Suncatchers

Hello, the beautiful sunny weather we have been having has created countless breakfast time arguments over who gets the chair in the corner of the kitchen. Both children dislike having the sun shine through the window and into their eyes at breakfast. So to remedy this we have been making suncatchers.

I have been collecting plastic bags and carrier bags for a while now to use as plarn as the idea always appealed to me.Recently I found the time to cut them into long strips and tried knitting with them- with not much success, the plastic bag knit turned out very tight and very hard work. I then tried weaving and ironing the strips, and was pleased with the result.

I laid the strips onto greaseproof paper and masking taped the edges down, and then wove other strips in. I masking taped all 4 edges of the weaving (otherwise the plastic curls up)and ironed with a cool iron for about 30 seconds, left it to cool and then stuck it to window.

The children liked the result, they weren’t at all worried about the words still visible. My daughter was fascinated that it created a new material. Altogether we made 6 suncatchers in this way, the children made 2 each and just enjoyed laying the strips on top of one another rather than weaving them in.

          

This one is the one I like best, made by my daughter. They do their job, and we have no more arguments about who sits with their back to the sun- now they argue over who gets to look at the suncatchers….

Craft this week was  the yoghurt pot fish I showed you a few weeks ago- it wasn’t very popular, I have a big bag of stuck together pots that I have bought home. I am considering making a garden sculpture out of them….

My son had a go though.

       The photo doesn’t do it justice!

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In memory of Gabriella (or what to do with Muller Corner pots)

Why am I more upset about the death of my daughter’s goldfish than she is? I think it is a feeling of failure on my part, I should be able to keep a goldfish alive longer than 4 days… Well anyway last week (even before Gabriella the short lived came into our lives) I finally found a happy solution to one of my rubbish crafting dilemmas.

Muller Corner pots look like they should be great for my kind of crafting, but suffer from two major flaws.

1) They are plastic so if you want to paint them you have to mix paint with PVA – fine if you are doing one or two models but too expensive to do if you have 20 plus children at a cash-strapped toddler group.

2) They are not as strong as you think they are. Puppets are the immediate thing people (usually)  think of to make out of these pots but after a few squishes the big triangle will break from the little one.

But I didn’t really discover these flaws until I had 24 or so yoghurt pots piled up in the kitchen. It took me a while and several failed ideas before I finally decided what I was going to do with the pots. Dinosaurs (the ones with spikes on their backs), boats and sails, mountains and cars were all dismissed as impractical, then after some cheeky comments from my sister the fish idea began to take shape.

Attempt 1, stuck on cardboard and painted with PVA and paint mix.

Attempt 2. Joined with masking tape covered with silver foli and sweet wrappers

Attempt 3 A mix of both previous attempts

Attempt 4 Sweet wrappers stuck onto cardboard, happy smile

And then, finally…………

Two half pots stuck together, decorated with sweet wrappers, tissue paper and happy smile

 

And it even uses up the supermarket shoe coat hangers I have had sitting in my kitchen for 2 years.

I am ridiculously pleased with these, you may have noticed that by the amount of detail I have put into this post.  I haven’t taken them to toddlers yet as I now have to stick 30 or 40 pairs of yogurt pots together as they take a while to stick properly. Look out for their appearance in a few weeks time.

Yes I do have a lot of free time.

Craft at toddlers this week was Sheep made out of cotton wool. One of the mums like them so much she said she might even do this with her class when she went back to work!!!!

Or maybe she was just being polite.

I have also had time to make chocolate cake this week. I had help cleaning the bowl and mixer.

See you soon.

Oh so many things.

Following on from the last post here is my son’s tortoise made at toddlers last week. The drinks and biscuits came out just after he had started sticking the tissue paper on so it only has half a shell.

It seems about the right time to use proper blog speak and post a WIP.  So guess what these are intended for…..

Would be nice to get your answers in the comments bit but I can’t find out how to turn that bit on, (and only a possible maximum of two people read this anyway).

And finally my must watch telly of the moment is ‘Mister Maker’ on Cbeebies as he seems to have used all my ideas and made them ten times better (in that they work and look like something you might want to have).

My two children were inspired to try and make hedgehogs out of spaghetti and air-drying clay. My daughter (age 5) made some lovely, flat bottomed, very spiky hedgehogs with fairly uniform prickles. My son (aged 3) focussed on making long prickled, round hedgehogs that could stand up on their spaghetti legs. And yes I do now have a box of  small bits of clay with spaghetti stuck in them- some are even now painted.

Half-term

Today has been lovely! My two children played nicely in the garden for an hour and half and I was able to catch up with ‘stuff’.

Here is a handbag that we will be making at Toddlers this week.

 I have covered 20 muller yoghurt pots with white paper and painted them orange. Paint doesn’t stick to the plastic very well.  Have also cut out sets of eyes and mouths and handles- much more work and cutting out then I usually do. The masking tape at the bottom is to cover up the plastic where the paint didn’t stick. Masking tape is great stuff to use for toddlers as they can tear it themselves so don’t need scissors.

For a while I have been trying to find something to do with these yoghurt pots .

I have tried making boats (with straws and blutac), Christmas tree baubles (ok but a bit ungainly) and finally… tortoises. Yes I’m sure that was your first thought as soon as you saw the pot.

 This was the first attempt- but paint doesn’t stick to plastic.

And here is the second attempt, same tortoise, different shell. Tissue paper is great.

Will post  my son’s Halloween pumpkn handbag on Thursday.

Everything in one place

Well here we are again, camera, lead, computer and time!

Here are some photos

These are the snakes made by stamping a selection of bottle tops onto paper. Messy, fun and allowing a lot of creativity!

Last week’s craft was a shaker, a toilet/kitchen roll  inner filled with pasta and covered in paper. A bit too complicated. Originally these were going to be lighthouses with yogurt pots on for the light until I realised under 5s wouldn’t really know what a lighthouse was. So the idea evolved to a noisy toy.

This is my son’s shaker, looks a bit like a firework.

And then this week’s craft:

 Which is just Muller Corner yoghurt pots with eyes and hair stuck on to make puppets. Easy with a lot of scope for personalisation.

Well managed it, all updated- Ok until next week.