Things to Make and Do, Crafts and Activities for Kids

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June 2011

4th of July Paper Lanterns

Visit The Crafting Chicks for directions to make
these festive 4th of July paper lanterns!
via Craft Gossip

06/30/2011 at 12:06 AM in 12+ years old, 3 - 5 years old, 6 - 12 years old, Crafts, Family, Fourth of July Crafts, Free & Fun Crafts, Group, Paper Crafts, Party Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0)

4th of July Windsock

The Mother Huddle shares a simple way to
make a patriotic windsock from crepe paper!

06/30/2011 at 12:04 AM in 12+ years old, 3 - 5 years old, 6 - 12 years old, Building/3 Dimensional, Crafts, Family, Fourth of July Crafts, Group, Mobiles, Garland, Bunting & Wreaths, Outside, Paper Crafts, Party Ideas | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fourth of July Crafts!

All of these great 4th of July crafts, treats,
printables and so much more in the archives!

06/30/2011 at 12:02 AM in Fourth of July Crafts | Permalink | Comments (0)

Summer Crafts For Kids

tin can lanterns
:: Mama Scout ::

chalk paint
:: Let The Children Play ::

rock necklaces
:: Little Birdie Secrets ::

friendship bracelets
:: Honestly WTF ::

bubble wands
:: Kleas ::

bow and arrows
:: Imagine Childhood ::

no-sew ribbon twirlers
:: Curly Birds ::

plastic lacing boondoggle
:: Roots And Wings Co. ::

fairy windchimes
:: Beneath The Rowan Tree ::

06/29/2011 at 12:10 AM in 12+ years old, 18 mos to 2 years old, 3 - 5 years old, 6 - 12 years old, Activities, All Ages, Art, Building/3 Dimensional, Candles & Lanterns, Crafts, Doughs, Paints, Mixes, and Concoctions, Family, Free & Fun Crafts, Gifts to Make, Group, Homeschooling, Mobiles, Garland, Bunting & Wreaths, Outside, Pretend Play, Recycled Crafts, Summer Crafts, Themes, Wearables, Yarn Crafts | Permalink | Comments (4)

500 Stickers Giveaway from MOO!

MOO is sponsoring a giveaway today to celebrate the
release of two new sticker styles! Five winners will
receive a set of 100 stickers - 50 round ones and 50
rectangular ones - and you get to design them yourself!

I'm sure most of you have heard of MOO before but
if you haven't they are the creative printers of choice.
They've got stickers, sticker books, business cards,
MiniCards, postcards, greeting cards and more!

I purchased some MiniCards several years ago and
was thrilled with the quality of the printing and the
quality of the stock that it was printed on. What I like
best about MOO is that you don't have to have all the
cards, stickers, etc. printed exactly the same - you
can have a different photo on each one if you like. This
is a very nice and unique printing option and gives
you the most for your money. Now,
you can hear from MOO!

MOO’s unique printing technology ‘printfinity’ allows you
to place a different image or design on every sticker!
There’s a range of options to create custom Sticky
Products including uploading company logos, photos,
and custom designs, to selecting from the wide
variety of MOO's design templates.

So what can you use the stickers for?

Photo stickers
Product labels
Sticky name tags
Sticky business cards
Fun decorations and promotional logos
Address labels (and return to sender!)

More About MOO:

MOO was born from a love of beautiful, high-quality print
and design. They make printing beautiful and unique
stickers, business cards, PostCards and MiniCards easy!

You can upload your own images or artwork to create
truly unique products. If you don’t have any designs of
your own you can choose from a range of templates and
designs for your cards and personalise them
with your own details.

How to Enter:

For a chance to win one of the 5 sets of 100 stickers
(50 of each new shape!) – all you have to do is post
a comment below and tell us why you need the
stickers! We are looking for fun and creative
answers to what you plan to do with them :)

Winners will be chosen by MOO from
the comments below!

This giveaway will run for two weeks and is available
worldwide! If you are reading this on Twitter or Facebook
you'll need to visit this post on The Crafty Crow to
comment and enter. Comments will close at midnight
on July 9th and the five winners will be announced on
July 11th. Now, get creative and tell us what you'll
do with your MOO stickers!
Good luck everyone!

06/28/2011 at 03:50 AM in Giveaway Monday! | Permalink | Comments (164)

Alphabet Glue Giveaway Winners!

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway for a
free copy of the current issue of Alphabet Glue! I really
loved reading all of your favorite books and it's a great
resource if you are looking for some reading
ideas for the summer.

The five winners who receive a free copy of the
latest issue of Alphabet Glue are:

Alice S
"Its hard to choose one favorite childhood book.
"Anne of Green Gables" is probably number one for me."

Virginia
"This would be a great way to incorporate more physical
discovery into our reading. Thanks for the chance and
all of your great ideas."

Annette
"Fun! My first grader is big into the spiderwick chronicles.
My daughter (4) likes anything with "cute animals" in it.
Also a long time favorite is Alice the fairy and any
piggie and Gerald books."

