Welcome to the first of “Kids Get Arty” series. This were Red Ted and I start exploring The Great Artists together. It is a way for me to “rediscover” art and for Red Ted to see and explore art. I have put together some Arty Resources for you, from other art projects to art picture books to tips, to help you on your journey.

Kids Get Arty will replace the regular “craft slot” – every 2 months  - the NEXT Kids Get Arty will be on 18th July 2012.  If you have kids crafts to link up – please come back next week!

I decided that we would explore Klimt as our “first Great Artist” project with Red Ted (4). I thought that all the gold and beautiful colours, as well as shapes and patterns would appeal to Red Ted.

The Book

I have two books to support our session.

Klimt and His Cat, by Berenice Capatti and Gustav Klimt, a Painted Fairy Tale.  I am not sure I would recommend that you bought either – gettng them from the library would be better. But we enjoyed reading them, looking at the pictures and combined they were really good for this project. Klimt and His Cat – is more a picture book telling us the story of Klimts life and a little bit about what he was like (generous, loving life and art), whilst The Painted Fairy Tale, was great for its reproductions of key works. It is a book for an older child doing an art project on Klimt.

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The Art Project

We focussed on Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer 1, as well as The Kiss – they are both richly golden and full of intricat patterns – which I thought would appeal to Red Ted. The next time however, I will let him choose the painting to focus on. It took Klimt 3 years to complete this painting – a fact that really fascinated Red Ted and helped us in our “3 session” approach. What we also “enjoyed” reading about, is that Klimt played with Adele’s initianals and hid “B”s and “A”s in the painting. A great way for us to explore the painting – especially as Red Ted is now really interested in the alphabet (see all our Handprint Art!!)

The Project

Our approach can be summed up with:

• We used a view finder
• Asking lots of questions
• We decided on making this a PRINT PROJECT (potato prints & corks)
• Creating three layers – revisiting the project 3 times over several weeks

To help Red Ted, I cut out a crude “view finder” – a square of card, with another square cut out. What I found, aged 4 (or any age), is that he is overwhelmed by a “whole picture” – “where do you start?” – “Mummy, I can’t paint this” etc.. A view finder, helps you focus on details of the painting. So we were able to look at the painting as a whole, but also bit by bit.

The Questions

1) Shapes can you see?

2) What colours are there? Are there any more? Which is your favourite colour?

3) Show me where you can see it?

Red Ted particularly liked the shapes – the ovals, triangles and circles, as well as the rectangles. He was less bothered by the squares.

The Print Project

Materials: Viewfinder, gold, silver, black, burnt sienna acrylics, Layer 1: potatoes – cut into triangles, rectangles, squares and circles. Layer 2: cork printing

Layer 1

1) I cut the potato shapes – after asking Red Ted what shapes he would like.

2) Get printing. The downside of potatoes, is that they are a little slippery and if you don’t get the surface totally flat, they don’t always give you a nice even print. I don’t mind this, but Red Ted did. So you may want to experiment – be it with potatoes, or foam, wood block pieces anything you can find around the home, that could make a good stamp!

3) After completing one layer, we put it aside to dry.

Whilst painting, Red Ted asked me:

• Why does Klimt like painting?
• Why does like gold so much?
• How did Klimt learn to paint?
• How old is Klimt?
• Why does Klimt like cats?
• Why did it take him 3 years to paint this?
• How do you get that shiney bit [in the background]?

Needless to say, I didn’t have half the answers… sometimes I asked him back “Why do you think…?”, I came up with guesses (“Maybe he liked gold, because it is so shiny” “Maybe he had cats as a child?”) and sometimes I said a simple “I don’t know, but doesn’t that make Klimt even more interesting?”. We then revisited the story book. Whilst Red Ted used up all the colour in whatever way he felt like.

He said of the painting Portraite of Emilie Floge “Mummy that is like you, you have curly hair too”. I asked “is it a pretty painting?” Red Ted “Yes”… (phew).

