Shell hedgehogs and other animals - simple summer crafts for kids

We thought we'd share a few simple craft ideas that are fun to do during the summer holidays, whether you're home or away. There maybe a few Star Wars/Batman projects in the mix too, but even these don't need much planning, or a suitcase of craft supplies!

This one definitely doesn't,  just slip a Sharpie (other permanent markers are available..) into you bag and you're good to go!

I love collecting shells - happy memories of summers spent with my family on a beautiful beach near Tyrella in Northern Ireland. I'd walk slowly along the tideline with my head down and my eyes fixed on the scattered shells washed up by the sea. There was always plenty to choose from, but what I really wanted to find was a cowrie or a pelican's foot, because there weren't so many of them. It was like finding treasure when you did.

I think I've past this love onto my daughter, judging by the buckets and bag full of shells that come home after beach trips. We have made all kinds of shell creations with a trusty tube of UHU glue - the shell lady and little baby in a pram are ones I used to make with my Mum.

These are even easier - really just a case of looking at the shell shapes and seeing what they remind you of. The little hedgehogs are made from dog whelk shells which are common on UK beaches.

Simply squiggle and scribble on the main part of the shell with your pen, as far as the first natural groove near the pointy end.

Once you're happy with the squiggly back, draw a nose on the point, 

put it down on a flat surface, and dot eyes either side of the nose.  

That's it! So quick. We made a hedgehog family in minutes.

Limpets made good lion heads too!

Once we got going, the kids had heir own ideas. This is the best kind of craft session for me, when you see their imagination click in.

These needed a squeeze of glue to stick the heads to the bodies.

We only have a black Sharpie away on holiday with us - you could have a lot of fun with colours if you have them. I drew this peacock on a cockle shell a while back.

Hope we've given you some ideas for your next beach trip!

 

Cardboard tube fairy - easy crafts for kids

We’re on a bit of a roll with toilet paper tube crafts… corny pun aside, we have been pretty busy with our hoard of cardboard rolls. 
And like many of the other recent projects, Mary the fairy was inspired by the tubescapes we made a few months back. One idea often leads to another and I really love that. 
She is easy to do, great scissor practice, and can be made from just one tube - that’s wings and head too.

You’ll need:

Toilet paper tube ( or kitchen roll shortened to about 10cm/4in.)

Pencil

Ruler

Scissors

Glue

Sticky tape

Paint

Coloured felt tip pens

Black felt tip or gel pen

Glitter, sequins, stickers (optional)

1. Flatten the tube with your hand and about halfway up, draw a pencil line straight across using a ruler. Draw another line about a cm or so (1/2in.) up from one end.

2. On the other side of the middle line, cut at an angle from the end of the line to the top of the tube, but not quite as far as the corner. Keep the triangle shaped piece for the wings. 

3. Cut along both pencil lines from the shorter side, leaving the last cm (1/2in.) uncut, and then fold the middle piece of card over firmly, before cutting along the crease to remove it. Keep this card too, for the head. Squeeze your tube open, and you have the base for your fairy. 

4. Make her dress less pointy by trimming the sides. 

5. Take the piece of spare card leftover from forming the fairy’s legs, keep it folded and draw a curve on the folded end, for her hair. 

6. Cut out and open up. If it looks too big for her body, fold again and trim until you’re happy.

7. Use the card you’ve just cut away to draw a semi-circle shape for the face, using a straight edge of the card (on its side it looks like a capital D). Cut this out but don’t glue to the hair until all the pieces have been painted.

8. Take the spare piece of card from the start of the project, and cut along the crease so you have two triangles. These are going to be your fairy's wings.

9. Paint all the card pieces any colours you want. Make a good flesh shade by mixing a little red with white to make light pink, then a tiny touch of yellow and blue.

10. When the paint is dry, glue the face to the hair.

11. Flatten down your tube and draw shoes with a felt pen and draw on the face. 

12. Glue the head to the top of the body, and then use sticky tape to attach it firmly behind. Use the sticky tape to attach the wings to the back of the body too. 

Decorate with glitter, sequins or stickers, if you want your fairy to sparkle! 

Bubble wrap flower printing - Art for kids

So many possibilities with bubble wrap printing! Last time we used triangles of bubble wrap to print wisteria (perfect for lilac or delphiniums too), and that got us thinking about other flowers shapes we could try. At the moment the hedgerows here are awash with billowy cow parsley. Look closely, and the little, lacy white flowers are clustered together at the end of spoke-like stalks.



So first, we painted our background a mix of greens.

From early on I've encouraged the kids to use different shades of the same colour when they're painting or drawing - various greens for the grass and for trees, blues for the sky or sea and browns for wood. It's simple to do, looks really effective and helps them understand about colour mixing and light and shade.

