Day to Day

Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays - Day 4

Hello again :)  Today I'm sharing my fourth project in the 'Hip Hip Hooray for holidays' series. 

This is something fun, easy and sweet for girls to make - paper bead and pom pom necklace. 

Once you have the paper beads made (they're so fast to do) there are lots of other options to make as well and if you don't have mini pompoms, just leave them out!

Materials list:

♥ A couple of sheets of patterned paper, or paper scraps that you have around the home

♥ Mini pompoms from a $2 store/craft supply store.  We buy a lot of these and they come in a lovely array of colours and sizes.

♥ Craft glue

♥ Scissors

♥ Yarn

♥ Darning needle or one with a nice sized eye - for the yarn to thread through.

Step 1: Cut a series of strips from your patterned paper - measuring about 15cm long and varied in width from 1cm - 3cm. 

Step 2: Roughly form a point on the top of each strip.

Step 3:  Next up is the rolling! Use a pen, chopstick, straw or anything that's small and circular to roll the strip around.

Step 4: Keep rolling and add some glue under the point to hold.  Once the glue becomes tacky and holds the bead together, slide it gently off the pen/straw/chopstick etc.. to dry.  Ours only took 10-15 minutes to dry nicely.

Step 5: Now for the fun! Cut a nice length of yarn for the necklace, pop some yarn on the needle and start threading.  Alternate from bead to pompom or let your little one choose their own pattern to work with.

Step 6: Once the yarn is full of paper beads and pompoms - knot  the end and enjoy :)

You can also make lots of other fun things - hair ties, headbands, bracelets, anklets and pretty bunting to hang up in the bedroom.

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog and peek at her fabulous tutorial for today!

I'll be back later with my sneak peek for tomorrow :)

Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays - Day 3

Welcome back :)  We're up to our third project in the Hip Hip Hooray for holidays series. 

My project today is for your little person to do - from start to finish - designing and creating their very own felt play mat.

Materials list:

♥ Felt - a big piece (ours was about 1.2 metres X 90cm) - but you can do any size.

♥ Felt scraps

♥ Craft glue

♥ Pen or pencil

♥ Scissors

♥ A4 (or larger) sheet of paper

♥ A little person's imagination

There was great excitement in our house when I explained my idea to Bella for this project.  She was really keen to get started ASAP and went to work drawing up a plan for her felt play mat.  I know that there are lots of designs online for play sets, but I thought it would be fun to let Bella design and make her own, from start to finish.  I asked Bella to keep her design simple as she would need to cut her pieces from felt - another option is to pre cut a series of roads, trees, ponds etc.. and let your child place them down on the mat before adhering with some glue.

Step 1:  Talk about the idea with your little one and ask them to draw up a design on a large piece of paper for a play set.  It could be a fairy, dinosaur, car racing mat or whatever they happen to dream up at the time of drawing.

Step 2: The next step is to transfer the design to felt!  Cut out the basic areas first - depending on the age of the child, they might need a little help with this.  

 

Step 3: Add or omit details from the drawing as you go.  Bella decided to add the lines on the roads and also some walk way crossings, but left off a lot of the shop signs that were on the initial drawing.  Use a strong craft glue to hold each piece of felt in place.

Step 4: Add props to your creation and then play, play, play!  We allowed a full afternoon to draw, create, set up and play with the set and then it was easy to roll/fold up and pop in the cupboard, ready for another day.

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog and peek at her tutorial for today. She's sharing another cute idea - painted pots for the garden and the sweetest doily covered rocks.

I'll be back later on today with my sneak peek for tomorrow :)

Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays - Day 2

Thank you all so much for the sweet response to our first 'Hip Hip Hooray for holidays' project that we posted yesterday.  We're so happy that you're enjoying our blog adventure for little people.

If you are just joining us, here is a direct link with all the details for Me and for Tamar :)

Welcome to my second project - string boards!

Materials list:

♥    Hammer

♥    Nails

♥    Yarn (colour of your choice)

♥    Aluminium foil 

♥    30cm X 30cm sheet of wood - we used ply wood but any wood is fine.  Any size of wood will work for this project too - I'm just giving you the size that I used :)

This is a really easy project and my Bella thoroughly enjoyed making both patterns that I'm sharing today.  The best part is that the yarn can be snipped off the board at any time and a new pattern created.  You can also use string if you don't have any yarn handy.

Step 1: Decide on the size of your string board.  I'm sharing two different styles today, but basically the boards I'm using are 30cm X 30cm (approximately 12" X 12").  You can do any size though - the concept is the same for other sizes.

Step 2: Cover each board with aluminium foil or alternatively you could paint the board. If your board is nice (not all spray painted and crazy like the ones that I started with) you might even prefer to leave it natural.  I'm sharing the circular shape first.  Use a large dinner plate and draw around the edge with a pencil.

Step 3: Start hammering in some nails at 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock.  Then fill in the gaps with more nails - more or less evenly spaced - until you are happy with the spacing. I used 64 nails to fill in the circle but any amount of nails will work, so long as they are evenly spaced.  If you want to do the design shown in the first photo, ensure that you finish with an even number of nails.

Step 4: Tie the yarn onto a nail to begin - leave a small tail of yarn for tying off with later.  We'll call this nail 12 o'clock.

