Paper Flowers

When the sun comes out, so do the flowers!

Lots of bright, cheery materials for this flower craft!

Paint lots of different colours onto a sheet of bubble wrap...

Then press a piece of card or paper onto it to get the bubbley paint print!

Cover another piece of paper with pva glue...

Then shake on some glitter - Make sure the glitter is set to sprinkle not pour!!!!

Once everything has dried, wrap the tissue roll in the glitter paper and bend to form the flower holder 

Make some holes and poke in pipe cleaners for the stems 

Cut flower shapes from the bubble wrap prints, and then fix to the pipe cleaners with a bit of sticky tape!

Quick and easy and will last longer than a real bunch 🌺

Sssssssnakessssss

Snakes on a plane - We've been overrun with slithery serpents!!

We had to spend a whole day waiting in for a delivery (the first warm sunny day in forever!) so needed lots to keep us busy. I've found three fab snakes, that kept both the Zebra and Mummy occupied all day.

Stick the bubble wrap to a rolling pin and then cover with paint before rolling over the paper plate. We did a bottom layer of brown & yellow, then a top layer of green. This gives a great snake effect, especially with the scale-like print from the bubble wrap.

When it's dry, cut the plate into a spiral, and shape the ends into a head and tail. Pop on some eyes and you have a tree snake! 

Cut the egg box down the middle, and on one section, cut off the end segment. Round out the sides and edges to give a smooth snake look. 

The Zebra loves mixing colours, so I use an ice cube tray to give her lots of different shades to play with.

When this one is dry, just stick on a tongue and some eyes, and you have a wiggly tropical snake!

Use green paint to cover the tube. The Zebra used paintbrushes, hands and bubble wrap to make different patterns in the paint. 

Again, wait for it to dry! Then cut a spiral along the tube from one end to the other. Start back at the same place, but a few inches in, and cut the spiral again to the other end. Shape the ends into heads and tails, stick the eyes on, and you have two coiled snakes!

I hope this hasn't been too sssssscary for anyone!

Quack Quack!

One of the Zebra's favourite things right now is to feed the ducks, but with this rubbish weather we aren't able to get out often... So we've decided to bring the ducks inside!

The feathers are optional, the craft works well with just the prints, but we love to glue with "tickle-tickles"!

The Zebra is so good at hand and footprints now, she barely needs any help from mummy...

On one piece of card, print two yellow feet, and then two brown hands on the other. Let them dry before glueing.

Spread a little bit of pva over the body of the duck, then stick on any coloured feathers you want!

To make the Mallard duck, cut out a head and neck shape in green, a beak in orange, and glue down a googely eye...

For the rubber duck, use yellow paint to make a big round head, and then stick on the beak and eyes 

They may not be the real thing, but they are cute enough to do till spring! 

Rainbows

The Zebra saw a rainbow in the sky this morning and just loved it, so this afternoon we tried to make our own!

You can use 7 different paints, or just use the base 4 and mix them for the orange, green and violet.

We've been learning colours recently, so I've cut a piece of card into 7 strips to make colour flash-cards.

The Zebra had an amazing time painting all the different strips in every colour! 

And it wasn't just the strips that got coloured! How fab is this backing paper :) 

Xin Nian Kuai Le!

Happy new year - Chinese new year that is!

Today begins the year of the fire monkey and to respect the Spring Festival we have created an oriental cherry blossom tree.

Other than the usual materials, you will need an empty plastic bottle - the smaller the better!

I used pink, purple and white paint to give a variety of colours, and spread it thinly onto a plate so the picture didn't get lagged!

This is the tricky bit! Using a black marker draw a tree onto card. I drew lots of wiggly lines heading up and out, then made them thicker to look like branches.

Then it's over to the Zebra! Dip the bottom of the bottle into the paint and then stamp all acros the tree to give it the blossoms. She really enjoyed making the pink prints all over the page, in fact she was so engrossed there wasn't a single bit of paint on her toes!!

                     恭喜发财  恭喜發財 

Footprint Butterfly

We are slowly heading towards spring so time to make some bright, pretty crafts!

You can use any paints, but I love these pastel shades for a spring butterfly.

Squirt the paint into lines on a plate, then press their foot straight into it. I had some paper down to dab the excess paint off before printing onto the card. 

The Zebra just adores painting with her feet and had great fun stamping her mark!

Once he prints have dried, draw a butterfly wing shape around one foot. Cut it out and use it as a template for the other foot.

Draw and colour a black head and body on the scrap paper left over and cut it out. 

Glue the body and wings down and stick on some eyes. Twirl a pipe cleaner round a pencil to make the antenna and then stick to the head.

Ta-Dah! A beautiful butterfly waiting for the sunshine. 

Wintery Window

We haven't seen a single speck of snow out of the window this winter, so I guess we better make our own!

The blue card is for the sky and the brown is for the windows wooden frame.

I used PVA glue to trail a line of glue across the top of the card. I made it nice and thick so there was lots to flow down - this gives an icicle effect for the windows. The Zebra rather enjoyed watching it drip down!

Once it had reached the bottom, the Zebra used blue and silver glitter to cover the picture.

The Zebra though it was much more fun to cover me in glitter...

And make patterns on he table!!

While she played, I cut 4 rectangles out of the brown card, then fixed it onto of our glitter sky.

And here you have it - a wintry snow scene to watch out the window!