Showing posts with label crafts for kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crafts for kids. Show all posts

8.6.17

Make a city scene - crafts for kids


I've been going through A LOT of cardboard tubes recently, and the city tubescapes we did a few weeks back got me thinking about making a bigger city scene that could be added to and played with. The first thing was to make the tubes less, well, tubey.....!

You'll need:
Cardboard tubes (toilet paper and kitchen paper tubes)
Scissors
Paint
Black felt tip or gel pen
For the trees:
Cereal box card
Brown felt tip
Glue stick
Grey paper (or painted paper) for the street

1. Take your toilet paper tube or kitchen paper tube and flatten it on the table with you hand. Press firmly along the two creases.


2. Squeeze the tube open, line up the two creases you've just made, and flatten with your hand - making two more creases. Press firmly along them both again.



3. If you want to make your buildings different heights, this is a good time to cut across your flattened tube. Now, when you squeeze it back into shape, instead of being round, you should have more of a square shape.



4. Paint your buildings any colours you like, or leave some plain, like we did.


If you want to make trees, this would be a good time to paint some cereal box card green. Try two different colours of green. Add more blue to make a darker shade.

5. When the paint's dry, press along the creases again, to get them back into shape, then use the black pen to add windows. Draw small rectangles, colour some in and leave others open. Add any extra details you want - Daisy made a hospital, shop and a bakery. It's absolutely up to you!




6. For the tree base, cut a strip of plain cereal box card. The trees can be any size you want, but if you want them to be a similar size to ours, keep the width of the strip to about 2cm/3/4in or less.  Cut the strip into similar sized pieces, no more than about 3cm/1in. long (these measurements are just a guide, the card pieces don't need to be identical or precise).

7. Now, fold in both ends of a piece of card, so you leave a small section in the middle between the folds. This is going to be the trunk of your tree and shouldn't be too wide. It might take a minute or two to get the hang of the folding, but again it doesn't need to be precise, as long as the card piece sits steady.


8. Make a small snip down both creases (snip a little extra out to make it easier to slot in the treetop later) - then cut a 'V' between the slots for the tree's branches.



9. Keeping in mind the size of your tree base, draw a treetop shape on the painted green card and cut it out. Keep the shape simple if you prefer.


10. Draw the trunk on the tree base with a brown felt tip pen.


11. Rub some glue on the back of the branches only, and slot the treetop in place. Leave it flat to dry (you could weigh it down with a book).
Fold the flaps back and your tree is ready!






11.5.17

Tubescapes - TP roll craft for kids

toilet paper roll craft

This craft is all about making a scene with a cardboard tube! 
Easy to do and there are a few different tubescape ideas here for you to try. 

You will need:
Toilet paper or kitchen paper tube
Scissors
Ruler
Pencil
Paint
craft glue or glue stick
Coloured or plain paper
Fine black felt-tip or gel pen
Hole punch (optional)
metallic silver pen (optional)

1. For a daytime cityscape, flatten your cardboard tube with your hand (shorten to about 10cm/4in, if you're using a kitchen paper roll). Draw a pencil line across your tube, a few cms (about 1in.) up from the bottom edge. This will be the road. Use a ruler and pencil to draw skyscrapers - make them different sizes.


2. Cut down the creases, either side to the first rooftop. To make it easier to cut around the outline, cut down to the other side of the roof of the first building, bend this flap of card out and cut it off.





3. Paint the background blue, the road dark grey and the buildings a lighter grey.

4. Once that's dry, add short downward strokes, or dots with the black pen for the windows - this takes a bit of time, but it's worth it! Then add any detail you want with paint and a fine brush. We added a sun, trees and little cars on the road (just a dab of paint for the cars. When dry, draw on wheels with the black pen), but it's really up to you. Instead of painting the sun, you could cut out a yellow circle, as we did for the desert island scene.


5. For the night cityscape - follow the same instructions, but paint the whole of the front part with the skyscrapers yellow, and the background black.

