Sometimes the best crafts are the most simple ones! My little guy has had so much fun making and playing with this cute little cardboard slithering snake craft. Since lock down started back in March we’ve been ordering so much more stuff to the house rather than going out to buy it. We’ve ended up with this massive tower of cardboard boxes that we’ve slowly been trying and failing to stuff in the recycling bins. Hence why todays craft is made from old boxes! My son actually came up with the idea to make snakes after seeing some grass snakes near our house and we just love how they’ve turned out!
You will need
An old box
Scissors
Paint or markers
Split pins
How to make a slithering snake
First take your cardboard box and cut out some similarly sized ovals to make the snakes body. We made 5 ovals per snake but you can make your snake as long as you like!
Now its time to decorate your snake! Why not add some fun zig zags or paint and print some bubble wrap to look like scales?!
Once dry its time to piece your snake together! Start with the head piece and then pin each consecutive one underneath the previous one using your split pins.
Finish off your awesome cardboard slithering snake craft by giving him two eyes and a pipe cleaner tongue, so much fun!
With all the beautiful weather that we’ve been having lately weve been trying to get outdoors as much as we possibly can. The other day we took a short drive out to a local lake and went for a walk around it. It was such a lovely day and the views were just amazing. On the way back around my little guy came across these really cool pinecones and it inspired us to come up with another pinecone craft. Ted came up with the idea to make this little DIY pinecone fairy craft and even decided how we would make the arms and head too. We think they look fab and plan to glue on a string loop so that we can display them in our kitchen!
Here’s what we used
Pinecone Coloured paints Pom Pom Pipecleaners Glue gun (pva glue can be used but is a lot more fiddly) Scissors
Take your pinecone and paint the end of your pines in your chosen colour before putting it aside to dry.
Once your pine cone has dried, take your pom pom and glue it in the center of the flat base of your pine cone. Then cut two equal lengths of pipe cleaner and glue one either side of the pom pom to make the arms. Curl the end of the pipe cleaners slightly to make the hands.
To make the wings take a pipe cleaner and bring both ends in to meet in the center. Twist the ends around the center of the pipe cleaner to create the shape of a number 8. Then glue your wings on and pinch them into a wing shape. Why not add a loop of ribbon so that you can hang your fairies up? They look adorable!
How adorable is this little easy paper owl craft? My son is really interested in owls right now, both because there are quite a few around where we live and because we recently started reading a bit of the first Harry Potter book. He thinks Hedwig is the best companion ever and is most disappointed that he isn’t old enough to go to Hogwarts! So, instead we made some little pretend owl companions of our own to keep at home. Can you guess which is his?
You will need
Thick paper or card (we used; brown, white, black, orange and yellow)
Scissors
Glue
First you will need to cut out two strips of paper to make the owl’s head and body. You’ll need one strip to be 1-2cm wider than the other so that when rolled the head is smaller than the body.
Roll your two strips into tubes and secure them with your glue.
Now to make your owls face! Cut out two round circles for the iris, two slightly smaller black circles for the pupils and two small white circles for the light spots. Glue the three pieces together to make the eyes as you can see above. Take your yellow paper and fold it in half. Using the fold line as the base cut out a triangle to give you a folded beak shape.
Glue both eyes down on to your smallest tube. Then glue one half of the beak down too, leaving one half free.
Now take your yellow paper and cut out two little feet. From your owl coloured paper you will need to cut out two wing shapes. Make a small fold at the base of your wings to create a tab you can stick them on to your owl with.
Glue the feet down at the bottom of your bigger paper roll. Then, using the tabs you created, stick the wings down on the upper inside of the tube.
Glue your two tubes together and mount on to a piece of coloured card/paper at the feet. Your basic paper owl is finished! Doesn’t he look cute? Want to add two horned ears like you can see on our brown owl? Check out the photo below.
If you want to add some horned ear pieces to your owl simply cut out two long ear shapes. Then, just like you did with the wings fold a small section at the base to create a tab. Use these tabs to secure the ears on the upper inside of your smaller tubes and then fold the ears upwards.
Like so many others right now we are spending almost all of our time at home or in the garden. Crafting has always been a part of our day but now i’m busy trying to come up with even more to keep our 4yo entertained alongside learning his letters and numbers. Like many others he misses his friends at school so it’s been important for us to make sure that he has fun things to do each day. These Autumn spiky paper hedgehogs are not just one of my favourite crafts of today but one of my favourite ever. i think they’re adorable and they definitely provided an hour of fun after we ended up making a whole family of them!
You will need:
Light and dark brown paper or card
White paper
Colored paper
Black marker
Scissors
Glue
First take your brown card and cut out the elongated tear shape of your hedgehog’s body as you can see above.
Cut out a round or heart shaped nose from your coloured paper. Then cut out a white oval and draw on the outer eye and pupil using your black marker. Glue the eye and nose down onto your hedgehog.
Cut out some strips of your dark brown card and fold them in half to make squares.
Glue your squares down in row on your hedgehog to make his spikes. Put aside to dry and your super cute hedgehog is finished!
When my little guy is painting he loves to mix the colours and see what he can create. So when he asked to do some painting the other day I thought I would come up with a fun colour mixing activity. Looking out the window at all the beautiful golden and burgundy leaves kicked my inspiration in to gear and between us we came up with the little Colour mixing finger-paint tree activity. Its a fun and simple craft for young children and we had loads of messy fun making it!
You will need
Paper Autumn coloured paints (we used; Red, yellow, pink, orange, brown and beige) A pen
To start your tree. Take a light coloured pen (we used yellow to blend with the tree) and draw a large circle to make the head of your tree. Take your Leaf colour paints and make several thick fingerprints within your circle.
This is the fun part! Take your index finger and mix your paints all together, stretching the colour out to the edge of your circle. When you’re happy with your tree, take your pen and draw the trunk of your tree.
As before, use your index finger to dot your darker colours inside your tree trunk.
and smush it all together!
My son then added some red spots to his tree. He couldn’t decided whether they were apples or blossom but either way I think its looks fab and really finishes off his picture!
Did you enjoy this Colour mixing finger-paint tree craft? Why not check out my super cute leafy hedgehog?