Layer 2

It was well over a week later before we sat down to work on our second layer – mainly due to time and other projects on the go – but also find, revisiting information over time, is a better way to reinforce it and hopefully some of this information will be stored on Red Ted’s head somewhere for future use! I am sure are both learning about printing techniques!

When we came to do our second layer – we had an interesting discussion about “texture” – and how all our stamping created textures on our painting. Red Ted also asked why Klimt liked gold so much. I didn’t have the answer, so asked Red Ted, whether he liked gold – to which I got “gold is my favourite colour”. We also had the opportunity to talk about layering a picture. “Why does Klimt do that, Mummy?” my answer “Because it gives him the chance to add more detail and make the painting look more interesting”.

We used the same basic shapes – circle, square, triangle – but made them a little smaller. I love how exploring Klimt gave us the chance to look at shapes again.

This time we also used a cork for circles – we found that potatoes can be so slippery.. but stuck with them on the squares and triangles. I think Red Ted enjoying printing with the cork the most this time round. But overall we found it easier!

Layer 3

Finally, when it was dry, we revisited the paintings and with a black pen added details, such as small dots, swirls and triangles.

What do you think? I think he did a great job and definitely knows a little more about Klimt (as do I!)

So.. now it is your chance! We woould love to see what Great Artists you have been exploring with your kids and how you approached your arty projects! Come link up. Kids Get Arty is co-hosted by The Imagination Tree, Imagination Soup,  Creative with Kids and Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas.

Disclaimer: by joining the Kids Get Crafty linky – you give us permission to highlight any projects on Red Ted Art and Creative with Kids or share your craft ideas on Pintrest – we will always link to your site! If you have been crafty with your kid’s be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, please link up!

What Famous Artists do you love most – and have inspired you to create Art with Kids?

I had the pleasure of attending a PictureBook Showcase with Random House Children’s Books author’s earlier in the week. It was a fabulous summary of current picture books and picture books coming this summer, as well as  fabulous interview of Louise Yates (I recommended her lovely lovely “Dog Loves Drawing”  for you recently) and Quentin Blake – who knew that they were both English Literature and not Art students – ditto Mini Grey. There is artistic hope for me yet! In fact, Mini Grey was a “newly discovered” author for me – though we have her “The Adventures of Dish and Spoon” book, I hadn’t yet seen her BRILLIANT Traction Man books. Am so excited, as Red Ted will LOVE LOVE LOVE these (see below)!

We were also treated to Jez Alborough reading his book “Six Little Chicks” – what a wonderful reading it was – and I know that the next time we read it, I will enjoy the book all the more… I even had a chance to meet him afterwards and get a signed postcard – for you, my dear reader… (I also promised him a craft!) But first:

Six Little Chicks, by Jez Alborough.

We received this book a few weeks ago – in fact before Easter – and of course this would have made a great Easter read – as it is all about 5 (then 6) little chicks. But regardless of that I think you and your children will enjoy this book all year round. The story is of a mother hen, who is warned by the farm yard animals that the fox is coming. The chicks are playing out side (peck peck pecking, hop hop hopping etc) and the mother hen cautiously shoos her chick into the coop, whilst she goes off to check for the fox. Whilst she is out… who appears? But the fox himself! Oh no! What will happen next? Well… you will have to read the book yourself, but rest assured the little chicks are quite resourceful. Really, a lovely read, that both my children (4yrs and 2yrs) enjoy – Red Ted particularly loves the “repetitiveness of  the “peck peck” and “hop hop hop” and I think Pip Squeak, just likes the chicks! The fox, is surprisingly friendly and nice looking, so nothing “too scary” (and did I hear Jez saying he painted the fox with the green green eyes, based on a fox he saw in his garden?!).

And check out this fantastic edible craft to go with it!

