We started by making a yes and a maybe list of all the things she wanted to make but after ending up with 10 things on the yes list we had to a bit more narrowing down!
So here are the 3 things we narrowed it down to....
First we started of with blinging up her shoes! This was the one she was most excited about and it required a bit of thinking on my part as we would need to use some strong glue to do it. I had a choice between using super glue or hot glue and with young children in the mix I wasn't keen on using either! however i settled on the hot glue as it dries much quicker and they had less chance of gluing their fingers together.
I pulled out all the beads and let them pick which they wanted to use. Rosa's big sister came up with the idea of putting her name on them and then came up with a design around the name that Rosa was very happy with. We started by writing on the letters with a marker pen. The way we worked the gluing is that I would put a dab of glue on the shoe and then my cousins took it in turn to place on the beads using tweezers so that their hands didn't touch the glue and then we would press them down to make sure they were stuck on properly.
The girls were over the moon with these shoes and Rosa can't wait to were them to her street dancing class in the new year
Then we got started on project number two. This project Rosa had chosen to make it as a present for her Daddy. In the craft book she had there was a picture of a very girly looking material pin board and as I started telling her about all the material I had in my house she screamed when I mentioned tartan and said that she wanted to make a tartan one for her Dad because he's Scottish (they all live in England)
This was another project that was difficult to do with young kids as it requires the use of a staple gun. My cousin Matthew as just started high school and is enjoying his wood work classes etc so this seemed like the perfect project for him to take lead on.
We lay down a piece of material that was larger than the pin board on a table, and then a piece of wadding that was the same size as the board, finally putting the pin board on top. I then pulled the material over to the back and held that in place while Matthew pressed down on the staple gun. He was a little bit shaky with it so I held the staple gun in place for him and checked there was no fingers in the way before letting him know it was safe to press down.
Once we had finished with the material, Rosa picked which ribbon she wanted to use and Matthew chose how to lay it down on the board before we stapled that on as well. As an extra touch, all the kids added a special note on the pin board!
After all this crafting the kids were getting tired so we took a little time out and watched a film but this also gave us some time to work on the final project of the day which was friendship bracelets. This was a really simple project to do while sitting on the couch. We just took some embroidery thread in Christmas colours and plated them. Only took 5 minutes but the kids loved them
So I hope this gives you a few ideas for crafts you can do with Children but also the main thing I learned was that kids really love picking their own crafts to do and are so proud with the results when they finish them! Get a list of ideas together that you feel comfortable making and then let your kids pick which of those they would like to do!
I'll be back xx
