Kids Love Craft

Ned Kelly Model

2014-11-28T19:50:00.003+11:00

Creating a model of NED KELLY's Armour

slv.vic.gov.au

I researched on the internet to find a picture of Ned Kelly's armour and I was unable to find a template that I could print.
So using the a picture as a guide I created my own template.

As the picture is 2D I added extra to the width of each piece to allow for the sides that wrap around the body.

Next I gathered up the supplies.

Supplies

Armature wire
Thin wire
Tin Snips
Hammer
Scissors
Pliers
Ruler
Template
Pictures
Spray paint (red/rust and black)
Hot Glue Gun
Nail Punches
Marker texta
Block of wood with a hole to put wire into
Aluminium flashing (used for roofing / guttering)

Now I was ready to begin.

1. Using the template draw around the pieces on the flashing and cut them out using tin snips.

2. Put a fold in the middle of the front plate and the breast plate so that it looks like the Armour has been joined. It is easier to do this using a ruler to create a fold line.

3. Put the Holes into the Armour for wiring (as in the picture). Originally it would have been leather straps but wire is easier. A nail punch can help with these. Square up the hole with the tip of a pair of small scissors.

4. Use the nail punches to mimic where the bolts would have been. To keep it curved you can curve it around a can or a rolling pin.

5. Create a cross with armature wire and place into wooden block ready to hang the Armour on.

6. Now start wiring it together using thin wire and pliers. Once you are happy with the placement start work on the helmet. I used 2 pieces of flashing to create this. I joined the pieces together using hot glue and then mimicked the bolts using the nail punch again. Excess wire can be removed with pliers. I curved the armature wire to add the shoulder plates to rather than worrying about wiring them to the Armour separately.

7. Now it's time for the spray paint. I used a metal paint in rust/red colour for the first layer and then did a layer of black (not completely covering the red) in a plain enamel whilst the first layer was still wet. This gave it the steel, rust, old look that I was after!

When I compared the original armour to my model I was pleasantly pleased with the results.

Mixed Media Canvas City Scape

2014-06-09T18:46:00.000+10:00

Logsy's City Scape Mixed Media

My son is almost 6 now and he loved making this one.

What you will need:

1 x Canvas

Gesso or white paint

Other coloured paint of your choosing

Ink Pad

Pastel Black Pencil

Stencils (or whatever you want to use to add texture)

Old book (mine was from the op shop with yellowing pages)

Scissors

PVA or Gel Medium

Baby wipes or wet cloth

Paintbrushes

Card Stock

Method:

1. Rip some pages out of a book and glue all over the canvas. It doesn't matter if it's completely covered or if there are a few gaps between pieces.

2. Cover with a light layer of Gesso or white paint. Rub some off until you like the way it looks. Now add some other paint colour(s) doing the same thing until you like the way it looks. We used fingers to add it in small circular motions and then used a baby wipe to remove the excess.

3. Add some different elements such as stamping on the background with ink and stencils or similar with different patterns.

4. Now cut or rip some city / house building shapes including windows and doors using card stock. Rub the edges of each item through the ink pad to add some black to all edges. Glue the items onto the canvas in a pattern that suits you. Cut out other things to add to you picture such as a sun or clouds, birds etc. If you want to add some more black go around the edge with a black pastel pencil and rub the edges for a bit of a "smudged" "shaded" effect once glued and dried.

5. Finally cover with a layer of PVA, Mod Podge, Polymer varnish, Gel medium or whatever to seal it.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did :)

2014-03-11T22:01:00.000+11:00

Recycling Cd's

This is the first time I have posted using an iPad so we will see how it goes :)

The kids and I had some great fun on the weekend decorating some cd's for a school art project. They turned out really great and really the photos don't do them justice. It's been a while since I shared so I thought this was a good one to break the drought........

So how were they done?......

