Rose Bouquet fridge magnet - Mother's Day Craft

A simple and quick, and hopefully useful Mother's Day gift!

We made this two ways - rolling paper for the flowers and scrunching tissue paper - the second option is easier for littlies to do.

You will need:
Egg carton
Cereal box card (or similar)
Coloured paper (or painted plain paper)
Tissue paper (optional)
Craft glue
Paint
Scissors

1. First paint some cereal box card green and one of the egg cones blue or whatever colour you'd like your vase to be - paint some of the egg box lid too.

Putting the egg cone on a spare cone makes painting a lot easier (and a little less messy!)

2. Find something in the kitchen with a small round base to draw around. We used a spice pot. Cut out your circle.

We cut out two to show the different ways to make the flowers.

3. For the rolled roses, cut a strip of coloured paper (we chose red), about 16cm/6in. long and roughly 8cm/3in. wide. Put a little line of glue at the far end and start rolling, keeping it tight.

4. With good scissors, cut across your roll - this is best done by a grown-up - keep the pieces as thin/small as you can.

5. Paint some red splodges on your green circle, where you'd like the flowers to go.

6. Get on with making the vase while the paint dries, then dot some glue in the middle of each painted flower shape and add your little paper scrolls.

7. For an easier option, fold some tissue paper over a few times and cut out small squares (about 3cm/1in.) ). Then scrunch them up to make your blooms. Glue on the red paint marks, as before.

8. For the vase, cut the egg carton cone in half lengthways.

9. Then, trim away some of the side, so it's more even. Give it a press to push the sides out a little.

10. For the base of the vase, cut a triangle out of the spare egg carton card you've painted. Make the triangle quite flat and wide. Glue under the bottom of the vase. (The one on the right has tissue paper roses)

Glue the top of the vase to the back of your flowers.

11.  To make it into a fridge magnet, you'll probably need to glue some card to the top part of the vase first, so the magnet is at the right level. We used some strong clear glue (like UHU glue) to stick the magnet on. Or you could use a glue gun.

Easter bunny and chick have a little picnic! - #stayhomeandcraft

This is a gathering of some past toilet paper roll crafts and it makes a really sweet little display - perfect for storing pens and pencils, or a few Easter eggs!

You will need:
3 Toilet paper rolls (or use kitchen paper rolls)
Egg carton
Cereal box card
Plain paper
Paint
Craft glue (and a glue stick is useful too)
Scissors
Feather (optional)
Black pen
Yellow/orange tissue paper (optional)


1. Cut a piece of cereal box, about 12cm by 14cm (5in. x 51/2in.) and cut one cup from the egg carton.

2. Paint one of the tubes green, plus about halfway down the inside, and paint the plain side of the cereal box card.

3. While that's drying, gently press one of the other cones flattish, so it's easier to draw on - try not to crease the sides too much, and draw bunny ears. It helps if you draw a light pencil line down the middle of the cone first, then draw the ears either side. This keeps things even. Roughly half the tube should be bunny body and the rest, right up to the top, should be ears.

Continue the pencil line around the back - we curved ours down a little, then up to meet the other side, but straight is fine too.

4. When cutting out the middle of the ears, cut from the top down to the bottom of the ears on both sides, then fold out the flap of card and remove.

5. Cut down the other side of the ear, then cut down to the line a little further around the back of the tube, fold out and cut the flap off. Cut along the pencil line to the bottom of the other ear.

6. For the chick, flatten the last cone carefully again, and draw a curved line across, about a third of the way up the cone. Continue the line around the back. We curved this down a little, like the bunny, but straight is fine too.

7. Paint the chick, egg carton cup and some spare card (for the basket handle) yellow, and paint your bunny grey (or any other colour you like!)

8. While they're drying, Cut zigzags into you green cone. Make them different widths and lengths. On one side make the grass shorter, so you can see longer strands behind. This adds to the 3D effect.

9. Make some little flowers and insects to add to your grass.  The daisies are thin strips of white paper crossed over each other and glued together with a yellow centre (either paint or draw this on, or use a hole puncher to make a little yellow circle. The butterfly and ladybird and made from cereal box card. There is a more detailed tutorial for this meadow scene HERE.