My Big Shouting Day, by Rebecca Patterson

When I received this book, I was uncertain how the children would react – I don’t know why.. but I thought “will they like it?”. And like it they did. In fact they LOVED it. And I had to read it to them 3 times in one go. The story is about a little girl, who wakes up one day and simply has a “bad day”, with lots and lots of shouting going on. You can see her mother increasingly getting frazzled (oh how I can relate) and perplexed at her daughter’s big shouting day behaviour. Everything that can go wrong does. The day ends with a big Mummy cuddle – and the mother explaining that it is ok to have bad days and that she still loves the little girl very much. The next day, the girl wakes up….. and has a GREAT day! (*phew*). I wonder whether the kids like the book so much, as they can also relate to it – yes, sometimes, we just have a bad day and we don’t know why! It is a great book to help explore those bad day feelings and hope for the sunny day just around the corner. A big thumbs up from all of us!

Wanda and The Alien, by Sue Hendra

Another cute little book – there are so so sooo many fabulous picture books out there, it really is hard to keep up sometimes!! This is the story of Wanda and her Alien friend. Alien decides to take Wanda home for her Birthday and show her the planet that Alien comes from. Whilst there Alien throws her a fabulous Alien Party – what will Wanda think? Will she like Alien party games (of let’s sit quietly on a chair and things that look like worms on a stick for party food?). You will have to find out. The children really enjoyed all the magical drawings and finding out what the Alien planet looks like. I think that this will become another firm favourite in our house and is perfect for our recent Alien Craft. As a parent, I quite liked that this book somehow had appeal to both boys and girls – boys because of the “obvious” alien story and girls because of Wanda – what a great way to bring the two genders together.

 Traction Man, by Mini Grey

We got hold of our Traction Man copy “just in time” for this review. And it did not disappoint! The story is of Tractions Man’s arrival into the life of a little boy. We see all his adventures – on the bed (fighting the beastly pillow monsters), in the sink (where he meets his faithful companion scrubbing brush), in the garden (rescuing the dollies – Pip Squeak particularly likes this bit) and at Granny’s… where he gets, ahem, a very special gift – this gift made The Englishman laugh out loud. I think the book brings back very many happy memories of when he played with and clothed his own action men. The kids are smitten. So are we (the parents).

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So. Today, I have a little giveaway for you!

A signed post card by Jez Alborough and a signed postcard by Mini Grey!

Would you like them? Then…

* Just leave a comment below, telling me which Jez Alborough or Mini Grey books you have read or would like to read!

T&C

1) Winner will be picked at random.

2) Winners must reply to the “congratulations email” with in 24 hours of it being sent out, else I will have to re-draw a new winner.

3) Open Internationally.

4) Closes on 10 June 2012.

With midsummer approaching, I thought it would be fun to have a special “Fairies & Elves” round up – anything impish, elfish, fairy-ish and midsummer-night-ish to get you into that whimsical magical feeling!

Hopefully the selectioin below will set you up for midsummer celebrations. When it comes to fairies, I particularly like the nature and waldorf inspired fairy crafts. Just adorable. I am pretty certain, that I will be revisiting this post myself and making things with my kids. I am inspired by all the magical craftiness out there.

I have also teamed up with Zoe from Playing By The Book. Playing By The Book is a fabulous Kid Lit blog – bringing you wonderful children’s literature from around the world. Zoe frequently combines her book reviews with a craft (and was one of the first to inspire me to get crafty), as well as music and other resources. She has now started a series called “I’am Looking for a Book About…” and where possible, we aim to double up and link to each other – Zoe providing you the literature and I providing you the crafts. This way you can get crafty and find beautiful books to share with your children. So,  hop over and check out all her fantastic books in her Fairy and Elves book round up!

There is also more fairiness with, crafts, books and general magic over at se7en. Check it out.

And now.. to the magical round up:

Fairy Garden

This is the most adorable Fairy Garden by Magic Onions and her kids – everything about it is just perfect – from the old drunk they used as a basis to all the little details such as the tyre swing. Fabulous. My kids would adore it.