Materials:

Cd's different colours

Sandwich toaster or oven

Aluminium foil

Tea towel

Sharpie permanent markers

Hot glue gun

PVA glue

Scatters, glitters, buttons etc

Tongs

Optional: mod podge
Wire

Steps:

1. Colour on the shiny side of the cd with sharpies in any pattern. (For the flower we just used the cd's as they were, no colour added)

2. Turn on sandwich toaster and put cd on wire rack (use aluminium foil underneath cd to prevent it melting over rungs...unless you want that look). Mine doesn't have a temperature control, just a bake option so if using an oven I guess you would turn it up quite high). Keep an eye on it. It only takes a few minutes until they start warping and this is when you can mould them into shapes if you want to but be careful they are HOT. Use tongs and a tea towel. On the flatter cd's we used some glitter during the melting process. If you do this watch CLOSELY. The glitter can burn quickly. You just want the colour of the texta to be absorbed slightly and the glitter to melt a little.

3. You can use a bottle, bowl or jar to place underneath the cd to use as a mould and create the shape you want but work fast. They re harden quickly!

4. Once cooked and shaped you can decorate. We just used PVA and stuck on the scatters etc. You can finish it by adding a layer of clear drying PVA over the complete surface or a layer of mod podge.

5. Hot glue on wire for stem if making the flower. I coloured the wire in with a Sharpie. I used another Cd to cut out the leaf shape. Keep in mind a Cd is easier to cut when it's still pliable from the oven.

I hope you enjoyed this one. I know we did! :)

Pop Up Cards

2011-11-17T21:23:00.002+11:00

The kids have really loved doing these. It's just a matter of adding a few slits into some card and adding anything you want to the pop up mechanism. Have a look at this website for more instructions and photo's of the mechanism. I think we are going to do all of our Christmas cards this way. x

http://lahinks.blogspot.com/2009/07/whatever-wednesday-pop-up-zoo-birthday.html

Miniature Gardens

2011-10-29T15:37:00.001+11:00

It's been a long time since I last blogged. You might think that it's because we haven't done any craft.............. gosh that would be terrible!!!............Thank goodness it's not so. You will be happy to know that my kids have not missed out. I just haven't had the time to photograph and blog about it. So I'm very sorry about that. These little craft gardens were so special I made some time to add them. They aren't step by step but I think you will get the idea. Enjoy xxx

To start them off we gathered paper plates, air drying modelling clay and green tissue paper.

Roll up some modelling clay and flatten it out a little and add it to a section of the paper plate. How much you need will be dependant on what needs to "stand up".
Add some PVA below and over the modelling clay and include the rest of the paper plate. Use the sheet of tissue paper All over the top of the plate and modelling clay. This we be the grass and the base of the garden.

From there it's really up to you what you want to add. Here are some ideas:

Pipecleaners through buttons make great flowers.
Stickers can make a great path
Cut out shapes for trees and pond out of coloured paper. Stick a twig or icypole type stick onto the back of the tree shapes
Add some stickers/split peas/rolled up crepe paper to the trees for colour
Modelling clay can make some great little ducks and small buttons can be beaks.
Button furniture
Icypole sticks or matchsticks for fences

The sky is the limit!! My kids are 3 and 5 and they loved making them. You will too!!!

Polystyrene / Styrofoam ball Ducks

2011-06-06T22:29:00.009+10:00

I think these little ducks are a "quack up"......so so cute!!!

Materials:

Foam sheet (whatever colour)
Marker texta
Googly eyes x2
Scissors
PVA glue
Hot glue gun
Large (eg: 10cm) polystyrene ball
Medium size polystyrene ball
Small polystrene ball
Feathers

Method:

1. Cut the small ball in half
2. Use hot glue gun to stick them to the bottom of the large polystyrene ball. Flat part of ball should be used for stability (don't want no falling duck) so glue rounded edge to large ball.
3. Using sheet of foam cut out 2 duck feet. I laid one piece on top of each other and cut the scalloped edge. Round out the back of foot as appropriate. Glue to bottom of each small 1/2 ball.

4. Cut a large oval out of the foam sheet that can be folded in the middle to create a beak.

5. Add a line of hot glue, off centre, fold together and create a bit of a ridge.

6. Add 2 dots with marker texta for nostrils.

7. Use a pair of scissors to score a line in the middle size ball (this is optional as you could glue it directly without scoring). My line was pretty rough but you get the idea. Now use hot glue to stick your beak into the groove.

