Clay Necklace - Teacher Gift

It's already day 7 of our Christmas Count Down, I'm so excited at how quickly Christmas is on it's way. Today we made a gift for each of Bubble's teachers, I wasn't sure how they would turn out but Bubble did such an amazing job that we ended up making five necklace pendants, a few extras for the Grandmas in the family :-)

WE USED:

* air drying clay
* jewellery findings
* beads/buttons etc...
* small circular cutter (we used a mini flower pot)
* water (small bowl)
* placemat, craft mat or chopping board
* spatula/flat knife or similar (we used a playdough spatula tool)
* wax paper
* clear varnish

Working on craft mats I rolled some clay out and Bubble cut round shapes using the top of a mini flower pot. After wetting my fingertips with water I then smoothed and rounded them and laid them on wax paper.

You could use any kind of finding attachment you like but we were using these ones pictured above (no idea what the proper term is, sorry!). I slid the findings into the pendants careful not to pierce either side, leaving the ring exposed so it can be hung on the necklace later.

We set up our workplace with mats for working the clay and wax paper sheets to lay them on while Bubble decorated them. We kept a small cup of water near the mats so we could keep our fingers and the clay wet.

Bubble's clay pendant creations - I love them! We will leave them to dry for at least 12 hours on each side before coating them a few times in clear varnish to finish them properly. They will then be hung on necklace strands using jewellery loops.
I will post an update when they are all finished and ready to go.

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

Christmas Cards for Teachers

Our Day 6 Count Down activity of making cards involved lots of fun stamping. The cards themselves only needed two stamps but the stampfest continued all afternoon and covered quite a few newspapers and exercise books!
Bubble goes to Pre School one day a week and really enjoys it thanks to her fantastic teachers. The Christmas cards we made today were all about saying thankyou as well as Merry Christmas, and tomorrow we will make a gift to go along with them. We went with the old teacher classic of apples, if you'd like more card inspiration check out these great links :

Oesch & Doots
My Delicious Ambiguity
The Organised Housewife
Be A Fun Mum

Will post more links as I come across them :-)

WE USED:

* cardboard (we recycled some muslie boxes)
* coloured paper
* scissors
* glue
* 1/2 an apple
* paint pad (dampened sponge in a shallow dish)
* paint
* felt
* photos

We cut the sides from a muslie box to create our cards rather than use bought card.

Bubble is very much into letters and writing at the moment, so I thought it would be nice for her to add her own words. Rather than write the whole word for her to copy I cut up each individual letter and put them out one at a time, so she could concentrate on each one separately.

She needed my help to steady her wrist with the 'nks' part, but she was so proud to write a whole word that wasn't her name! :-)

Doing some test stamps with our apple.

Two apple cards for Bubble's two teachers.

I cut a stem and leaf from felt and when the paint was dry we glued them on to complete our cute little apples.
I used Photoshop to resize and make copies of Bubble's writing for the front of the card (I just took a photo of her work and then edited the size so it would fit the card).


For the inside of the card I cut two pieces of coloured paper and glued them in (to cover the writing on the cardboard :-D), then added a few personal touches.
On the left is Bubble's handprint in white paint and a photo of her (for the purposes of the Blog it is blurred, so looks a little strange, sorry!) and on the right is a photo of one of Bubble's drawings of Santa and a message for her teachers.

Christmas Paper Chains

Day 5 of our Christmas Countdown involved making paper chains - I remember making these as a child for hours and hours seeing who could make the longest one! Bubble's attention span didn't quite stretch that far, but she really enjoyed this activity and the results are very prettily draped across our kitchen. :-)

WE USED:

* coloured paper
* scissors
* stamps
* sticky tape

In todays Count Down Calendar bag Bubble found this Christmas roller stamp. I cut the coloured paper into strips and she had a ball decorating each one with her new stamp.