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Fairy Garden 2

Another totally GORGEOUS fairy garden – but you HAVE to look at the post and see all the little details – from tea pots to vegetable gardens and swings. The photos show gorgeous fairy play and really makes you want to go out make a garden! Visit The Juise for more.

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Fairy Houses

I have featured these fairy houses before in – Recycled Get Crafty – but as things can get “lost” and as these are so adorable, I thought I would have to share them again!!  The Filthy Wizardry made these beautiful fairy houses from old plastic bottles. Genius.

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Fairy House

If you don’t quite have the energy for a whole Fairy Garden… and if you don’t have any fairy house shaped bottles to hand, how about a Fairy House made from nature’s materials?  The Craft Stew shares a download for this great looking fairy house made from sticks, bark and stones!

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Elf House

A slightly simpler version is this Elf House we made in the garden with Red Ted. We used sticks, stones and leaves. And the children brought our elves flowers and pine cones and visited them every day…

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Stone Houses

These little stone houses from Thinly Spread have been on my “To do” list every since I first saw them. I think they are simply wonderful. I am torn between waiting for the children to be older, so they can make them with me, and making a set for them now!?

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Moss Garden 

I know we have had terrarium on Red Ted Art already – but ours featured dinosaurs – not a cute little gnome! Perfect play companion for fairies and eleves.  Love in The Suburbs shares their craft.

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Fairy Discovery Bottle

How cute is this Fairy Discover Bottle from Here Come the Girls? Totally adorable. Would make a great snowglobe too.

Tooth Fairy Boxes

Well.. if you can’t find those little fairies in the garden.. how about making some of your own? Here we have some little fairy tooth box to keep your tooth safe at night, made from old “Kinder Egg Surprise cases”. We love them.

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Pom Pom Tree Fairy

These are from website that I love and have featured many a time (and who has guested posted for Red Ted Art twice), so I am bound to love these pom pom fairies – most definitely quirky and different and fabulous – the Pom Pom Emporium does it again!

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Flower Babies

I ADORE these absolutely GORGEOUS little fairy babies – what is even cuter, is that Parenting With Wonder, made these flower babies “secretly” and hid them in the garden for her children to find. How lovely is that? I am telling you, this is soooo on my to do list. Adorable. Go and check out all the other cute little babies.

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Pine Cone Babies

We made our own little “babies” out of pine cones to hang in the Christmas tree… but they also double up as great little pinecone fairy babies. Easy to make and fun to play with.

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Flower Fairies

Make your own flower fairies from plastic flowers and pipecleaners – Tuffet Blog shares her cute how to. And she made what seems like hundreds of these. Too cute!
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Maths Gnomes

Ok, so these are “available for purchase” and the link is not a how to but an Etsy Shop, but I think these gnomes are adorable and I “need” them here on the round up, as I think I could make something similar. Great inspiration. So cute.

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Acorn Fairies

Red Ted currently adores clothes pegs.. and I know that when he sees these clothes peg fairies, he will want to make some too. Aren’t they cute?  These are from Plaid Kids Crafts.

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Nature Gnomes

These are such cute little gnomes from That Artist Woman‘s website – I love all sorts of stick crafts and this one is just perfect for our elfish celebrations. Ahem. Ok, so they are gnomes, but we shan’t me gnomist, right?

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Felt Gnomes

Another great tutorial from Wee Folk Art – felt gnomes. I think they are simply gorgeous and make for great “waldorf” like  play.

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Knitted Moss Gnomes

A reason to learn how to knit! Or to get back to knitting after some absence… I am in the middle of knitting a scarf for Pip Squeak, but I think I may have to take a little detour and make some of these fantastically cute gnomes. Mother Rythm shares this fantastic pattern.

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Witches and Fairies

And from the great Playing By The Book herself -more adorable fairies and these are made by her girls. I love them. Remember that you will alwyas find the the most wonderful books to go with her crafts – so go and check out this lovely post.

