to leave it unpainted. I should have put them in the oven to bake it. Anyway, we do hope the teachers like it.

Materials needed:

8 Penne Pasta
2 Ice Cream Sticks
1 Clothes Peg
1 (adult) handful Paper Clay
Paints
Glitters (optional)
*Gun glue to be handled under supervision or by an adult

How to do it:

Paint the penne pasta.
Sprinkle glitters while they are still wet.
Leave them aside to dry.
Put some gun glue on one (open) end of one penne pasta.
Stick it to the back of the 'back' of a second penne pasta will the open end facing outwards.
Repeat till all eight penne pasta are joined together.
Spread more gun glue on the centre of the joined pasta flower.
Stick the two ice cream sticks together side by side to the middle of the pasta flower.
Spread on one side of the clothes peg with gun glue.
Press it on to the top middle of the two ice cream stick, with the end able to gasp pointing up.
Side aside.
Roll the paper clay to shape.
Stick the end of the ice-cream stick into the blob of paper clay.
Set aside for the clay to dry and you can paint the base.
Once the project is completely finished and dried, you can use it to clip paper or light object using the clothes peg behind.

* X'mas Flower Memo Clip *

Candy Cane Butterfly

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:45:00 +0000

I mentioned in my previous post that I was preparing my son's Christmas Goodies for his friends in school. I had this idea from those (tube) perfume sample we received.

You can use it as a card with message written on the inside and instead of Candy Canes, you can use pens or pencils too. But since it's for Christmas, I bought candy canes. You can even hang it on your Christmas tree to decorate it. It will look pretty!

I did most of the cutting here as we need to prepare 20 and he and his little sister did the rest.

Materials needed:

Paper (I used 160gsm paper)
Stickers or Colouring Medium to decorate
Candy Cane

How to do it:

Print the butterfly template on the paper.
Have an older child or adult cut out the shape.
Decorate the cut-out butterfly with stickers or colour it.
Slip the candy cane through the cut out slot on the butterfly.
You can hang it on your Christmas tree using the 'hook' on the candy

Click HERE for the butterfly template.

* Having fun with the stickers *

* Santa's little helper *

Butterfly Finger Corsage

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:03:00 +0000

My son's school is having a party on the last the of school and I was helping him with the Christmas Goodies for his classmates, which will be shown in the next post. My daughter saw it and wanted to be Santa's little elf. *wink*

Anyway, I immediately went to create and print out a smaller butterfly template so she could have fun too and not disrupt our 'project'. I meant for her to wear the craft on her finger or wrist but she preferred to have it on her hair instead. It does look nice too! My son saw the end result and wanted one too!

Materials needed:

Paper (I used 160gsm paper)
Pipe cleaner (longer if you want to wear it on the wrist)
Stickers or Colouring Medium to decorate

How to do it:

Print the butterfly template on the paper.
Have an older child or adult cut out the shape.
Decorate the cut-out butterfly with stickers or colour it.
Have an adult poke 2 holes with a pin on the paper for the pipe cleaner.
Use the pipe cleaner to go through the holes.
Wear the butterfly by securing the pipe cleaner around your finger or wrist.

Click HERE for the butterfly template.

Mussel Shell Flower

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 02:49:00 +0000

My son and I were thinking what to do for his teacher, Mrs Eunice, as a thank you gift for having put in so much effort to help the kids present an item for their school's concert.

Since I have a lot of my mussel shell from here, I thought we can do a simple craft with it.

Materials needed:

7 Mussel shells, all from the same side
2 circle Cardboard, 5cm and 7cm diameter each
1 (Balloon) Stick, cut to desired length
Double-sided Tape
Scotch Tape

How to do it:

Colour one side of the smaller circle if you like.
Stick the circles with double-sided tapes and set aside. If you have coloured the smaller circle, then tape the non-coloured side.
Place shell, inside (shiny part) down and the thiner part outward, to form a flower pattern.
Remove the protective paper from tape of the larger circle.
Stick it over the center of all shells.
Turn it over.
Remove the protective paper from tape of the smaller circle.
Stick it over the center of all shells.
Turn it over again.
Place the stick with one end to the middle of the larger circle.
Stick on scotch-tape to secure it.