8. Glue on the head to the larger ball. Attach the googly eyes to the head using hot glue or PVA.

9. Now go nuts with the feathers. You can see that my kids have had fun with the those!

The only thing left to do now is give them a name...... in this case maybe Huey, Duey and Louie?

Food colour painted flowers

2011-05-30T20:27:00.002+10:00

I had to share these as they looked so beautifu!
Food Colour painted flowers. The only instruction was to
extend the flower as close to the edge of the page as possible and this was what they came up with.
Sharpie marker texta's were used for the outline.
Gorgeous!!

Foam sheet or paper Dinosaur with movable parts and button toes.

2011-05-26T21:10:00.001+10:00

Materials required:

Coloured card or Foam Sheets
Scissors
Hole Punch
Pattern from here: http://crafts.kaboose.com/img/craft_images/moveable_paper_dinosaur.pdf
Buttons (one for eye and some for toenails)
Googly eye
4 x split pins

Method:

1. Cut out all the pieces as per pattern and punch holes as per pattern.

2. Match up all the holes and work out where you will put the spikes on the back

3. Glue down the spikes. Glue down the extra button where the eye will go and then glue on the googly eye.

4. Glue on the buttons for toenails.

5. Where the holes line up put in the split pins. (mine were a little long but worked ok).

6. My kids were happy for them to be plain but you could easily use sequins for scales etc to add another dimension.

The boys loved doing the dinosaur roar!!!!

Cardstock Robots with button parts

2011-05-22T18:14:00.000+10:00

Materials required

Scissors
Glue
Various Cardstock (the shinier the better)
Assorted Buttons
Pipe cleaners
Sticky dots
Scatter stars (or sticker stars)
Black heavy paper for background

Method:

1. Firstly cut out a oval head shape.

2 Just below the centre cut the oval in half

3 Assemble it so that it looks like the robot has an open mouth. When happy glue it onto the paper....see below:

4. Then cut out some feet, hands and a rectangle body. Place them slightly apart on the page and glue down

5. Between the body and hands/feet glue down pieces of pipecleaner. You can twirl them if you wish.

6. Stick on the 2 stickers for eyes and add some button eyes.

7. Cut a smaller rectangle and place it onto the body of the robot and then glue it down. Add some buttons for the robot components and also glue in place.

8. Finally add some scatter starts to the page so it looks like the robot is standing against a twinkling sky. You can also add other items such as rockets etc :)

The Girl Robot

The Boy Robot

Mothers day cards with fake flower petals and patty pans

2011-05-08T21:42:00.005+10:00

Mothers day 2011

Pulled apart fake flowers with patty pan centres and glitter added. Icy Pole stick used for stems and leaves were from pulled apart fake flowers.

Another version of description above. Recycled using cut up old box. This enabled the cards to stand on their own.

Slightly different centres. Some foam flower shapes. A stickers, paper letters and hearts.

Photo's are always a great thing to add to any card. So personal.

My daughter finished hers off by writing a greeting inside. Beautiful job guys. xx

Easter Cards

2011-04-10T21:03:00.002+10:00

I think Easter Cards are a lovely thing to be presented with at Easter. I love my kids putting their personal touches on things and they can really do whatever they want with cards. For this activity though we decided to use "Food Colour" for painting to make our eggs:

(see earlier post "Food colour painting" http://kidslovecraft.blogspot.com/2011/03/crayon-oil-pastels-and-food-colour.html)

What you will need:

Cardstock / Coloured Card
White paper
Food Colour mixed with a little water
Paint Brushes
Embelishments / glitter / ribbon etc
Scissors / ruler

Method:

Put paint all over the paper randomly. Wait to dry and then cut into egg shapes.
Fold a sheet of coloured paper in half.
Tear around the edges of another piece of coloured card so that it fits within the dimensions of the front of the card. (use a ruler to use as a tearing guide or use scissors if you wish)
Add your egg shapes where you wish.
Stick on your embelishments / glitter / ribbon etc.

Easy pain free activity the kids and card receiver will love. Here are some different examples:

Terracotta Pot LollIpop Easter Egg Baskets

2011-04-10T20:41:00.000+10:00

These will make great gifts for easter and thanks to http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/flower-basket-661378/ for the idea.