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Fairy Drawing Keepsake

I love love love this idea of stitching your child’s drawing onto fabric to create a keepsake – be it a pillow case, tea towel, hanky or apron. Lovely. Plus2Point4 shares her lovely craft. I know I will be doing some of these with my children’s drawings.

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Toad Stools

Well.. all fairies need somewhere to sit! And Sun Hats and Wellieboots knows all about fairies and what they like. So they made their own little toadstools for them to perch on. Simple!

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Fairy Loom

I love this idea of a fairy loom over at Paint Cut Paste - it is a magical loom that serves as a “safe storage place” for all those pretty things you collect from nature on your walks – leaves, sticks, feathers – you name it – and as the seasons change, your loom changes with you. Very sweet.

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Woodland People

Alternatively, take your woodland finds of leaves and barks and make a little collage – creating your own mysterious beings from the nature – we made woodland people.

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Ready to Wear Flower Girls

Or how about these gorgeous gorgeous “ready to wear” flower fairies – you can download a free printable of the fairy.. and then you are encouraged to go off, find some flowers, press them and dress that fairy! This gorgeous ideas if from Artful Adventures.

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Flower Tiara

Time to play fairy dress up! And well.. every little fairy *needs* a flower tiara, surely?! This Is Me Inspired shares these very cute felt flower tiaras!

Floral Headress

Another cute floral headdress – this time from tissue paper by the Domestic Goddesque. So cute and pretty and a quick make!

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Elf Hats

For those less into flowery head gear, we have the cutests and simplest little elf hat to inspired you. Mummy Mummy Mum and her kids got crafty!

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Doll’s Fairy Wand

Don’t forget that your dolls love to play “fairies” too – or in fact you may have a fairy doll that you don’t know about and all she needs is her wand to bring her to life! Never fear – Me and My Shadow solve the problem with this cute dolls’ wand!

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Fairy Butterfly Wings

Or how about some ADORABLE butterfly wings? I love love love these from Fun in the Making - all from recycled materials!

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Pine Cone Wand

Once you have your tiaras ready.. you will need a wand! How lovely is this easy peasy pine cone wand – so pretty and ready for some fairy magic!  Eclectic Chica shares her idea.

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Nature Wand

Or how about this lovely nature wand that Sun Hats and Wellieboots made?  So cute!

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Fairy Ribbon Ring

If you don’t fancy a wand, you may like a fairy ribbon ring? So simple and so perfect for a whimsical dance in the garden.  Wee Folk Art shares the activity.

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Fairy Wands

And if all this crafting has made you hungry, try some fairy wands biscuits. Aren’t they adorable? Another craft recipe from Here Come the Girls!

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So. I do hope you found some fairy craft inspiration – be it midsummer celebrations or a fairy party that you are planning or just having fun with your children. Don’t forget to stop by at Play by The Book and check out Fairy and Elves book too.

Now, this is a very special handprint craft letter – the letter E for Elephant! Why, is this so special, I hear you ask? Well.. I saw the gorgeous Cheshire Mum do this exact same handprint elephant a few weeks ago and it was this handprint that may be think “of course, my kids would LOVE this”… and the Handprint Alphabet Series for preschoolers was born! Thank you Claire for the inspiration. This one is for you!

The handprint elephant is very cute indeed! It helps to show your child and example of another elephant (e.g. show your kids this post or Cheshire Mum‘s) and then they can see that you have a trunk and four legs created from your hand print… so to make … you need to paint the whole hand:

Today both kids decided that it tickled.

But in a nice way.

Once dried they decorated with our favourite googly eyes.

Red Ted was able to and keen to add the lines and ear himself!

Here are Pip Squeaks. I added the lines for her. You can see on the trunks, that she found it harder not to wobble her hands. But that is ok, I still think they are very cute!