Note:
The number of shells needed depends on the size of your shells.

* Sticking the smaller circle over the shells *

* the Mussel Shell Flower *

Egg Mosaic

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 06:30:00 +0000

I so guilty! I have had time to do crafts with my kids. Sorry guys. Must have better time management.

Anyways, this was done earlier. I had recently started baking and I saved all the egg shells for this craft. I had intended to let my daughter do this but she seems to be only interested in paints and nothing else and so my son did it instead.

Materials needed:

Egg Shells, cleaned and dried
Assorted food colourings
Double-sided Tape
Paper

How to do it:

Put a few drop of assorted food colouring on to plastic plates.
Roll the egg shells in them.
Pour the colourings into the shells and swirl around if you want it coated there as well.
Put all coloured shells on a newspaper and let them dry.
Once dried, crush the shells but not into too small a pieces.
Tape your paper with double-sided tape.
Remove the protecting paper of the tape.
Press the coloured shells on the tape to stick them.
Once completed, you'll have a piece of colourful Egg Mosaic and equally colourful fingers. *wink*

Note:
You can tape the paper any pattern you like. Don't have to be a rectangle.

Bell Pepper Printing

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 06:23:00 +0000

More paint printing craft for my daughter. She just like to play with paint. And once you get her started. She doesn't want to stop.

This is very easy craft. It's like all the other printing craft I did with her. I just made sure I bought a bell pepper with a longer stalk so it's easier for her to hold.

Materials needed:

Bell Pepper Top
Assorted non-tonxic paints
Paper

How to do it:

Use a paper plate to hold the paints.
Dip bell pepper into paint.
Transfer to paper and stamp away.

Gift Tags

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 05:02:00 +0000

We made gift tags to attached with the Chocolate Cheese Truffles for my son's teachers. This is a simple craft. Since my son didn't want to draw so many cards. We used craft punches instead.

Originally, my son wanted to give the Magnetic Bookmarks he made few days ago to two of his teachers but they were to big to fit into the gift box, so we made another two smaller ones.

Materials needed:

Coloured Paper (our size was 5.5cm x 5.5cm)
Glue (Stick glue preferred as it will not curl the paper)
* additional tools needed - assorted craft punches

How it is done:

Just stick the punched out shapes to the paper.
Either fill up one side of the paper and can write your message of the reverse side.
Or leave some space to write your message in front.

Note:
You can use sticker, glitters to decorate too!

* Tags we made *

Chocolate Cheese Truffles

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:40:00 +0000

This is what we made for Teachers' Day. It's Chocolate Cheese Truffles, something easy that can be managed by kids themselves.

However, I changed the procedure of my original recipe a bit. Instead of melting the chocolate in a pot over a pot of boiling water, I have the bowl of chopped chocolate in another (heavy) bowl of hot water. I don't want my son to get himself scalded by boiling water as it will be still bubbling. And to keep the chocolate ganache soft for rolling, I have a bowl of hot water at the bottom to act as a 'steamer'.

I put the chocolates in a bag and pack them in gift box or attached a tag with it.

My son had fun, making the Chocolate Cheese Truffles for his teachers. We have to make another batch again because there weren't any left for us.

Dual Colour Gift Box

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 03:49:00 +0000

It's Teachers' Day today and we had decided to make Chocolate Cheese Truffles for the teachers. We needed a nice gift box to put the Chocolate Cheese Truffles and to do that I tried to recalled how gift box I received at wedding dinners were like and finally got done. Maybe not exactly how it's like but it will do.

Materials needed:
(to make 1 gift box)

2 different colours paper

How to do it:

Print or draw the template of the box on the papers.
Cut them out.
Fold along the dotted lines.

Note:
I printed out all the templates because we had to make six boxes.

