Cutie pie!

Been doing some sewing...

Meet Alfred:

Play dough

This week we made some play dough using the instructions from this video.

It's the best recipe I've ever done. The dough came out perfect but I will add that we had to juggle a little at the end with the water and the flour quantities.

If you have little ones who just want to manipulate, squidge, or at the most make a ball or a sausage, then you need to add a little more water to your dough. If you want a stiffer dough for modelling, I still found I needed to add a little more water but not quite so much.

I also found that, although the recipe is initially for four different colours, you can actually get five. The recipe calls for four cups of flour, but then you add one and a half cups of salt, mix and distribute between the four bowls. This leaves you with at least one more cup of mixture. We made purple.

Bean bags

I haven't done anything crafty in ages but this morning I found a few minutes to quickly whip up eight little bean bags. Sewn in a jiffy, they were.

Jiffy = a bit more than an hour!

If you want the pattern and very clear, simple instructions then just pop over to this web.

Just a note: when you reach the part where it explains that you "turn the fabric to the right way out, then sew the top edge in by about 1/2 inch", do this sewing over before you turn the bag the right way out. You will find it loads easier.

Oh, and by the way, I didn't use beans. I used little plastic pellets which I bought for a fair price via internet. This way the little bags can be washed.

Drinking straw necklace

We did this craft with my favourite little just turned 3 year old this afternoon and she had a great time making necklaces for all her family.

Here is a photo of some of the things you will need:

 

# About 60 cm of any kind of wool (70 cm if the necklace is for an adult)
# A plastic needle
# Drinking straws from Ikea (they have a bigger hole) or normal sized ones for more capable children
# Polystyrene tray (to keep the straw pieces all in one place)
# Scissors

How to do it:

Cut the straws up into pieces, the more capable the child the smaller the pieces can be.
Thread the needle, then put just one straw piece on the wool, take it down to the end and make a loose knot around that piece. This prevents the other pieces from falling off the end.
Here is where your child takes over. Thread the rest of the straw pieces until the wool is almost full.
Back to helper. Take the other end, remove the knot, remove the needle and tie both ends together with a reef knot. Trim off any long ends.
Move the straw pieces to cover the knot and there you have it.

This activity will help your child in their development of spacial awareness, hand / eye coordination, fine movement skills, social skills (this is for you...(whoever), and concentration.

Peg pan stand

This is a pretty straightforward craft project that I can recommend for children from eight years and up. It is best done over two or three days. This gives time for the glue to dry thoroughly and the pieces are less likely to come unstuck. Be sparing with the glue so that it doesn't squeeze out the sides when the peg pieces are being pressed together.

All you need is:
A packet of quality wooden pegs*
Good wood glue

Instructions:
Take away the metal spring from each peg.
Glue the pegs together in pairs, back to back and leave to dry on a tray for some hours. 
When dry, arrange the pegs to form a circle, with the fine end at the centre, to see how many you will need for your mat.
Stick them in groups of three. Leave to dry.
Then, when completely dry, stick the groups together to form your pan stand. The longer you take over this process the stronger your pan stand will be.

*Note: If your pegs are not good quality you will find that they will differ in length, width and colour making the paring up more difficult. Neither will the hole in the middle be very even.