Salaric

I made this Christmas hat with my two year old for her Christmas party at nursery. It took two paper doilys, a pair of scissors, PVA craft glue, Christmas metallic shapes, one small white and silver pom pom and some clothes pegs.

I started by cutting a hole in the centre of one doily and then cutting out most of the solid white bit of the doily, so that it only left a 1-2mm thickness of white next to the lacy edging.

The second doily I cut a line into the centre of, and then slid one side of the cut over the other to create a cone shape. I then used PVA glue to fix the edges because it takes so long to dry that I had to use pegs to hold the shape until drying was completed.

Once dry, I cut through the lacy bit around the edge of the cone at about 1.5inch intervals; I then folded these flaps outwards.

I then put lots of glue onto the flaps and put the hat rim over the top and squidged it into place.

Once this was dry and I checked it still fitted onto my daughter’s head, I let her decorate it. I put a spiral of PVA white craft glue on the hat and gave her lots of Christmassy shapes like santa, cupids blowing trumpets, a bell and a deer. She even found a small silver and white pom pom, which she stuck on!

For the pom pom snowman I used PVA glue, two white pom poms (one slightly bigger than the other), two self-adhesive goggly eyes, two black pipe cleaners (one thin and one thick and extra fluffy), a piece of black foam sheet and some scissors.

First off I glued the two pom poms together to make the head and body of the snowman, then I cut a 5cm piece of the bigger fluffy-backed pipe cleaner off and wrapped it up into a tight coil to create a cylindrical shape. I then cut a circle out of the black foam and glued the spiral of pipe cleaner onto it to create a top hat. The foam circle obviously had to be slightly bigger that the pipe cleaner coil so that the hat had a brim.

I was initially going to have an orange foam carrot for the nose, but in fact I cut it out – a little orange isosceles triangle (two equally long sides and one short side – think: carrot) – and then rounded the corners off, but when I went to stick it on, it turned Mr Snowman into a chick. My two year old called it a quack-quack which I thought was conclusive evidence that the nose really wasn’t working and did indeed look far too much like a beak. So I scrapped the nose.

I then cut off about a cm of the thin black pipe cleaner and shaped it into a gentle curve which I stuck on as the snowman’s mouth. I, of course, was impatient and hadn’t waited for the glue to dry so managed to knock off the hat in sticking the mouth on!

I was trying to work out some easy Christmas craft things for my Scouts to make, having got hold of lots of pipe cleaners, coloured lolly sticks, and pom poms in assorted Christmas colours and sizes. I decided to make a pom pom Christmas tree.

First off I selected three green pom poms, each one slightly bigger than the last, some metallic/shiny pipe cleaners to be the tinsel and star on the top of the tree and selected christmas shapes – again metallic – and the sort you would find in table conffetti, a yellow lolly stick for the trunk and also to act as the strength in the structure. As this would be a project for children I used PVA glue.

I stuck the pom poms in size order onto the lolly stick, starting with the smallest right at the top of the stick, then the medium pom pom (making sure it also touched the small pom pom), then the large one. I put glue on the stick and between the pom poms. This gave the basic shape of the tree, complete with trunk.

Now you should definitely wait for the glue to completely dry before moving onto the next stage but I got impatient and so started attaching the pipe cleaners as tinsel, resulting in the pom poms sliding around in the glue. I got round this by using the pipe cleaners to ‘hug’ the pom pom to the stick. This would have been necessary anyway in order to get the pipe cleaners to sit in a realistic way on the tree.

I also cut the pipe cleaners in half to get a manageable length of ‘tinsel’ for the tree. I fashioned one of the spare pieces of gold pipe cleaner into the star for the top of the tree by folding it into thirds (making sure there was a bit spare at one end) and then folding each of those thirds in half again. I then stretched it out into a star shape, making sure the folds were ‘sharp’, so that the star had proper points. I was aiming for a five-point star so I overlapped two of the sections and twisted them together to make a continuous shape. The spare bit came down as the piece to attach to the tree.

I then glued lots of the table confetti shapes on to the tree to be the baubles and decorations, including the silver snow flakes.

I then attatched the star but found that I should have stuck it onto the lolly stick behind the smallest green pom pom. Fortunately I had been impatient so the glue was still wet and I could still insert the star.

It is not the best thing I’ve ever produced but when thinking things up for the kids I try not to be too careful as a sort of test to see if they’ll be able to produce the same thing. I think it works as a Christmas tree and that others could probably produce a more sophisticated version, using the same materials and this simple idea.

One of my friends has a birthday that happens to fall exactly on Halloween the 31st of October. We could not make it to his birthday party so I made him this card instead.

I used one card blank and enverlope from The Works in Cheltenham and a set of coloured fine liners from WH Smiths.

I then drew on the card, first off the spooky writing – the HAPPY in red as it was supposed to be dripping blood and the BIRTHDAY in gloopy green writing. As you can see from the photos I did this all free hand and as a result had to break up the word birthday over two lines – I would advise that you measure out where you are going to put the letters before hand.

I then drew things in around the writing that I thought suitably halloween scary like the huanted castle upon a rocky jagged hill, the moon peaking out of the clouds and the silohett of the witch on her broom stick! Along the bottom of the card I drew a cualdren with fumes drifting up to form a skeleton – I wasn’t very happy with the skeleton and if I was to redo the card I would dig out the book Greys Anatomy so that I could copy the skeleton rather than trying to work it out as I drew it. There is also an eyeball complete with optive nerve trailing behind it. I also added a ghost in amoungst the writting and a amphora of poison. Anywhere else on the card that I thought needed something I added little flying bats!