What you will need:

Terracotta pot
Card stock / Coloured paper
Template of a flower (I got mine here... http://www.ruthannzaroff.com/mirkwooddesigns/images/flowercard1.gif http://www.ruthannzaroff.com/mirkwooddesigns/images/flowercard2.gif
Scissors
Stickytape
Glue
Tissue paper
Paint
Brushes
Stickers / Flowers or items to glue on
Lollipop
Easter Eggs
Pebbles (something to hold up the lollipop)

Method:

Paint the terracotta pot
Cover the stem of lollipop in green tissue paper (or green ribbon or equivalent)
Enlarge the flower template so that it is bigger than the head of the lollipop and then cut it out.
Tape or Glue the Flower onto the head of the lollipop. You can add another flower or circle to the inside of the lollipop if you feel the lollipop itself isn't enough.
Cut out one or 2 leaves out of green paper and add a message for the person it was made. When finished Sticky tape it onto the covered stem.
Finish decorating the dried pot with some decorations of your choosing. We used flower cut outs.
Add some tissue paper of your colour choice to the pot and then half fill with pebbles so that the lollipop is stable.
Finish off by filling the remainder of the pot with small easter eggs.

A lovely gift to give a loved one this easter. xx

The pot above had an accident and had to be reglued with PVA. To reinforce it further I covered the whole thing in red tissue paper. There was lots of tears about the broken pot so we needed a quick fix. Turned out ok all things considered. Maybe I should have been a recontructive surgeon.....NOT!

Easter Egg Baskets

2011-04-10T19:51:00.002+10:00

These baskets are so effective and it was a joy to make them actually.

Materials needed:

Square sheet of cardstock (I cut mine down to 27cm x 27cm)
Ruler
Glue
Sticky tape
Scissors or a guillotine
Stickers / items to glue on
Shredded paper

Method:

There are a couple of really good sites that will show you how to do these see one link below:

http://seilifestyle.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-to-make-easter-basket.html

Each square equated to 9cm by 9cm. I basically divied up the 27 x 27 cm sheet into 9 equal squares. It shows which lines needed to be cut on the S.E.I website. See their pic below.

Very easy once scored and cut to bring it all together.....

These are a couple we made that we filled with shredded paper after decorating with stickers. Each child had letter stickers to add their names to their baskets.

I think the kids will find them perfect for collecting those eggs during their easter egg hunt!!!

Paper bag scarecrows

2011-03-09T20:26:00.000+11:00

These were a great little project.

Materials:

Coloured paper
Ribbon
Googly Eyes
Marker texta
Icy Pole Sticks
Glue
Newspaper
Foam Flowers (optional)
Brown paper bags
Sticky tape

Method:

Fill a paperbag with newspaper. Insert a Icy pole stick into the bottom of the filled bag sealing the end with tape or Glue.
Cut out a Nose (triangle works well), add some googly eyes, a couple of circles for cheeks and some shaggy hair.
Cut out any hat shape you fancy, add some criss cross pattern if you wish. A foam or paper flower looks good too.
Finally draw on a mouth and add a ribon around the base of the head and you are all done.

Crayon / Oil Pastels and Food Colour Paintings

2011-03-09T13:48:00.000+11:00

Now these were fun but may I suggest the organiser of the food colour wear gloves!!!

All you need is:

Food colour (various colours)
White paper (we used cartrige paper)
Brushes
Water
Oil Pastels
Paint pallette or similar
Disposable gloves
Something to cover the surface you are using

Method:

Draw a picture / shape etc on the piece of paper with Crayon or Oil Pastels
Prepare your food colour (put on gloves) We just added a couple of drops to the pallette and a little water to the food colour. You could use it straight but I preferred to mix a bit a water into it. Feel free to mix the colours together to get any colour you prefer.
Now let them use a paint brush (one for each colour) and cover their work in different colours.
Let them dry!

I think, as you can see from below, they turn out fabulous :)

Crowns

2011-03-09T13:27:00.000+11:00

Very easy craft for the little ones this.

Materials:

A3 coloured paper/card
Stickers
Glitter
Sticky tape
Glue
Bits of pieces of anything really (paper, gems, scatters etc)

Method:

Fold card length wise down the centre. Draw the shape to cut out along the folded line on one of the sides (eg: Zig Zag) and then cut it out. Make sure there is a wide strip along the bottom that will go around the head. Join the 2 pieces together.