Step 5: Take the yarn from the 1st nail (where you tied it on) across to the 3rd nail.  Loop it around the 3rd nail and then back to the 1st nail.  Then across to and around nail 5 - back to the 1st and then continue counting and looping around ever 2nd nail until you are back to the original nail.

Step 6: Tie off your yarn using the tail that you left dangling in step 4.

Step 7: Repeat these steps again, but this time start on the opposite side - 6 o'clock. 

Repeat the process again at 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock to complete the design.

We decided to do a square string board too.  For this I drew up a 25cm square and hammered in nails at 2.5cm intervals.  Although you can do any kind of pattern, Bella thought it would be fun to do a random weave of yarn.  This is a great option for smaller children too, if they don't want to work on an actual pattern.

Display your projects :)

I hope you enjoyed the project :) I'll be back later with a sneak and project list for tomorrow's post.

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog and peek at her second tutorial too! She's sharing the cutest idea for puppets today.

Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays - Day 1

Welcome to 'day 1' in our series of holiday projects - fun things to do & create for your little ones during the holidays.  Tamar and I have lots of cute DIY/tutorial projects planned over the next 2 weeks and we're excited to be sharing them with you!  Just a reminder that the projects will run from Monday to Friday, with normal blog posting happening during the weekend.

My first project is a fun one - chipmunk stilts!

Materials list:

♥ Felt scraps

♥ Craft glue & small paint brush

♥ Scissors

♥ String/thin rope

♥ x2 tin cans - washed and clean 

♥ Drill

♥ Embroidery cotton + needle

♥ Printable chipmunk PDF -  Download Chipmunk pattern

These are easy peasy to make!  You can also turn the can up the other way and use the pattern to make a cute pencil holder.

Step 1:  Coat the tin can lightly with craft glue (use the paint brush) and cover with a piece of felt.  Just measure the height and circumference of the can to figure out the size of felt required.

Step 2: Use the printable PDF provided (see materials list) as the template for your felt pattern pieces.  Remember to also cut out two small eyes + a nose for each chipmunk.

Step 3: Use a little craft glue to adhere the chipmunk's head pieces together.

Step 4: Adhere on the nose and embroider two little stitches for the eyelashes.

Step 5: Use craft glue to adhere the completed chipmunk onto the stilt base.  It's important that you have the bottom of the can facing upwards for this step - so that it creates a base to stand on.

Step 6: Follow the above instructions to complete a second chipmunk.

Step 7:  Use a drill and make two holes in each side of the stilt (up the top) to thread your string/yarn through.

Step 8: Cut and thread a long piece of string/yarn through the holes and tie in a knot to hold.  The length will depend on the height/age of your child - just a comfortable length for them to be able to hold when they're using the stilts.

Don't forget to pop over to Tamar's blog and peek at her first tutorial too! She's sharing several gorgeous felt DIY projects today including some stationery and pencil holders.  They're all totally cute!

During the next two weeks my projects will be a mix of crafty things for your little one to do and also a few grown up projects (like this one) that you can create to keep everybody entertained.  Ofcourse this grown up one could be easily adapted for smaller helpers too - cutting out, shape placement, threading the string and helping with the glue.

See you tomorrow :)

Hip Hip Hooray - it's nearly time

It's nearly time for Tamar and I to start our Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays series of blog posts :-)  You can see the details HERE -  starting at midday on the 3rd of January. Here are some cute blog buttons to add to your blog if you are joining us  or if you would like to blog about the projects your children ( and or you! ) make.

Here is the code if you want to add it your blogs :)

<a href="http://melissagoodsell.typepad.com/day_to_day/hip-hip-hooray-for-holdays-diy//" target="_blank" title="Tarisota"><img alt="Hip Hip Hooray" src="http://tarisota.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341d081b53ef0147e12e78a0970b-pi"/></a>

 or for this cute button

<a href="http://melissagoodsell.typepad.com/day_to_day/hip-hip-hooray-for-holdays-diy//" target="_blank" title="Tarisota"><img alt="Hip Hip Hooray" src="http://tarisota.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341d081b53ef0147e12e78a3970b-pi"/></a>

Please spread the word - tell your friends the more the merrier and the happier holidays can be :)

See you tomorrow!

 

Hip hip hooray for holidays

School holidays have always been my favourite time of year, I go into a mini meltdown mode when they're all over and my two have to go back to school.  Once Christmas and the new year period have finished, I've always thought the key to keeping my two happy and busy during the holiday season is a nice stream of fun activities for them to do - some day trips, a visit to the movies, camping, cooking, quiet time at home and a whole lot of crafting.

This year Tamar and I have joined forces to create something special for your little ones - Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays!

Beginning January 3rd for two weeks Tamar and I will be sharing a series of tips and tutorial/projects for keeping those busy hands even busier.  They'll be lots to do - cooking, softies, printables, quiet activities and fun things to do outside.

Here is a little peek at the projects we have planned - plenty of fun things for all ages.  Feel free to borrow this image to share on your blogs.  We will also have a button badge for those of you wishing to join us before we start- we'd love to have you playing alongside.

We're super excited to share this project with you all, I hope you'll enjoy following along.

Hip Hip Hooray for Holidays