Mary
"We love books in our house. My son reads his book
every night. Right now he is reading
the "treehouse books".

Ashley
"That magazine looks like a great, fun source. My
daughter and I have recently read through the Ramona
series and are now starting Beverly Cleary's
Henry Huggins series."

Even if you didn't win still check out Alphabet Glue -
it's a great ad-free resource for only $4 and the
current issue has a detective theme!

06/27/2011 at 12:02 AM in Giveaway Monday! | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Book & A Craft: "The Saggy Baggy Elephant" and an Accordion Book with Five Artsy Elephants

Please welcome today's Book & Craft contributor,
Rashmie, who blogs at Mommy Labs! She is sharing
The Saggy Baggy Elephant and an accordion book
that uses five different art techniques!

We're so delighted and honoured to contribute to "A Book
and a Craft" initiative. We love books and we love crafts,
so when I saw this initiative, I knew my daughter would
be thrilled to be a part of such a project.

I left it to my 5.5 year old daughter - Pari - to decide the
book that she would base her craft on. And, I wasn't at
all surprised that she chose "The Saggy Baggy
Elephant" - a heartwarming story of a baby elephant -
by Kathryn and Byron Jackson. The illustrations by Gustaf
Tenggren are particularly endearing. Though, one may
think this book is a little wordy for a preschooler; for Pari
it really works because she's now at that stage where she
reads voraciously and in fact likes it if the book offers lots
to read besides having exclusive illustrations. We all love
Elephants and have had many a trysts with this gentle
giant of a creature. During some of our trips around
South India, we have watched the Elephants in the
wild, bathed them, fed them and played for hours. So,
our love for Elephants is innate and deep-rooted. The
Saggy Baggy Elephant narrates the story of a baby
Elephant named Sooky who goes around the forest
dancing and playing without a care in the world. He is not
aware of his looks; does not even know he is an elephant.
Until, he is mocked at by a tactless parrot for the oddities
in his looks - his way too big ears, a rather long nose,
and a skin that's all "bags and sags and
creases and wrinkles.

The Parrot declares that Sooky should be called a 'Saggy
Baggy Elephant'. Along the way, he is made fun of and
even threatened by many other animals too, which
makes Sooky feel lonely and demoralized and hurts his
self-esteem. So much so that he hides in a dark cave shedding copious amount of tears. This is when he meets
a herd of giant and beautiful elephants and discovers his
own identity. And, Sooky regains his confidence, spirits
and zest and even teaches his "one-two-three-kick"

dance to this herd.

In my opinion, this story conveys a
meaningful message to kids (as well as to adults) in
that we are all different and hence unique in our own
ways and we should be proud of who we are. We are born
with different looks, skin colour and talent and that's
what makes this world a diverse and interesting place.
For me, as a parent, the takeaway was to respect my
child as an individual and not compare her with any other
kid. The message apart, the story and the illustrations
are bound to delight a child's heart.

Our craft, too, is based on the main character
and the message and celebrates the spirit
of "being different and unique".

Pari thoroughly enjoyed making this craft because the
result is another book - an accordion book - with a story
woven into it with the help of six different
art techniques!

And, here is a step-by-step tutorial with pictures.
I'll try to keep this as succinct as possible.

We discussed the concept and approach before we set out
to make this. The concept was to make five elephants
using different art techniques:

*Eric Carle style colouring on tissues
*Mosaic elephant using styrofoam cuttings
*Crayon rubbings with rays effect
*Printing an elephant with leaves
*Using the rolling tube with yarn technique

Her idea was to write a short story describing each
elephant and his talent. But, the talent of the elephant
would be decided and narrated only after all five
elephant artworks were ready.

Step 1:
I cut out a long strip of paper from a sheet of Ivory
paper. The length was long enough to make four folds.
The size of each fold will depend upon the size of the
artwork you want to make on it. I made the elephant
sketch for each artwork.

Step 2:
The first elephant was made by cutting small pieces
from the Styrofoam plate, colouring them and pasting
them in the elephant body. Before that, she did the
outline with 3D glitter glue.

Step 3:
For the second elephant, she cut out the sketch that I
drew on a paper; coloured the outline of the cutout
with soft pastels and after placing the cutout on one
of the folds of the accordion paper she rubbed the
colour in a outward direction onto the paper
underneath. This resulted in beautiful rays-like
effect emerging from the elephant's outline. Then,
she went on to decorate the inside with sketch pens.

Step 4:
For the third elephant, we used the Eric Carle method
of artwork. I had her paint a tissue paper with many
layers of diluted tempera paint. We made sure that she
did not move the brush too vigorously or the tissue
would tear apart. It was also important that the
next layer of colour was painted before the previous
layer had dried. Finally, once the painted tissue was
completely dry and stiff, I sketched an Elephant figure
with a black marker pen and cut it out. Pari pasted the
cut-out onto the first fold of the accordion book.

Step 5:
She made the fourth elephant by applying paint on the
back of the leaves and stamping them. We used three
different leaves to make the elephant's head, body
and trunk and painted the legs separately.