The rolling action was a bit tricky to do just right but she had it figured out after her third strip, it was a great fine motor and co ordination exercise for her.

We cut small pieces of tape and lined them up along the edge of the table where Bubble could get them easily.

Then I helped her hold each loop while she taped them closed.

Our very festive roller stamp paper chain :-)

Letter To Santa Ornament

Our Count Down day 3 activity was to write a letter to Santa, which we did on Friday. I was really amused by what Bubble requested - I would never have guessed and I don't think Santa would have either so it's very lucky we were writing him a letter :-D Bubble drew pictures of the things she wanted and we put them inside a special clear ornament to hang on the tree. I'd like to do this every year so that each Christmas we can open them up and read them together. I love to think of my girls reading these lists when they are older or all grown up, and seeing how their requests changed as they grew.

WE USED:

* paper
* textas/markers
* clear container type baubles (from craft shop)
* Christmas stickers

Bubble's letter to Santa. She wants a yoyo, a teddybear and a rock :-D

Squeak is too little to ask for anything but she drew a beautiful crayon and pencil drawing to go inside our ornament as well x

Bubble chose a special sticker for the front so that Santa would know to look inside.

And we hung the Christmas wishes on our tree.

Christmas Playdough

For Day 4 of our Count Down we made some Christmas playdough today. Bubble helped me cook a big batch of white dough then we divided it into three balls. One we left white but added some silver glitter and scented it with vanilla oil (I was going to add shredded coconut for a sensory element but we were all out of it!), the second we coloured green and scented with peppermint and the third we coloured red. We then pushed some whole cloves into the red dough ball and left it covered for a few hours to get the wonderful scent through it before removing them.
The girls had a heap of fun playing with them today, although Squeak was not impressed with the smell of the green peppermint playdough at all :-D Luckily the glittery white dough was interesting enough to keep her involved for a little while!

Rudolph Noses - Pre School Gift Idea

I've been thinking for awhile now about what Bubble can give as a small gift with her Christmas cards at Pre School this week. After seeing how much my girls loved our 'Moon Balloons' activity I thought the children in her Pre School class might enjoy them as well, so I made these 'Make Your Own Rudolph Nose' kits. They are very simple to make and hopefully lots of fun for the receivers :-)
I'll be giving them to Bubble's teacher to hand out to parents rather than the kids though, just in case there are any glow stick mishaps!

Each kit contains : one helium quality red balloon, two glowsticks, one instruction card.

These are the instruction cards I made in case anyone would like to put together some kits themselves. Each card is the size of half a standard 6x4 photo.

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

Paper Plate Christmas Trees

WE USED:

* paper plates (2 sizes)
* scissors
* ruler
* cardboard tube
* paint
* bingo marker
* blutac (or you might prefer to use glue)
* sticky tape
* yellow paper
* cotton ball

Using a ruler to get your lines straight cut three segments from the paper plates, each a little smaller than the last. I cut the biggest and smallest pieces from a large plate and the middle from a small plate, but you could also use the same plate for all three.

This is how the pieces go together to form a Christmas Tree shape.

We made some green paint by mixing yellow and blue together (Bubble is right into colour changing at the moment).

Then the girls painted the segments of their trees.

I cut two trees so Squeak could make one too. I stuck the pieces to her highchair tray with blutac and let her go for it with a paintbrush (and her hands ;-D).

Once the paint was dry Bubble decorated her tree with some 'baubles' by dabbing on ink from a bingo marker. A cotton bud and paint would do the job too :-)

I showed her how to add snow around the edges using a cotton ball and white paint and she decorated all three segments.

We cut a yellow star from our coloured paper and used blutac to assemble our tree. You could also use glue if you wanted, we were just impatient!

Squeak's tree :-)

We made a trunk for our Christmas tree by splaying one end of the cardboard tube and taping it to an upturned paper plate for stability.

Our very cute paper plate Christmas tree :-) This is Squeak's side.

And Bubble's side.