Sight words game

The other day we made a sight word game the idea I got online :) 

On each stick I wrote a sight word. On 1 stick was a red dot and sight word. The aim of the game is to pick up the sticks at random, read the word, if you can read it you keep the stick if not it goes back. 

You keep playing like this until someone takes out the word with the red dot. The game then stops and the person with the most sticks wins. 

Make your own bracelet

Today your 30 minute craft is making a bracelet.  This activity takes 30 minutes to complete but will need some planning prior to the activity. 

All you need is lollipop sticks, small cups and papers to decorate afterwards.  

To start with the lollipop sticks require to be soaked over night prior to you creating the bracelet. After the have soaked they can then be easily manipulated into shape.  I placed ours in Little Boos tea cup set cups. 

I then left these over night to set into the correct shape.  When dry all was left was for us to decorate them.  We used washi tape to decorate ours however you could use interesting upcycled papers or stickers. I hope that you enjoy this idea. 

Parachute person

I hope you have been checking facebook as well for all the 30 min craft ideas this month. Today we have made a parachute person.

All you need is a plastic bag, cello tape, card, cotton and a peg. 

Cut the plastic bag into a circle 

And add some string in four places equally around the circle. Pull all these strings together and knot them.  Add a peg to the string where the knot is, then pop on a drawing of a person. 

All you need to do then is play with it :)

Potato printing

Today's 30 min craft was potato printing :) All you need is potatoes, paint and paper. As an additional extra you can use  cutters to make more interesting shapes. If you have not got cutters to hand just cut the potatoes yourself. 

If you are using cutters push them in then use the knife to cut around the outside of the cutter then lift off. 

Little boo decided to make a pattern with the colours :) 

This is going to be great to use as wrapping paper!

Making a house

Today's 30 minute craft, a little house made from upcycled drink carton. All you need is a carton, piece of paper, felts and glue. 

To make the process quicker and easier we did not paint the carton but a piece of paper then stuck this around. I then cut out the windows with a craft knife (obviously an adult job). Then little boo decorated it. Hope you enjoy this.

Lillipop stick people

Today's craft lollipop stick people. Use washi tape or magazines to make their clothes and draw on a face. Could be used as book marks or puppets. Hope you enjoy :)

Making a book

Today's 30 min craft is making a small book. All you need is one sheet of paper and some felts :)  

Fold paper as shown 

Cut along where the solid line is fold where dotted line is. 

Fold page over and squash together

Then create the inside :) little boo decided to do a colours book for lil' sis 

Hope you enjoy today's 30 min craft! This is also a great idea to do at a restaurant when the kids have to wait. 

30 minute craft challenge

Hello all this is my 30 minute craft challenge! the idea is that each day over March I will post a craft that takes under 30 minutes to complete.  The idea behind this is to find at least 30 minutes in our day to stop, turn off the TV and be creative with our children. 

With a new baby in our household (Lil' sis) there is an increased need for me to ensure that I am setting aside some time for myself and Little Boo so that she does not feel left out.  Hence, the 30 minute activities as I hope that this amount of time many people can find in their day. 

I will be posting the activities everyday and hope that people can join me on Facebook as I have created this as an event. Feel free to post pictures of your creations.

Todays first 30 minute activity is paper dolls :) so simple yet great fun

 

 

 

This is a simple activity that does not cost a lot of money at all. You need 1 or 2 pieces of paper (depending on how many paper dolls you want) fold in a concertina fashion.  Then draw one side of the paper doll, cut this out, then decorate :) hope you enjoy.  

 

 



If you wanted to extend the activity you could also look at the book Paper dolls by Julia Donaldson. We really like it.

Homemade spray paint

Today I have made my own spray paints. All you need to put the paint in is some spray bottles. Luckily, I had a few empty ones to hand so used these. 

All I put in the bottle was a squeeze of Acrylic paint and a bit of water. I then shook this to mix it and it was ready to use. 

I have used stencils with it and sprayed and let the paint drip down here are a few examples 

I hope that you like the idea :)

Red Nose Day biscuits

Just a short post today to give people an idea of what to sell to raise money for Red Nose Day or bake for fun! After watching bake off this week I was inspired to bake shortbread with little boo. Just like in bake off we made ours into Victoria sponge short bread :) (minus the jam as I forgot to pick it up from the shop) here is the basic idea 

We made 2 shortbread biscuits then sandwiched them together with buttercream and what should of been jam. The idea is the jam comes through the top hole to make the nose however, due to lack of jam we used red icing :) hope you like the idea. 

Making a junk journal with one page.

Today I have made 2 junk journals to use over the holidays for myself and little boo. They were made from packing paper which I ironed to get rid of any creases. Here is what the books looked like once folded and before they were decorated. 

To make them from one sheet this is how I folded the paper. 

I then cut along the line indicated with a solid line on the picture. 

Then fold the paper in half and squash it together as shown in the picture. 

You then have a journal/book. You could use this for many ideas maybe making a book, a photo book or art journal? You need to secure the pages as there will be openings. However, I use these openings for tags. They can be secured on one side by stitching as we did in little boos book. 