Checkout previous weeks’:

 Handprint Art A,  Handprint Art B,  Handprint Art C, Handprint D

The kids and I love Card Making. As I have a rather pragmatic streak, I find that making cards for relatives and friends is a great way to have a creative session with the children AND to have a good “use” for the resulting craft. We do keep a lot of artwork, but we can’t keep everything. So this is a great way to make someone smile, as well as getting crafty! We usually have to make at least one extra card to keep for us!  And Red Ted usually insists on posting it to himself too! Luckily he gets a lot of “regular” mail from Granny too!

Here is an eclectic mix of card making ideas for you!

You will find, that as the list progresses you will see that the cards get simpler and simpler.  The list is in “reverse chronological order”. We first started card making when Red Ted was little over 2yrs old – i.e. card Nr 20 is one of the first cards that Red Ted and I made.

You can make your cards easier or simple adampting to your child’s age.

I think our favourites have been the Sunflower Cards, the Potato Print City Scape and the Robot cards! But why not see for yourself?

Which is your favourite?

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1. Flower Cards

2. Fingerprint Chicks

3. Valentines/ Mother’s Day Card

4. Christmas Cards

5. Recycled Magazine Cards

6. Decoration & Card in One

7. Sunflower Fingerprint Cards

8.  Potato Print Cards

9. Sand Art Cards

10. Robot Cards

11. Ink Stamp Printing

12. Valentines Cards

13. Thank You Cards (from Wrapping Paper)

14. Gingerbread house

15. Santa Stars

16. Pirate Cards

17. Monster Cards

18. Easy Teddy Card

19. Kids Art

20. Pop Up Card

and finally… How To Make a Simple Paper Envelope (no gluing or cutting!)

Have fun.

Make someone smile.

Send your Homemade Greeting Card!!

Well.. you know I am on a Doll’s House crafts frenzy this year… you will found all the Doll’s House Crafts here, including the house itself and our Shell Sink… well.. we have had a bit of a FIMO crafting frenzy, after the lovely Craft Merrily and we wanted to make different things from it. If you want to learn more about Polymer Clay or get more crafty FIMO ideas, do check out their website! So FINALLY we got round to making some FIMO goodies. See our Kids Craft post for more!

(Check out all our other Doll’s House Crafts)

I guess this isn’t much of a how to.. as I don’t have step by step pictures (your fingers get all mucky from the FIMO)… but I will describe what I did as best I can!

Let’s start with

The Cake & Donuts:

1) Make chubby cylinder out of the brown. With a pencil or the back of a paint brush poke for holes for the candles. Make 4 candles, by rolling a long sausage out of red and cutting 1cm pieces off. Reshape a little and “insert” into the holes you made. Make little yellow balls for the fire – squeezing the top into a flame shape. Press onto candle gently. Then make lots of little dots to form smarties! (I have had to super 1 candle and one flame back on already… but overall, it is keeping very well and it is there to be played with!(

2) Donuts. Make balls. Flatten and poke a hole through with your pencil or back of paint brush. For the icing. I made thin round discs (a ball squash flat). Poke a hole and placed on top of the donut. Then smoothed down the edges with my fingers.

Cupcakes, Strawberries, Cups & Plates

3) To make FIMO cupcakes, from the base first: – make a little cylinder again (basically, shape a ball and then squash the top and bottom a little). With a knife or similar score some lines down the side to make the cupcake case. The purple icing – is a long thing FIMO “sausage”, curled up and placed on top of the cupcake base. Then add a small red ball as a cherry on top. For the FIMO Smartie Cupcake – form a brown ball, cut in half (it will loose it’s shape a little) and place on top of the cupcake base – reshape. Then add the smarties – tiny balls of colour!

4) For the FIMO strawberries – I fromed small balls. Pinched them into a strawberry shapped. Poked holes in the strawberry with a pencil to represent seeds and topped with a tiny bit of green.

5) For the plates I rolled equal sized balls, flattened them and then pressed a lid into the centre to give it that plate shape.

6) The FIMO cups where super fiddly. I ran out of patience after 3. I made a ball, formed it around the bottom of a pencil, gently pulled it off (not easy). Made a sausage and cut a piece off for the handle. Which I then pressed on with the front end of a pencil to secure.

