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 🌺

Daffodils

Spring is almost here! The weather is getting nicer, and 20th March was the official start on the calendar...

We made these pictures for mothers day, however they are a great general Spring craft, or even for Easter cards.

This Zebra just loves her hand being painted!!

Stamp four yellow hands to create the outer petals...

...and an orange hand in the middle for the flowers head. Mummy then added a line of green for the stem.

It's not just daffodils, this method could be used to create all sorts of colourful flowers!

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.