Cardboard Tube Car

Recently we came across some things called 'cable clips' at our local dollar shop and I knew exactly what I was going to use them for - making cars out of toilet rolls of course! This was really easy to do and the girls enjoyed playing with the finished product, if you cant find cable clips you could also use plastic wire or split head pins to hold your wheels on.

WE USED:

* cable clips (from the Dollar Shop)
* toilet roll tube
* scissors
* paint
* marker/texta
* 4 x soft plastic bottle lids
* sharp pointed craft knife/safety pin/thick needle/nail

First cut a flap in the side of your toilet roll. This will be where your dolls will sit so make it to size. Leave one end uncut and fold the cut section up so you have a little windshield.

Using your craft knife or needle pierce a hole in the centre of your bottle lids.

These are the 'cable clips' we used to attach our wheels to our cardboard tube car, you could also use pipe cleaners threaded through and folded over, plastic coated wire (the type used for gardening) or split head pins.

Our finished product - so cute!

Princess doll going for a ride in her new wheels.

Squeak got to play with this first while Bubble was at Kindy and enjoyed herself immensely. She was too little to be left unsupervised though in case she worked out how to remove the cable clips!

I love where the knight ended up...

Hehe :-D Luckily our car has a roomy boot.

Collecting Rain

The sunny days have been interspersed with rainy windy days here lately so the girls have been cooped up indoors more than usual. They both enjoy going out in their jackets and gumboots to stomp in puddles (who doesn't?!) but other than that the rain is cramping their style a little.
The other day we made a 'rain collector' which kept them happy for awhile, they stood out on the balcony collecting and drinking the rain the could catch as it fell from the sky.

WE USED:

* plastic bowl
* broom handle
(you could also use a stick or plank of wood)
* strong tape
* a rainy day!

Picture Tape

It's birthday season in our house, they are happening all over the place this month and next! Bubble spent an afternoon recently making some 'picture tape' to add her own personal touch to presents and cards. You could also use this technique to create your own stickers!

WE USED:

* tape
(it has to be the opaque matte type tape, not the transparent shiny kind)
* baking or wax paper
* markers/crayons/pencils

Lay a sheet of baking or wax paper on the work surface (wax side up if using wax paper). Cut your strips of tape as long as you want them and stick them to the paper.

Get decorating!

You now have a sheet of removable tape/stickers to use next time you are wrapping a gift. We have always used our sheets within a few days so I'm not sure how well they would store or how long for.

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Magnetic Tree

Quite awhile ago we made these magnetic felt shapes to display and play with on our fridge. They have been getting a bit old and boring so today we created something a bit different to make the fridge front interesting again.
We re purposed our painted leaves from the sorting activity we made recently and some sticks collected on a walk through our local park to make something simple but fun.

WE USED:

* magnets
(for the leaves we used advertisement magnets collected from junk mail and cut into strips, and for the sticks we bought a pack of 6 stronger magnets from our local dollar shop).
* craft glue
* sticks
* leaves
* paint

Using glue we attached magnets to the reverse side of our painted leaves. Try to choose leaves that are either flat or curl forward, ones that curve back wont stick very well unless you are using strong magnets.

We attached our larger magnets to our sticks using plenty of glue (a hot glue gun would work best).

Bubble loved creating trees on the fridge with her new 'toy'. The combinations are endless, you could use all sorts of sticks in different shapes and sizes and a variety of leaves as well.
Maybe you could create a magnetic version of the leaf matching tree we made last year.

As an added bonus it also looks good and brightens up the kitchen.

“Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up”

Origami Dinosaurs

We didn't make these awesome dinosaurs, they were a beautiful gift to our girls from my brother and sister-in-law on a recent interstate visit to see us. I not only love the fact that they made them something with their own hands but the thought behind it as well (Squeak especially is a big little dinosaur fan!). They look wonderful strung across the girl's bedroom wall and when unhooked they even stand up by themselves - perfect for some imaginary play.

Origami Dinosaur - Instructions.com

Bottle Lid Stamps

It has rained almost constantly this weekend and apart from the odd venture outside to jump in puddles and buy hot chocolates we have holed up inside watching too much TV and passing the time with every game and craft activity we can think of.
Today all the girls wanted to do was paint so I made some quick and (very) easy stampers to give them more to work with. They worked great with our paints but even better with the stamp pads.