Now it's all up to the decorators and the decorations......

Once decorations are complete take the crown and fit it around your child's head. Use sticktytape to secure it together. You can cut off some of the top of the crown so that just the strip is left when you join it together. That way you don't have to match the zig zag etc exactly.

And there you are.....done!

Butterfly kids craft with lentil trees / leaves

2011-01-18T14:56:00.001+11:00

Materials needed:

Brown paper (tree trunk)
A couple of different papers for butterfly wings
Decorations / circles etc for wings (optional)
Scissors
Glue
Pipecleaners (antenna)
Lentils

Cut out some tree trunk shapes using the brown paper and stick onto your background sheet.

Cut out 2 sets of wings in different colours. Each pair of wings is a direct mirror image of each other so you need to cut out the shapes 2 at a time (2 pieces of paper on top of each other to cut an exact replica)

See the 2 sets above. Glue these down onto the paper with slight gap between them where you will place the butterfly body. Decorate the wings further if you wish using circles or whatever.

Cut out 2 body oblong body shapes to fill the gap you left between the wings.

See them glued onto each butterfly above.

Roll the top of each end of a pipecleaner to create some antenna.

Glue antenna onto the top of each body.

Butterfly number 2.

If you have been using a glue stick it's time to change to regular PVA for sticking on the lentils. Choose where you want to group them and use it liberally to make sure that lentils will stick.

I finished them off by cutting out their names to add to their work.

Nicely done kids!

Christmas Craft Ideas: Santa, Stockings, Chrismas train Mural and Snowmen

2011-01-15T23:23:00.002+11:00

These are what we made around Christmas but I didn't have time to put down the steps to create them. Most are pretty easy and you will get the gist just by looking at the pics.

Enjoy :)

Santa: A little difficult to explain but mainly just a cone shape with legs, arms and face added.

Christmas train mural: Trees were create by tearing out triangle shape, a rectangular trunk shape and adding some decorations. The train was drawn carriages that were painted over the top of pastels/crayons. The paint was watered down. Then glitter and photos were added. Linked together by ribbon, Precut foam flowers for the fields. A few dodgy looking clouds and star stickers completed the picture.

The snowmen equalled 2 round circles one larger than the other. A few bits and pieces to create faces and buttons. Pipe cleaners or sticks for arms. A hat and your done!

Stockings: Cut out a couple of stocking shapes and then let them do whatever they want. We used glitter, paper cut outs, pom poms foam etc

Lion Mask activity with add on nose and rolled mane

2011-01-15T23:03:00.001+11:00

Step 1: Paint the paper plate with a lion type colour

Step 2: Print off this Tigers/Lions nose (you can download it also from (http://www.abckid.com.au/images/uploads/arts-and-crafts/Tiger_Mask.pdf) and then cover in the paint colour of your choice.

Step 3: Cut some strips of paper to use as a mane. We chose orange, brown and yellow.

Step 4: Pre roll the strips of paper to make the mane curly (although you could do this once the mane was glued on)

Step 4: Assemble the mask. Glue the curled paper strips around the edge of the painted plate. Glue on the nose that was painted and cut out (fold over the tabs and glue them down somewhere in the middle of the plate). Use a few pipe cleaners to make a mouth and whiskers. Cut out some eyes and stick on a icypole stick (or similar) to the back of the plate (we joined 3 together).

And here are my 2 and a half year old boys with their completed masks. Now they can really roar like a lion.....their favourite pass time!

Indian Elephant Craft

2011-01-15T22:10:00.002+11:00

For this gorgeous little elephant you firstly need to grab a copy of the template from the link below. This we sketched onto a larger piece of paper (we used A3) and then my daughter painted it and cut it out and glued on the ear which has a separate template on the same page.

http://thelongthread.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/elephant-garland.pdf

A doily painted another colour and a few scatters glued on made a great rug for the back of the elephant.

More of the doily (a small section was cut out of the original piece) was painted another colour and decorated again with some scatters.

Some sticky dots stuck on each of the feet made great toenails. We used silver which looked good. Add a googly eye or similar.

