Craft With Little People

posted in: Craft, Life | 0

By Juliet Rogers, Natalie Hogan and Meredith Gordon

 

Welcome to RDMs first instalment of craft ideas for you to make for or with your little ones. The Crafty Team have put together some ideas which are easy for anyone to create (after all we’re not all Kirsty Allsopp!!) using materials which are easy to find and provide fun, educational and skills based activities for you and your child.

Some of these require some parental involvement and/or supervision whilst others may just give you the 5-10 minutes you need to chuck another load of washing in the machine, put away the shopping or grab yourself a well-deserved cuppa without always resorting to the much loved telly nanny!

We have tried to stick to readily available craft materials; either likely to already be in your cupboards or available at numerous larger stores and supermarkets locally as well as craft stores and dollar shops.

 

Threading

by Juliet Rogers

Materials

  • Variety of coloured card or paper
  • Shoe laces
  • Scissors
  • Hole punch

Instructions

Cut out a range of shapes from the card or paper – I used simple and more complex shapes. I also cut out each shape in each of the different coloured card I had. Punch a hole in each shape.

How to use/play

Your child can try threading the shapes in whatever pattern or order they like or you could get them to follow a pattern you create, match colours or match shapes.

Variations

If you don’t have shoe laces you could always use string or even pipe cleaners instead. Alternatives to card or paper include beads and buttons.

craft1 craft 7
craft3 craft 6

 

 

Paddle Pop Shapes and Colours Match

by Natalie Hogancraft 8

Materials

  • Marker (I used a Sharpie)
  • Paddle pop sticks (I used large pre coloured ones that I had previously bought)

Instructions

Draw shapes over two of the paddle pop sticks so they each form one half of the shape.

How to use/play

Simple: one different colours with three different shapes (e.g. orange circle, orange square, orange triangle).
Harder
: three different colours with six different shapes (e.g. yellow circle, yellow heart, blue square, blue diamond, red triangle, red star).craft9

Hardest: 2 x six different colours with six different shapes (e.g. yellow circle, yellow heart, blue square, blue diamond, red triangle, red star, orange circle, orange heart, purple square, purple diamond, green triangle, green star).

Variations

If you don’t have the pre coloured paddle pop sticks try using the natural coloured ones in large or regular size and use coloured markers instead. You also don’t have to draw your shape in two halves, you could just draw a shape on the ends of two shapes and have it as a matching game, instead of a puzzle game.

 

Bubble Dough

by Meredith Gordon

Materials

  • Cornflour (1 cup)
  • Dishwashing liquid (I used Palmolive Vanilla and Berries because it smells lovely) (1/2 cup)
  • Olive oil or cooking oil (2 tsp)
  • Measuring cups (1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1 teaspoon)

Instructions

Add all ingredients into the bowl (you can use the spoon to start mixing) then get your hands (or help from little ones) into the mix and start kneading. KNEAD WELL! If it’s too wet, add more cornflour, too dry add more liquid (both dishwashing liquid and oil).

The above ingredients will give you enough for one portion (trust me you’ll only want to make this in smaller batches).

How to use/play

This dough is a great alternative to play dough as it is soft, pillowy and smells divine. Best to give to children who are over mouthing things, so about 2 years and up.

Variations

Try using body wash, shampoo or hand soap. Add glitter, sequins or a few drops of food colouring

craft 11 craft 12
craft 13 craft 14

 

 

Pom Pom Cupcakes

by Juliet Rogerscraft 17

Materials

  • Cupcake cases (I used silicone ones)
  • Variety of pom poms (colours and sizes if you have them)

How to use/play

Ask your child to put the pom poms in to the cupcake cases by size, colour or in a certain order. I had the right number of pom poms to match up with the colour of the cases so there could be 1, 2 and 3 pom poms for each colour.ctaft 18

Variations

If you don’t have silicone cases then you could easily use paper cases (although they will probably flatten over time). Colourful ones are great or your child could decorate plain ones?

With the paper cases you could add coloured dots with pen to represent the pom poms your child needs to match to create each cupcake.

 

Finally, some of these crafty ideas would make ideal busy bags for you to take out and about with you – perfect for the doctor’s waiting room or whilst at a café. Just grab yourself some zip lock bags, or similar, and you’re all set!

Hopefully you agree these ideas are easy to prepare, fun to do and don’t break the bank! If you have any ideas yourself and would like to contribute to the next crafty instalment please get in touch!

Happy crafting!

Jules, Nat and Mez

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