How to assemble the box:

Slip the two pieces of paper through the slit at the base.
Now you have one across another looking like a '+'.
Fix the flaps in green in the picture by fixing the two flaps beside the yellow paper, together through the slits.
Repeat for the other flaps on the other side.
To 'close' the box, have one flap fold down.
Fold the next flap over the first flap.
Lift the round' leaf' of the first flap to the top.
Repeat for the next two flaps to complete.

Click here for the template of the gift box.

Magnetic Bookmarks

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 05:25:00 +0000

It has been sometime that I last did crafts with my kids. I have a few crafts that I wanted they to do but just could find time.

I managed to squeeze in time to do this with my son and he said he wanted to to give this to his teachers for teachers' day.

Materials needed:

Cardboard (size 20cm x 5cm)
2 magnetic strips
Coloured Paper
Glue (we used stick glue. It's doesn't curl paper)
* additional tool used: craft punches

How to do it:

Punch out shapes using craft punches.
Fold cardboard into half.
Spread glue on the folded cardboard.
Decorate the cardboard with punched out paper.
If your magnetic strips does not come with adhesive tape, use double-sided tape to stick the magnetic strips to both insides of the cardboard.
Let the glue dry and you can use it now. Just 'clip' it on a page of a book. No more slipping bookmark. *wink*

Note:

You can also find a piece of cardboard with nice picture to use as a base, eg. post cards.
You can also draw on the cardboard instead.

* boy in action *

* the end products *

Salami/Ham & Cheese Toast Making

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:09:00 +0000

Yesterday, my son hands-on on making toast. He always had lots of fun when he has a chance to help in cooking especially if he is making everything on his own.

I think this counts as craft too, so I'm posting it here to share.

Ingredients:

2 slices of bread of your choice
3 slices of cheese of your choice, cut into 6 strips each
Toppings of your choice (we had shaved Breakfast Ham and Salami)
Parmesan Cheese

How to do it, in the Chef own words:

Wash your hands and dry them first.
Take a piece of bread and put on a plate.
Put 3 pieces of cheese (he meant the cut strips) over the bread.
Put the ham over the cheese; put A LOT. (we did ham first)
Put some more cheese. Must put nicely. Don't anyhow put. Won't be nice later.
Put the breads in the toaster and wait for a while.
See the cheese are all melted. (8 minutes, the assistant took note of the time)
Can take them out. Must wear glove - long ones.
Put some Parmesan Cheese.
Okay, can eat now but too hot for me.

Note:
The assistant cut the Salami in quarters and chopped the shaved ham in smaller pieces because it was a bit difficult to cut them nicely.

* Guest Chef, WokkingBoy, in action *

Watermelon Shaker

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:24:00 +0000

My daughter did a Cherry Shaker and my son did this Watermelon Shaker. Both are basically very similar, using almost the same materials but just as fun!

Materials needed:

1 Paper Plates
Red and Green Crepe Paper, cut into small pieces
Glue
Any Beans or Rice

How to do it:

Spread glue all over the bottom one paper plate.
Stick green crepe paper on the edge of the paper plate and red crepe paper on the inner circle of the plate till it's all covered.
Set aside to dry first.
Put glue on the edge of the paper plate.
Pour some beans in it.
Fold the paper plate in half to stick them together.
Use clothes pegs to clip the edge
Set aside to dry.
Shake it!

Cherry Shaker

noreply@blogger.com (WokkingMum) — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 04:10:00 +0000

I meant to make an Apple Shaker but it ended up looking more like a Cherry to me. Whatever it is, the kids had fun with it.

My daughter did this and my son did a watermelon shaker.

Materials needed:

2 Paper Plates
Red Crepe Paper, cut into small pieces
Glue
Any Beans or Rice
A twig and leaf, stick together with tape

How to do it:

Spread glue all over the bottom one paper plate.
Stick crepe paper on it till it's all covered.
Put glue on the edge of the other paper plate.
Pour some beans in it.
Place the twig with the leaf on top of the plate
Paste the other paper plate with cover crepe paper on top.
Set aside to dry.
Shake it!