 

Of course little boo decided to have elsa on the front of her book! She made this herself using her new blopens which are really good. 

Mine is not quite finished yet but I used a new technique (to me) with alminium foil to make the cover look distressed. Will share this with you tomorrow when complete.  

A prompt for today

I know we all may need help some days with getting inspired so I have decided to put in a little prompt for today.

 After reading my book today called simple abundance I have been inspired to go out and be creative. The page is entitled creative excursions. So today I am going out with my family and my camera and taking some photos which may help to influence a journal page. 

So there you have it enjoy the prompt. Any pictures please feel free to put them on my Facebook page (click link on the right of page) 

Here is the page that has influenced today :) 

The book is Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach 

Homemade texture paste

Today I made some texture paste it is so easy! All you need is gesso, talc and white glue. I used a cup full of gesso and a cup and a half of talc and half cup of white glue to get the consistency I wanted then placed it in a jar a had spare.

Texture paste is great to add dimension and texture. You can use it through stencils and mix colour to it for coloured texture.  You can also stamp into it just let it half dry first.

Here are my results ...

Upcycle roll on containers

I am really pleased I found this out today. A great way to upcycle your roll on deodorant! 

When you have used all the deodorant, get a butter knife and pop off the ball. Clean inside the container. Then fill with a mix of paint and a bit of water. Pop the ball back on then you have made your own roll paint. 

This is great if you do not want the kids to get in too much mess painting. I am collecting my containers from now on!! 

Making a loose leaf journal

As you may be aware I have been getting back into being creative. I have started art journaling and am loving the process. However, I feel quite hindered by working in a book this is because; I feel like I have to fill it, it takes ages for me to be happy that the surface is flat, I spend half my time looking in my journal for a suitable page to use and feel it stops my creative flow. I feel I work much better on a piece of paper of my choice. 

Due to this I decided to make a loose leaf journal so I can create my pages then put them in the book afterwards. 

To make the journal I used 

Arch leaf folder (the binder was broken) 

Old cards 

Needle

Thread

Gesso

Art materials to decorate including doll template from Such a pretty mess http://gabriellepollacco.blogspot.ca/2012/06/mixed-media-fun-with-bo-bunny-template.html?m=1

Beads

To start with I had an arch leaf folder that needed using so I decided to upcycle it for this journal. I took out the ring binder section and metal corners off. 

I then decorated the folder. The folder provided a great surface to do a mixed media cover on to. 

When I was happy with the cover

I bound into the folder 12 small cards. These I bound in a figure of 8 and added beads as I bound it.

Then the journal was complete!! Now I am free to stick the loose leaf pages in to the book using the cards by sticking the pages to them. In all I could put 48 pieces in here if I wanted to as I could put work in back to back. I am really pleased with the outcome and will definitely be upcycling more arch leaf folders :)

I hope you enjoyed reading this please leave a comment below :) 

Carving stamps

Today I found out about stamp carving and had to have a go. 

I wanted a cheap way of doing this so opted to use a cuticle cutter instead of a Lino cutting tool. 

All I used was: 

Erasers- I just used the ones I had spare around the house but will definitely be buying bigger ones the weekend. 

Cuticle cutter/remover 

Pencil 

Paper

Ink pad 

The idea was to draw the design on the paper then rub on the back of the paper to transfer the image. However, I found I worked better if I just went for it! 

After an hour I had all the erasers carved back and front. One of the stamps I carved around the outside as well. Below are the results. I am so pleased and know I am going to be doing more as it is so relaxing. 

This is my favourite design. 

I hope you enjoyed this please feel free to leave comments below. 

Art journaling with kids

I have been doing a lot of art journaling lately and little Boo wanted to try this. Today she completed her 1st page and she was great!

 Art journaling is such a great way for her to express her artistic side without worrying whether she is doing it right. I just placed out lots of materials including a paper pieced doll (the template for which I found at A pretty mess blog). Here is her completed page :)  

Little boo also used the homemade stamps we made using a thick foam. 

Making a smash book

I have not heard of a smash book before but after doing a bit of research I decided that this sounded my kind of craft.  To me the smash book is like a scrapbook however, you do not need to spend loads of time making it look pretty like a scrap book.  The idea is that it is a quicker way to document what interests you or places/ events that you have been to or taken part in.

I have started a homemade smash book using old notebook front and back cover.  I recovered these to make them more appealing.  I then decided to use book rings to bind the smash book as I am just adding pages as I go as often my page may be a bag from the place I have visited or a map/leaflet.

I keep all the items that I want to Smash in a box so they are waiting for when I have free time.  For example there are photographs and tickets/collected items from the places we have visited.  Little Boo liked the idea so much that she wanted to make a smash book for herself.  I am really interested to see how this goes and am going to leave it to her to choose what she wants to add to the book.  I feel that it will be a good opportunity for her to improve her writing as well as creative skills.

 

My Smash book also has a part dedicated to our new family member and doubles up as a baby book.  For this section I have used gift bags, gift wrap and ribbon I received to make the inside.  This makes it a lot cheaper and a great way to recycle!