And last but not least some wool finished it off creating a tail. A bit of fun.

Torn paper car picture

2010-11-28T17:14:00.002+11:00

Time for a drive in the country with your

family!

These were kind of groovy. Very easy torn paper car shapes and a couple of circles torn out, maybe a headlight or exhaust and done!
My daughter enjoyed adding some people to her car picture. Very Cute.

Car shape torn out below

When it's all put together.

Christmas Craft - Torn paper trees and presents

2010-11-28T16:09:00.002+11:00

This present picture is just two pieces of A4 coloured card, one A5 piece, some ribbon and scatters. Tear around one A4 pieces edge and around that of the A5. Glue them one on top of each other (see above). Then glue on the ribbon and scatters and there you have your christmas present artwork.

The christmas tree is similar to above using just two pieces of A4 coloured card, one A5 piece and then a smaller piece for the tree trunk. This time we used buttons for the baubles but scatters would be ok too. We used a fiskars star punch to cut out the tree star. Easy for my 5 year old to do.

More Birthday Cakes

2010-11-13T21:48:00.002+11:00

It's been a while since my last blog but life has gotten away from me lately. I've had weddings and birthday's to keep me entertained and even though my kids have done craft I haven't had a chance to take photo's of it! Anyway I know that this is off track a bit but I thought I'd take a couple of photo's of my daughters birthday cakes (yes I know....mad! One for the morning with the kids and one for the afternoon with family). I'm not a professional by any stretch of the imagination but as she is only 5 I don't think she is going to hold it against me!

Dragonflies

2010-09-29T15:12:00.005+10:00

3 Different Dragonflies

These different dragonflies were very easy to make and really the materials you could use are endless. Here I've provided 3 different types with some doubling up of materials. I think the look quite effective!

Card stock Dragonfly

Materials required:

A few different colours or types of card/paper (we used 4 different types)
Glue
Scissors
Fiskars large and medium circle squeeze punches (if you have them.....)
Fiskars medium rectangle squeeze punch
2 googly eyes

Method:

Cut out 4 oval wing shapes
Cut out 2 round medium sized eyes
Cut out 1 large round shape for the head
Cut out 2 Oval shapes for the body (one slightly bigger than the other)
Cut out approx 5 small rectangles for the tail

First Glue the wings onto the paper. The head and eye's come next followed by the large oval body shape and then the smaller stuck on top. Lastly glue on the rectangle shapes for the tail and you are done!!

Pompom and Button Dragonfly

Materials required:

Glue
Buttons (approx. 2 large and a variety of smaller ones.....roughly 8)
Pompoms
Card stock /paper
Scissors

Method

Cut out a circle shape for the head
Cut out 4 oval shapes for the wings
Glue the centre of the wings on the paper (slightly fold up either side of the centre so that the wings are not glued to the paper but slightly elevated)
Glue the circle shape above the head and add a couple of buttons for the eye's (smaller ones can be used too for the middle of the eye's)
We used 3 pompoms for the body (glue these on now) but ther may be more or less depending on the size of the wings and the pompoms.

Finish off by gluing some smaller buttons below the body to form the tail.

Clothespin / Peg and button Dragonfly

Materials required:

Clothespin (I broke off one of the leg's to form more of a dragonfly shape)
Buttons (1 x large for head, 2 eye's, 1 long one for the body or a few smaller ones and approx 5 for the tail)
Glue
Scissors
Card stock (cut into 4 oval wing shapes)

Method:

Glue the 4 oval wing shapes onto the back of the clothespin
Glue on the 2 smaller buttons to the larger button to form the eye's on the head
Glue the head on the clothespin
Glue on a couple of medium size buttons to make the body or one long oval one.
Finally add approx. 5 button's onto the 1 remaining leg to for the tail

And there you are done!

There, 3 easy dragonflies to make!

Cardboard / Papier Mache Glittery box

2010-09-12T21:48:00.000+10:00

Verry simple craft that requires little assistance but gives your child a great deal of satisfaction.

This was just a cardboard / papier mache store bought box.
Marli painted it, let it dry and then applied glue to the areas she wanted to glitter.
Very simple and lovely and glittery! Perfect for it's intended purpose
of storing her favourite jewellery!