Put your similar colours on the same plate or palette. We used green, blue and yellow poster paint, and mixed the yellow and blue together to make a different shade of green, leaving just a little of the blue and yellow unmixed.

Then dip an ordinary decorating paintbrush into some water (a big brush makes it easier to paint a large area quickly). Make sure it's not dripping wet, just keep it damp, and then have fun painting the different greens onto the paper, mixing them into each other, with the occasional streak of blue or yellow too. The key is to do it quickly and then leave it. Try not to over-work the background.

While that's drying, cut out a circle of bubble wrap dots like this ( 7 dots in total) - but make sure not to cut too close to the bubbles, so you don't deflate any of them! We then glued the unbubbly side to the bottom of a cork, to help with the printing.



While the glue's drying, squirt some more green paint onto your plate and mix in some blue on one side to make darker green. On the other side of the plate, mix in some white paint for a very pale green.



For the stems we used those thin wooden coffee stirrer sticks, but you could use lollypop or popsicle sticks or anything like that to print a thin, straight line. If you've a few spare sticks break one up, so you can print different length lines.

Press the stick into the dark green paint - make sure there's paint all along it, and print a stem onto the green background. If your stick is much wider than ours (and too wide for a stem), use the thin edge to print two or three lines next to each other. This should make the stem look the right thickness.

Press a clean stick edge into the pale green paint and print this thin line down one side of your stem, as if the light's catching it. This gives a more 3D effect, and helps lift the cow parsley out from the background.





It can get pretty messy, but sure that's half the fun!



It's worth having some freshly picked cow parsley to look at, so you can see the shapes of the stems and flowers (though be careful when you pick it as the sap can sometimes irritate your skin). Add more stems to your painting. At the top of each one, use the thin edge of a stick and the dark green paint to make spoke-like stalks, crossing the printed lines in the middle, like stars.



Get the flower stamp ready and either paint the bubble wrap with a good layer of white paint, or press into some white paint (make sure the paint isn't too thick though, or you'll end up with a big white splodge).

*You could cover a piece of thin kitchen sponge in white paint to make your own DIY stamp pad*



Carefully print your white flowers at the end of all the spoke-like stalks.

Bubble wrap wisteria - Art for kids

Wisteria is such a stunner, with its beautiful, delicate, cascading flowers. It can be completely magical, and I'm always looking out for it when we're driving along at this time of year. My daughter's doing the same now! We've tried and frustratingly failed to grow wisteria at home, so have to enjoy it elsewhere, like at the place we stayed in France after Easter. Thanks to the holidays being a bit later than usual it happened to be perfect wisteria time - all the flowers were out, buzzing with bees, just before the green leaves and whip-like shoots appear. I took so many photos! Don't think they completely do it justice, but we did enjoy sitting under such an amazing canopy of flowers - and the gentle scent was something else.

There are some wonderful art ideas for kids using bubble wrap and I thought it would be just the thing for a simple wisteria project.
All you need to do is cut some long triangles from the bubble wrap - round it a little at the wider top end. Cut a few different sizes too.

We used ready made purple poster paint. I've always had a lot of trouble mixing purple from blue and red, so I looked it up this time, and apparently you can only really mix purple from 'true' blue or red - that's when there's no tints of other colours like yellow or green in them. If they aren't true (and mine aren't), you end up with a rather disappointing murky grey-brown colour.

So, we used a good squirt of purple paint and about the same amount of white, with a dab or two of blue on the edge. Mix these with a brush, but it's much better if you don't mix them too well. Keep some swirls of white and dots of blue. This all helps with the paint effect.

Press your bubble-wrap wisteria shape into the paint - make sure it's all covered, but don't overload with paint, or it'll get very smudgy. A bit smudgy is fine, but it's good to see the bubble circles too.

We found holding the bubble wrap at the top and bottom helped a lot when we were placing it on the paper.

After you've printed a few flowers, add another few blobs of white, purple and blue, but don't mix them in this time, so you get clear splodges of the different colours on your wisteria shapes.

Keep the the colours topped up, so your flowers have more depth and look more interesting. Experiment with with your colour mix until you're happy with your wisteria.

Make the blooms hang down at different heights and overlap your flowers, layering the colours at the top - but remember to keep some of the pointy shapes at the bottom nice and clear.

It took no time at all and Daisy's really pleased with her painting. She's planning to add a few bees. You could also add some green leaves or shoots when the paint is dry if you want. And, as someone pointed out on Instagram, turn the page the other way up and you've got a flowerbed full of delphiniums!