10. To finish the bunny, either paint the inside of the ears pink, or fold a small piece of paper in half and draw a petal shape that's smaller than your bunny's ears. Cut out so you end up with two identical pieces. If you don't have pink paper, colour in some plain paper.

Glue these in place ( a glue stick is the easiest and least messy way to do this)

For the bunny's tummy, fold a small piece of plain paper in half and draw half an oval shape on the fold. Cut out and open up. Glue near the bottom of your cone.

Use a black pen to draw on eyes, nose and whiskers. Keep the eyes close to the bottom of the ears. Add a cotton wool tail on the back if you like.

11. For the chick, draw eyes with a black pen near the top of the curve, and glue a small orange triangle between them. (You could paint or draw the beak on instead)

If you have any feathers, glue one behind the top of the head.

12. The little basket is based on the nests for happy hens in my book, 'Make Your Own Farm Animals'. There's a link to Amazon here if you'd like to see it.

If you don't have tissue paper, or want a more speedy option, just cut a strip from the yellow card thats a good size for a handle, and glue the ends inside the egg carton cup. Use some paper clips to hold this in place while the glue dries.

If you want to use tissue paper, loosely fold a few sheets of yellow and orange over several times, and cut across, keeping the strips really thin. When you feel you have enough, unfurl and pull the strands apart, then scrunch and rip them up a bit.

13. Brush some glue inside the egg cup and press a good amount of your ripped up tissue paper strands into the glue. Fun and messy! Keep pressing the tissue paper around the inside until it moulds to the shape of the cup, and most of the strands are glued down. Do the same on the outside, pressing and squeezing the cup until the tissue paper looks quite flat. Cut off any fly-away bits.

14. For the handle, glue and press another handful of strands onto the yellow painted card. Press as flat as you can.

Then cut a strip from the middle - shape and size it for the basket, and glue the ends inside. Use paper clips or something similar to hold the ends in place while the glue dries.

15. Assemble all your pieces on the card and glue in place.

To make the base more sturdy, you could glue to a thicker piece of cardboard.

 Now it's ready for pens or chocolate eggs! (know what I'd choose..)

Oink! the Pig - TP roll crafts for kids

Oink is very similar to Scamp the dog. I love the way they look like they're on the move! 

Made from a single toilet paper roll that's quickly transformed with a few careful cuts and folds, plus a little bit of glue.

You will need:

Toilet paper roll (about 10cm long)

Scissors

Pencil

Ruler

Paint (white and red)

Craft glue

Paper clip or similar

Black felt tip or gel pen

1. Paint a toilet paper roll pink (plenty of white an a little red). Paint the inside too, at both ends, as well as a small piece of spare card (for a snout). 

When the paint is dry, lightly press the cardboard tube flat, but no need to press firmly along the creases. The creases are  mainly for guidance.

2. Line up the two creases you've just made in the middle, and press the tube flat again, but not too hard, so you end up with four evenly spaced, light creases.

3. While the tube's still flat, use a ruler and pencil to mark 2cms in from each end along the middle crease. Then use this mark as a guide to mark the two creases either side. And finally the one on the back.

4. Cut up to the marks, so you'll have four cuts at each end.

5.  For the legs, fold two opposite end flaps down, and cut a thin, long triangle from the middle of the flaps, to define the legs.

6. For the tail end, cut a top flap into three strips. Leave the middle one (for the tail) and bend the other two down.

7.  Fold the side flaps inwards, and glue them together. Use a paper clip or something similar to hold the card in place while the glue dries. Trim the card flaps if you need to, to neaten things up.

8. Roll the card tail between your fingers, from the end, right down to the pig's back, to make it curl.

9.  For the ears, fold the top flap at the other end, so it points up and cut out a triangle, from each corner to the middle of the flap.

10. For the face, fold the two remaining side flaps right back. 

11. Then fold each of these flaps in half and firmly press the creases.

Bend the flaps back towards each other.

12.  Glue the flaps on top of each other and use a paper clip to hold them in place while the glue dries. 

13. When the glue has set, you could draw on a snout and eyes straight away. Or, cut out a round snout from the spare piece of painted pink card, add nostrils and glue in place. Draw eyes either side with the black pen. Shorten the legs and bend the ears forward.

14. And Oink is ready to scamper off!