7) Grapes: lots of little balls stuck together in a cone shape. Then add a little bit of brown and/ or green for the stem and a leaf!

Then back everything in the oven as per instructions (approx 120C for the 30min). PLAY!

And play

And play

And play

A VERY happy girl!

Finally, invite Mouse to your Doll’s House Tea Party! And party the day away!

(Check out all our other Doll’s House Crafts)

Well… it really is about time that we a did a “How to make snowglobes” post, don’t you think? Every kids craft site worth its salt *needs* a snowglobe diy of sorts. A homemade snowglobe is a childhood must! And finally we have made some. The best thing about your snowglobe, is that you get the chance to “use up” some of those plastic figurines that you may have lying around from Kinder Surprises or party bags… and if you don’t you could “whip” up some FIMO and make your own (if you want more  FIMO making ideas check out my friend’s great website! Including FIMO figurine snowglobes!). I have also seen some cool LEGO snowglobes knocking about, so if your children can part with a bit of old LEGO, they do look great too. We did a mixture of “plastic figurine” and FIMO snowglobe. But in essence it is totally your call – how easy or complicated you make it! Here are our froggy and our solar system globes:

Materials: Old jars – personally I think the smaller the better, as then you are not left with “lots of watery space above your figurine”, a plastic figurine or FIMO, glycerine (the secret ingredient), glitter (apparently PVC glitter is better and I got mine from Zing Zing Tree – it is gorgeous), water, glue (we used a hot glue gun, but superglue should work too). Fishing wire for the planets and a plastic ring we found to suspend them from.

Note: Glycerine is not strictly speaking necessary, but apparently it makes the glitter more floaty. Mmmh.

Note 2: Now here is the interesting bit.. (I think). Though we really enjoyed the PROCESS of making the Solar System Snowglobe – i.e. Red Ted loved helping make all the different planets and it really got him talking about planets and solar systems, the Froggy snowglobe was just so quick and easy, that if I were to recommend one over the other, I would always say “Froggy”! The Solar System one, was such a terrible fiddle and even now, the planets still get a little tangled up, that the end result is no where near as satisfying as the frog one……. but then Red Ted did love learning about planets (it helped that we also made a Paper Mache Solar System – so we were in total space mode). Tricky!!!

1) Decide on what you would like to put in your snowglobe. Red Ted “allowed” me to use a plastic frog that came out a Kinder Egg…. I decided the frog would look better “elevated”, so we made  simple leaf for it to sit on. We have also had a great few FIMO  weeks here in Red Ted HQ and Red Ted has become an expert in ball rolling so we decided on a Solar System! Of course it is not to scale. Before baking the FIMO we poked holes into the balls, so that we could later glue some fishing wire in.

2) Superglue in your fishing wire and tie your planets to your plastic ring – this could be anything – ours came out of a pickled chillies jar! But you could cut a disc out a plastic lid or maybe even use  large button??? At this point, the craft actually looks pretty cool (we think).. suspended in the jar… well.. it’s fun, but not as pretty as the above!

3) Glue your solar system to the bottom of the jar (this was SOOOOO fiddly – and I used slow setting “hot glue” – if we made this again, I would suspend it from the LID of the jar. I couldn’t do it this time, as I made the fishing wires to short and all the planets would have been bunched up under the lid). The froggy on the other hand as a quick 2min job. Glue, place, stick… (see much easier)

4) Fill your jar with water and add glitter – maybe 1-2 teaspoons. Less is more! Believe me!!! We used white and blue glitter in the frog snowglobe and golden and star glitter in the solar system snowglobe.

5) Replace your lid. Screw just firmly. You may wish to glue it if you worry your kids will open it!

Tada:

What do you think? Fancy making a snowglobe yourself?

