Red Ted Art - Make crafting with kids easy & fun

Cute & Easy Crafts for Kids

  • Home
  • START HERE
  • Preschool Crafts
  • Easy Kids Crafts
  • Paper Crafts
  • Free Printables
  • About
  • Join Our Newsletter
  • Cookies, Privacy Policies & Disclosure

Kids’ Art Calendar: Gifts That Kids Can Make

November 24, 2013

Mmmh now HERE is a blast from the past and makes for a GREAT gift for kids to make for loved ones. My mother scanned in an old present I had made her in 1981: it was an “art calendar” for the following year (1982). So I would have been 5-6yrs old (i.e. Red Ted’s age) when I did this. What I love about this calendar is a) that my mother still has it all these years later (over 30 years! crikey!) AND that I can actually remember doing some of these pictures. They were instantly familiar to me. And though my early childhood memory is poor, clearly this stuck out as an activity I enjoyed making. I am now inspired to recreate all the techniques used with my children!

Kids Art Calendar - Gifts That Kids Can Make - Calling all Primary School Teachers: My mother scanned and sent me THIS from the 80s.... throughout the year our teacher worked with us on monthly themes... she saved all our work and around Christmas time the following year, she helped us stick all our work together for a calendar to use the next year. I am amazed and yet not THAT amazed that 34 years later my mother still has it!!!! I was 6 at the time, but still remember making (parts) of it!

I believe (!) that we did all of these these pictures throughout the year and that the teacher kept hold of them and helped us put it all together at Christmas time. We probably did 3-4 pictures in one go then.

If you would like to make one like this… you just need to download and print off one of the many free calendars available online.. such as here or here. Make sure you print off in a size that suits you – either A5 to fit across the bottom of an A4 sheet of paper, or A4 and to fit on A3 etc.

Then get arty with the children, or go through the “stash” from school or nursery. Try and make the pictures relevant/ seasonal where you can. Here is more on mine:

Januar-1982January – three kings picture.

Drawing on paper and then cut out and stuck on plain blue paper to highlight. Added details: gold string and shiny paper hole punched for details.

Februar

February

Winter Snowman Scene – the children draw a simple scene in pencil first. Then go over it with WHITE crayon. Finally, use blue water colour to go over the top.

Marz-1982March

Pattern Making with Circles – how I LOVED this activity as a child. I did this over and over again through my whole childhood. Draw circles overlapping (use a compass or a glass as a stencil) and then colour them in. Loved!

April-1092April

Easter Egg – on paper and paint. Then cut out and stuck on a play background. I am guessing the teacher helped us get the “curvature” right on the lines, to give it that curved effect.

Mai-1982

May

Ladiy birds. ย I think (!) this was red paper on green paper + a black pen. Clearly some cutting practice going on here as lots of red circles cut out to make the ladybirds.

Juni-1982June

Paint on paper (I believe) and explosion of colour to represent spring flowers? I have a feeling that this was painting in conjunction to reading ย Frederick.

Juli-1982July

A seaside scene – maybe an early Summer holiday? Pencil, crayon and watercolour resist again. Lovely.

August-1982August

Fruit – felt tips – guessing that this was to represent all the fruit growing in the Summer season.

September-1982

September

Ship and train – felt tip pen. Not sure what this has to do with September, but I like it!

Oktober-1982

October

Fireworks – pencil, crayons and watercolour (again). I am sure this should have been a November picture for the British Guy Fawkes Night!

November-1982November

Dragons? Felt tip on Paper.. ahem, again, no idea what this picture is about! Ha.

Dezember-1982Christmas

Finally – we have some Christmas stars, cut and folded from special paper foil that is popular for crafting in Germany. Now, ย I SO have to make these with the kids.

Oh.. and then add a front cover:

Maggie-1982-Calendar-1

I hope you liked ahem, my 5year old’s calendar. It certainly was a blast from the past, but I think that a Kids’ Art Calendar is a wonderful Gift That Kids Can Make. And as this calendar shows, is certainly something that will be treasured over the years to come!

«
»

Filed Under: Daily Creativity, Gifts That Kids Can Make, Kids Craft 12 Comments

Comments

  1. Jeanette Nyberg says

    November 24, 2013 at 7:59 pm

    This is brilliant! I love looking at kids’ artwork so much, and these ideas are wonderful. You must be thrilled she kept your calendar- I have to admit, at first I was wondering why your calendar forgot to add the ‘y’ on the end of January and February, and then it dawned on me that it wasn’t written in english. Oh, boy.

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 24, 2013 at 9:11 pm

      Ah yes, the little Austrian girl strikes again!! ๐Ÿ™‚ and yes, much better to find a home for 12 pieces of art, isn’t it?!!!

      Reply
  2. Michelle says

    November 24, 2013 at 8:01 pm

    I LOVE this idea! Better get started on it soon, it will make such a nice gift! I remember making calendars at school too, but we used to make one page calendars with all the dates at the bottom. I like the monthly one, we can get rid of, ahem, I mean use up 12 pictures from the kids pile!!

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 24, 2013 at 9:13 pm

      Yes, you still have plenty of time, but start sooner than later, so you can enjoy the process and not rush it! Glad you like it ๐Ÿ™‚

      Reply
  3. Johanna GGG says

    November 25, 2013 at 6:17 am

    this is so lovely – so lovely to see your artwork as a kid and so lovely that your mum kept it – love it

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 25, 2013 at 9:52 pm

      I was rather surprised by it too! Made me smile!

      Reply
  4. Autumn Moss Penaloza says

    November 25, 2013 at 8:18 pm

    Lovely lovely idea and post – thank you for this! I hope all of the kids art-loving Moms & Dads will check out Keepy.me for sharing & saving their kids art & moments into a memory timeline: http://www.keepy.me
    Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  5. JulieK says

    October 29, 2014 at 4:13 am

    I’m putting together a “process art” unit for my son, and I think it would be PERFECT to put the final pieces into a calendar like this!! LOVE IT TY!

    Reply
    • Red Ted Art says

      November 3, 2014 at 1:30 pm

      Awww wonderful!

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Creating gift tags from your child’s art | The Art of Simple says:
    December 18, 2013 at 5:01 am

    […] Turn their art into a beautiful calendar […]

    Reply
  2. Make Simple Christmas Gift Tags from Children's Art - simple as that says:
    November 2, 2014 at 8:39 pm

    […] Turn their art into a beautiful calendar […]

    Reply
  3. Discover 7 New Adorable Ways to Display Kid's Art! says:
    June 13, 2018 at 12:30 pm

    […] Another perfect way to preserve all that art? Make it into a kid’s art calendar. Another genius idea from Red Ted Art. What a fun gift this would be to give to parents or […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

Recipe Rating




Welcome!

Welcome

Hello! I am Maggy and I love all things crafty and sharing my craft ideas and how tos.

The aim of this site is to provide easy, do-able and fun crafts for all ages.

Categories

Archives

Crafty Blogs

Copyright © 2021 ยท Website Design By Jumping Jax Designs