    Step 6:
Finally, she moved onto design the accordion book
cover. For this, I first cut out an elephant from a
Styrofoam plate and stuck it down in the centre of
the book cover using glue sticker. The idea was to
make an elephant surrounded by tall grass all
around. To make the grass, we glued yarn around a
hollow cardboard tube. Then, painted the strings
with green tempera paint. While it was wet enough,
Pari rolled the tube all over the paper, including on
the Styrofoam elephant. When we removed the
Styrofoam cutout, we had a white space in the
shape of an elephant surrounded by green grass.

    Step 7:
Besides all those arty and fun techniques, we used a
spin-art technique to make the rainbow coloured flowers.
On a dart (part of Pari's toy bow and arrow), Pari
placed some drops of thick colours. She then pressed
the dart down and gave it a slight spin to reveal
beautiful impressions with branched effect.

    Step 8:
Once the artwork was over, Pari sat down to decide
names for her elephants who were all so unique and
so different from each other, despite the fact that they
were all the same creature. The Eric Carle style tissue
elephant gave her an impression of night sky. So,
she named it "Singing Elephant under the
moon-lit sky". Among the rest of the elephants,
one was a dancer, another was a designer and
the fourth was a nature lover! She named her book
with a fitting title - "It's Fun to Be Different"!

Rashmie is from New Delhi, India. She is passionate
about creating a holistic learning environment for her
daughter by means of art, nature, free play, books, music
and traveling. She writes about her artful parenting
journey at Mommy Labs. A former advertising and
marketing professional, Rashmie, now, is a published
photographer and a writer. She writes about health,
travel, eco-friendly living, pursuing dreams and purpose
in life etc on her second blog - Gorgeous Karma.
You can follow Mommy Labs here on facebook.

Thank you, Rashmie! To see the rest of the books and
crafts in this series click the button below!

06/24/2011 at 12:06 AM in 12+ years old, 3 - 5 years old, 6 - 12 years old, A Book & A Craft Series, Animals & Bugs, Bookmaking, Crafts, Family, Free & Fun Crafts, Group, Literature Based Projects, Paint, Paper Crafts, Printmaking, Tutorials | Permalink | Comments (3)

Photo Journaling for Kids E-Course Giveaway Winner!

The winner of the Through the Lens: Explorations
in Photo Journaling giveaway is Elaine!

She said, "Oh I hope I win this course for my
creative 8 year old daughter!!! She's a middle child
and I would love to use this douse as a way to
bond with her!!! I'm sure I would learn just
as much as she will,"
Congratulations, Elaine!

This class is such a great way to kick-off summer and
spend some creative time with your kids. You can get
more information and register for the class here. Thank
you to Mariah at Playful Learning for the giveaway and
thank you to everyone who participated!

06/23/2011 at 06:00 PM in Giveaway Monday! | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Book & A Craft: "The Paper Bag Princess" and a Paper Bag Dress

My guest today is Miri of Here We Are Together sharing
one of their favorite books, The Paper Bag Princess, and
how to make your own paper bag dress! It's fun, easy,
and you probably already have everything
you need to make it!

Hi everyone!

I'm Miri of HereWeAreTogether. I am a homeschooling
Mama to three little ones and live on the south coast of
England. We love reading together and today I want to
share one of our favourite stories with you:

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munch

(Our book is the German version of the story.)

Here We Are Together paper bag princess dress 1

The book is about a beautiful princess who lives in a
wonderful castle with lots of pretty dresses, until one
fateful day a fierce dragon simply scorches all her clothes
and takes her prince away. Not wanting to wait for
someone to help her she gets dressed in the one thing
the dragon did not burn: A paper bag. She sets off to
rescue her prince and defeat the dragon in a smart
and non-violent way and in the end she comes to
realise that you can't judge people by
the clothes they wear.

Here We Are Together paper bag princess dress 2

Our craft is quick and easy, a decorated paper bag dress.

Here We Are Together paper bag princess dress 3

You will need:

a large paper gardening bag (those you use to collect leaves)

a pen

scissors

crayons

glue

buttons

ribbons

Everything else you might need to decorate your dress.

Here We Are Together paper bag princess dress 4

First let your prince or princess lay down on the bag,
their head on the part of the bag that is closed.

Mark the arms and the head so you can cut the holes
into the right place.We also cut a fancy edge around
the other side of the bag.

Here We Are Together paper bag princess dress 5

Now it's already time to decorate your dress,

we first coloured in the whole bag with crayons,

Here We Are Together paper bag princess dress 6

then added a few buttons and ribbons, too.

Now all you need to do is put on your dress, maybe
make a matching crown to go with it, and find
some fierce dragons to play with!

Here We Are Together paper bag princess dress

I hope you enjoy this fun little craft.

Some other books that we like are:

The Trip to Panama by Janosch

The Barefoot Book Of Princesses

Matilda by Roald Dahl

Thank you so much, Cassi, for sharing this space
here with us today! Wishing you all a wonderful day!
Miri of Here We Are Together

Thank you, Miri! To see the rest of the books and
crafts in this series click the button below!