6. Once the paint's dry, use a black pen (and a ruler if you want) to colour in the high-rise buildings leaving little rectangles of yellow. (again, time-consuming, but worth it). Colour some windows in though, so it doesn't look like all the lights are on... 
On the road, for headlight beams, you could draw long triangles, then colour around them with the black pen. Cut a moon out of plain paper and if you have a metallic pen, dot on stars. If not, you could dot on yellow paint.

toilet paper tube craft

7. For the desert island, flatten the tube and draw a line across, about half way up. Draw your island above this. Cut down the creases to the pencil line and cut around the outline of your island. Draw and cut a small palm tree from the leftover card.



toilet paper roll craft

8. Paint the sky and sea blue and the island yellow. Paint the palm tree too. Once dry you could paint on the sun, but we cut ours out of yellow paper and drew an orange spiral on it with a felt tip pen. Add some painted white lines to your sea to make it look more wavy if you want. We also drew a shark's fin… and added birds. Glue or use sticky tape to attach the palm tree to the back of the island.

toilet paper tube craft

9. For a pretty meadow scene - paint your tube green. While it's drying, draw simple butterfly shapes and bugs on coloured paper and cut them out (or draw them on plain paper and colour-in or paint before cutting out). Add any detail with the black pen. 
For the daisies - cut a thin strip of plain paper and cut four similar length pieces from it (all about 2cm/3/4in. long). Cross them over each other to make a daisy shape, and use a glue stick to glue them together in the middle. For the centre, either use a hole punch to punch circles from a piece of yellow paper and glue in place - or paint the centres with yellow paint.

10. When the tube is dry, cut zig-zaggy grass - make the strands different heights and widths and keep them lower on one side, so you can see through to the back. This is great scissor cutting practice!
Use a glue stick to attach your flowers and insects.


Love to hear your tubescape ideas!

4.5.17

Princess Leia - Star Wars craft

Princess Leia - Star Wars craft

Princess Leia joins the crew to celebrate Star Wars day!  She's made like the other figures, but the most important thing to get right was her rather distinctive hair style. Think we cracked it...

You'll need:
Egg carton
Pencil
Ruler
Craft scissors
Nail scissors or similar (optional) Adult supervision required
Paint
Craft glue
Plain paper
Black felt-tip or gel pen
Silver metallic pen
For a lightsaber:
Coloured straw
Black marker pen (like a Sharpie)

1. As with the other figures, roughly cut out two middle cones from the egg box so they're easier to work with. On one, draw a pencil line around the bottom of the cone, just above the bumpy cardboard joins. Cut along the line. This will be the body.

2. The second cone is for the head, and you only need the very top part. Either estimate this, or use a pencil and ruler to mark about 1.5cm (1/2in.) from the top on all sides, join the marks and cut out. A handy way to do this is to cut up two adjacent corners to the pencil line, bend the card back and cut off the flap - it should be easier now to cut along the rest of the line.

(If your cone has a hole in the top, see the tip at the bottom.)

3. For the arms, fold a piece of the egg carton lid in half and draw an arm (roughly about 3cm/or 1in. long) on the fold. Make it a little wider at the unfolded end. Cut out and open up.



4. Either cut the arm strip in half after the painting step (Step 7), and glue the pieces either side of the body, or, with adult supervision, use the nail scissors to make a hole roughly in the middle of one of the arm sides (keep the scissors closed, press down and twist from side to side.)
Once you've made the hole, snip up to the top of the cone and down the other side until the slot looks level. Cut an extra sliver out to widen the gap for the arms. Make sure the slot goes far enough down the body, so when you push the arm strip in, it sits below the top part of the cone (the head will be glued here later). Don't glue any of the pieces together just yet.




5. For her side buns, cut out a strip of plain paper, about 5cm by 8cm (2in.x3in.) and roll it as tightly as you can.



6. Then cut across your roll. Cut a few and make them as thin as you can. Choose two you're happy with, and gently squeeze them back into a rounder shape, letting them unfurl a little. Dab glue on the sides of Princess Leia's head and stick them in place. This might be easier to do with the head sitting on the body. 






7. Painting time. Take the head off and paint the body and arms white.

TIP: As with Darth Vader, place the body on a spare egg carton cone to make painting easier (and less messy!)

Make a skin colour by mixing white with a little red, a touch of yellow and the tiniest dab of blue. Paint one side of the head. When that's touch dry paint on brown hair, painting the buns too. It helps if you draw the outline of the hair on the face first with a brown or black pen before painting. 

Again, put the head on a spare egg carton cone while you're decorating it. 


9. When the paint is dry, use the fine black pen to draw on a face and if you have a silver pen add a belt (see pic above). Glue the head on and if you have cut the arm strip in half, glue them either side.

If you'd like to make a lightsaber or another type of weapon for Princess Leia, have a look at the steps for Luke Skywalker





Tip: If your egg cones have holes in the top, brush glue inside the cones and push a small piece of newspaper up to fill the hole.