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Cute & Easy Crafts for Kids

Kids Get Crafty – Sand Art & Crafts (Contact Paper Card Making)

Hello! Time for some great Summer Preschool Crafts! The Uk has been blessed with some beautiful weather over the Easter break. So like many, we headed down to our favourite beach on the South Coast! It is always a wonderful visit, as we go with friends that we don’t see so often. And it is wonderful to see the children play and have fun together… of course it is also an opportunity to collect stones and shells! And this time we also took some sand home!

There are many ways to be art and crafty with sand.. and we will be experimenting over the coming weeks (unless the bucket gets knocked over).

This is also going to be our April Picture in our Calendar Project – here is the original post!

First our book:

Sharing a Shell Sharing a Shell, by Julia Donaldson (US/ UK (affiliate links))

Julia Donaldson is one of the UK’s leading contemporary children’s authors. We love her books and she is well known for The Gruffalo and Stickman. They certainly are some our favourites. Here is a book we picked up at the Supermarket once and is probably a little less well known.. It is the story of a little crab in a rock pool off to find a home. He finds a shell and then makes friends with whom he shares the shell. Together they are a strong team and all is well. However they start getting bigger and the shell gets a little tight. They fall out and go their separate ways… only to find that living together is best and safest. They learn this lesson and come together again and live happily ever after. A story of “sharing” and of “friendship”, as well as recognising each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Written in the “classic” Julia Donaldson’s rhyme and with some lovely textured touchy feely bits (perfect to go with our tactile sand craft!).

The Craft

Our first craft with sand is with contact paper – I have seen many wonderful blogs using contact paper with the little ones – it is such a great craft for the under 2s as there is no “getting messy with glue” or “sticky shapes sticking to your fingers”. It is also fabulous for SAND!

So.. we have several “thank you cards” that we “owe”, so we decided to make some cards.

Materials: Foam for fish (but you can use coloured card or anything lying around), contact paper, sand, card, masking tape

Time: the craft itself is quick, but the “set time” (cutting fish, contact paper), takes longer. Give yourself a leisurely 45min – an hour

1) Cut out some “under the sea” creatures, we did lots of fish, some jelly fish and some starfish. Older children who can “assemble” a picture better, could add some seaweed and rocks and shells

2) Stick some contact paper, sticky side up, on the table with masking tape – the masking tape also makes for a “nice clean board”.

3) Stick your shapes (nice and hard) and then add your sand and spread it nicely

4) Remove all masking tape and stick on your final card. Add a board if you like (Red Ted insisted!)

Send to Friends and Family!

More great Summer Preschool Crafts here!

Comments

  10. Red Ted Art says

    Ah no idea what is called in the UK (I borrowed the US term), but it is that sticky clear plastic, that you use to bind books and exercise books. WHSmith WILL have some!

    Reply

  15. Red Ted Art says

    I’d say yes – but you can “contain it” (I decided to let them play) and it is DEFINITELY not as bad as glitter mess!! Was v easy to clean up!

    Go for it!

    Reply

  17. Laura@art4littlehands says

    What a fun idea. We did something similar once with a dollar store sand kit. It was fun, but I found we couldn’t keep it because the sand kept falling off. Did you put more contact paper over the top of your artwork? I think I will have to try this again. I bet it would work well with colored sugar too!

    Reply

    • Red Ted Art says

      No, I just made sure that I left a border, so you could stick it onto the paper (that is where the masking tape comes into it). And that the kids “pressed down hard” (though they didn’t need to press much). The “boarder” helps secure any places if doesn’t stick well. But in principle – just one sheet of contact paper with sand from the beach!

      Reply

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    Reply

  31. cardmaking says

    The children will surely love this and the book looks interesting. This can be enjoyed by the children especially this summer. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

    Reply

  32. Peg says

    We enjoyed doing this one! Thanks for the idea. Our sand didn’t stick very but after we stuck it to the board it was even more fun because it moved behind the contact paper. Maybe I will try corn meal instead next time though so my toddler can do it without a sand snack 😉

    Reply

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