Join the Kids Get Crafty linky party! Each week Creative with Kids and Red Ted Art host this kids craft linky, bringing you more readers and more ideas to browse! Disclaimer: by joining the Kids Get Crafty linky – you give us permission to highlight any projects on Red Ted Art and Creative with Kids or share your craft ideas on Pintrest – we will always link to your site! If you have been crafty with your kid’s be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, please link up!

Remember NEXT week.. we have a Kids Get Arty link up! So come back with your artwork or see you in a fortnight!

Have you made a snowglobe before? Come link it up!! I would love to see it!

And the Handprint Crafts continue with D for Dinosaur – I am really loving seeing quite how much both the children enjoy doing these, Red Ted always jumps up with pleasure when I say “shall we do some more Handprint Letters”? Check out the rest of our Handprint Alphabet… A, B and C already there!

This week  I asked again – what “Ds do we know”? What handprint craft would you like to make? Dog, Dragon, Duck (we almost made a duck) and then suddenly there were excited “Dinosaur” cries. Mummy, let’s do a DINOSAUR Handprint. So we did! I think they turned out lovely. However, I am sure you can make them look “more dinosaury – with a bigger head and more spikes – but I am trying very hard not to interfere with where the kids want to place things. So. Here we go:

To make our Handprint Dinosaur, you only add paint to the palm, thumb and little finger. One will be the tail and the other the head!

Once it dried, the children added funky foam spikes, googly eyes and legs!

Red Ted chose orange spikes and drew four neat legs

Red Ted’s second picture. We seem to always make “a double and a single” picture. One for the kitchen/ family room and one for his bedroom! Later we write the words and letters on the pictures too!

I do like Pip Squeak’s purple spikes and enormous legs!

I think the dinosaur on the right is very fast! It has 5 legs.. maybe it took one from the dinosaur on the left?!

Anyway. These are our handprint art for the week… next is E for …..

Checkout previous weeks’:

 Handprint Art A,  Handprint Art B,  Handprint Art C

Oh my, this “”How To make a No Sew Alice Band” – must be my quickest and craftiest cheat EVER! The idea came from my Mother in Law, apparently she had them as a child. I added some no sew craftiest by whipping out the stapler and hey presto – bright colourful Alice Bands….. I made this in literally less than 5 minutes (I think finding the stapler took longer). And kept it simple – bright red. But of course you could take the this “basic idea” and decorate your Alice Band with flowers or butterflies or stripes. Your call!

Materials: A strip of felt, some elastic, stapler

(I think this would look nicely with fabric too – just use some bonda web and iron down the sides, to get a nice neat edge)

1) Cut a strip of felt the desired width. Check for size on your or your child’s head. It should go all the way round, minues about 2 inches.

2) Cut a strip of elastic (about 1.5inchs – i.e. slightly shorted than the remaining space). I cut two, as my elastic was so thin, but one thicker one should do too. Staple in place. Job done. Make 100s…. Then bribe your child to wear it!

I do use hair slides on the side to help keep in place – my little one is very active! But 4 weeks later and we still use 3 of these regularly!  I suspect they won’t last for ever, but you can always make more and new ones to match latest outfits and preferences!

Happy Alice Band making!

A quick post to share our cookies that we made yesterday.. Chocolate and Orange Biscuits – they are yum yum yum and QUICK to make! Mmmmh.

Recipe:

• 250g Plain Flour
• 125g Sugar
• 125g Butter (helps if it is soft)
• Tsp of Baking Powder
• 1 Egg
• 2 Tblsp of Cocoa Powder

Icing:

• Icing sugar
• Freshly squeezed orange juice or flavouring/ little water
• Sprinkles

Preheat the oven to 180C – bake for 20-30 minutes – until firm.

1) Mix all your cookie ingredients together and knead to a smooth dough

2) Roll out and cut your shapes (Pip Squeak did the cutting, but also a lot of dough eating)

3) Bake

4) Once cooled, mix the icing sugar with the juice, to make  a smooth mixture – ours was a little runny, but that was fine!

5) Top with (lots) of sprinkles

Let set and enjoy!

What do you like baking with the kids?