WE USED:

* bottle tops (we used milk bottle lids)
* strong glue
* foam shapes (or you could use felt shapes)
* paint/ink pads

The process was as easy as gluing the foam shapes to the tops of the milk lids and allowing a few hours for them to dry.
I think felt shapes may work even better with this activity, we will have to try them next time!

They worked wonderfully with the ink pads. The rim of the lids allowed Bubble and Squeak to hold them easily.

They also worked well with paint if we were careful not to use too much.

Simple Cardboard Crown

Apologies for the lack of posts this last week or so, we all came down with yet another yucky flu and have been under the weather. We managed to fit in a bit of craft today and made a crown, something Bubble has been asking to do since our day of making paper flying things recently. The end result looks lopsided and a little more like a tiara, but she was still very excited about it :-D

WE USED:

* thin card (from a cereal box)
* sticky tape
* texta/marker
* hole punch
* elastic
* glue
(strong craft glue if using heavy decorations)
* decorations for your crown/tiara
(we used glitter and buttons)

Cut your crown shape from cardboard either freehand or using a template printed from the net such as these:
First Palette

Place a few squares of tape on either side of your card where you intend to punch the holes for the elastic to hold the crown on. This is to reinforce the cardboard so it is less likely to tear while being played with.

Let your little princess or prince loose with the glue and decorations and see what they create.

Doll Sized Pom Pom Ice Creams

Bubble and Squeak's new favourite game is playing 'shops'; we've had grocery shops, toy shops and even a sock shop (still finding odd socks everywhere after that one!) but the most frequent theme seems to be the Ice Cream Shop.
We have made ice creams out of all sorts of things - newspaper, felt, tissue paper, cardboard. Today we gave the game a bit of a twist and made some doll sized cones using foam sheets left over from our Valentines Day Lollipops.
The girls spent ages 'taking orders' and making different flavoured ice creams for their little doll friends, it was not only fun but a great fine motor and colour learning activity (not to mention a chance for me to finally get dinner started! :-D).

WE USED:

* coloured pompoms
* spoons
* empty ice cream bowls
(saved from our visits to the local gelati store, but you could use any kind of bowl or cup)
* foam sheets
* scissors
* strong craft glue
* tape
* pegs

We used medium sized pompoms for our play today as they were all we had left in the craft cupboard, but larger sized ones look fantastic as ice cream (check out the play links at the bottom of this post for examples).
Our local gelati store sells their ice cream in cute little plastic cups, we save them and the girls use them for all sorts of play but any small bowls are perfect for a pretend ice cream shop.

We had to have a sign :-)

Yum, this little combination was called Blueberries & Banana I believe!

To make the mini cones I cut circles from the foam sheet and then cut these circles in half. The bigger the circle the bigger the cone size (I used a standard drinking glass to trace around for ours).

Fold the semicircle in half and then join the two straight sides together, slightly overlapping to create a cone shape. Use strong craft glue to fix in place and use a peg to hold it all together while it dries.
I actually used tape and then a peg so that I didn't accidentally glue the peg to the foam (yeah, I have a knack for that kind of thing ;-D).

Mini cones perfect for making doll sized ice creams :-)

A few of the yummy ice cream creations.

MORE POMPOM ICE CREAM FUN:

Musings From Kim K
- very cute pompom sundaes.
Counting Coconuts
- fantastic ice cream themed sensory tub.
Making Friends.com
- doll sized sundae cups, love the little sprinkles!

Paper Flying Things

Bubble got up yesterday and informed me it was 'an aeroplane day today'. The weather has been lovely and warm so we packed up some paper and headed outside for some flying fun.

WE USED:

* paper
* markers/textas
* scissors
* sticky tape

We were using recycled forms for our planes so first we decorated our paper using textas to pretty them up a little.

This helicopter was made using the fabulous instructions linked below and flew so well:

10PaperAirPlanes.com - The Spinster

Bubble stood on the outdoor table and dropped it so it spun like a helicopter down to the ground.

The paper 'Vortex' was made using these instructions:

10PaperAirPlanes - The Ring

It worked OK but was hard for the girls to throw, it was more of a glider if that makes sense. Still lots of fun and with many uses as you can see...

Bubble decided she liked it better as a crown.

And then as a bracelet :-)

This plane was made using these instructions:

10PaperAirPlanes.com - The Arrow

One very fun way to spend an afternoon.