I then coloured it all in – like the posion and the castle but I left the writing uncoloured as i felt it would look better.

This pipe cleaner spider was really easy to make – I used a black pompom, four black fluffy pipe cleaners, two medium goggly eyes and a pair of scissors.

I simply cut each pipe cleaner in half and then twisted them around the black pompom which became the spiders body – the pipe cleaners its eight legs. I then stuck on the eyes which where self adhesive.

This green stick monster or alien depending on what it is doing was deseptively easy to make. I used one medium green pom pom, one green lolly stick, one large goggly eye, two green matalic leaf sequines, one white foam shape, a pair of scissors and white PVA craft glue.

I started off by cutting a slit into the green pompom squeezing in some glue and sticking the green lolly stick into the glue filled whole. I then squeeshed the slit closed around the lolly stick and waited for the glue to dry.

I then stuck on the large goggly eye.

I then cut two slits in the green pompom either side of the eye. I then squeezed glue into the slites and poked the wide rounded ends of the green leaf sequines into the wholes as ears.

Whilst the ears were drying I took the white foam sheet and cut out a zigzag line to make the teeth – I would suggest that you draw on the shape you want before cutting though I didn’t. I then glued the teeth in place.

I got two halloween monster making kits from The Works in Stroud for my Scouts to use. The kit came with moulds of pumkin headed monsters, frankienstien monsters, mummys, vampires and vampire bats. The moulds where in two halves that you had to press together however they where made out of flimsy plastic that I associate with food packaging. Some of them didnt click together properlly and some of them even came out of the box slightly crushed – not a good start.

Still the kids mixed up the plaster in the little grey pouring cups provided in the kit and followed the instructions, but the stuff would not pour into the moulds as the feeder channel of the mould was far too small and on some of the monsters had a nasty sloping bit just before the main shape of the monster was reached. In frustration some of the children tried adding more water but by this point it was starting to dry and had hard lumps in it. Others opened the moulds and sqidged the plaster in having added more powder to it to make it stiffer. They banged the moulds on the table to dislodge the air bubbles but as some of the mould – the mummy in particular had bubbles the size of whole arms that wouldn’t shift the whole thing was a bit of a disastor.

I took the moulds home as you are supposed to remove the monsters from the mould after an hour to let them dry properly. Those we tried to open where just gloopy mess and those that I left once dry just shattered upon open the moulds or if they remained whole they where shapeless blobs.

I thought that the kid was just too hard for the kids and that they must have done something wronge with following the instruction and as I have a huge tub of plaster of paris that we got from Hindles I thought I’d make them a set of the little statues which they could then paint.

However – me and my husband ran into the exact same problems as the kids and our attempt was only slightly better in that we hit the tub we where mixing the plaster in on the workbench to get rid of bubbles before pouring.

But fundimentaly you could not pour the plaster into the moulds as it was too thick and the moulds where badly constructed.

I would say this is the worst craft disastor I’ve ever had and to avoid these kids – I’ve bought other stuff like the big box of craft from the Works and they have been fantastic value for money but this kid definatly isn’t!

I picked up this big box of spooky craft in The Works – a discount book shop chain I have rescently discovered. I was not expecting it to be that good as a previous kit I had got from them had been a bit of a flop when I got my scouts to use it but I was pleasantly suprised by what I found upon opening it!

The pipe cleaners ranged in sizes and where strippy and glittery as where the pompom balls and foam shapes and goggly eyes. The goggly eyes also had sticky backs on them which was a huge bonus. There where also sheets of crepe paper in appropriate halloween colours namely – red, black, green, purple and yellow. There where coloured lolly sticks in black, yellow and green and four blank cards in purple, black, yellow and white, a bag of foam shapes and PVA craft glue. There were also some orange, green, black and purple metallic sequines of various types and sizes.

Having been stung by craft kits before I opened one of the kits and had a bit of a play. Happy that the kids would be able to get something good out of this I took them in for the Scouts Halloween party.

And here is what some of the kids produced:

This flying cyclops was made by taking a medium sized red pompom and sticking a large goggly eye on it, the kid then took a large orange leaf shape from the foam shapes and cut out the wings which he simply glued on the top to great effect!

for this cute skull the kid used one medium sized white pompom, one large goggly eye and one medium goggly eye, and red and white fluffy pipe pipe cleaners. First off they stuck the eyes on – the fact they are different sizes worked very well to give it a monsterous appearance. The eyes where slef adhesive so no glue was needed. He then twisted a red and white pipe cleaner together and wraped these around the pompom so that the wire in the pipe cleaner helped the skull retain its shape and the red was supposed to represent blood.

For this ghost the Scout used one washed out yogurt pot, one large white pompom, one white fluffy pipe cleaner, two googly eyes, PVA glue and a sheet of white waxy paper that I got from some packaging.

He started by covering the yogurt pot with glue and squidging the paper onto it, he then stuck the pompom on the top, stuck the eyes on and wrapped the pipe cleaner round the middle to make arms – I thought this was quiet effective.

For this spider they used one medium black pompom, two medium goggly eyes and two green and two black stripy pipe cleaners. They simply stuck on the eyes to the pompom and then twisted the pipe cleaners around the pompom to make the legs – I didn’t have the heart to point out that spiders have twice as many legs but one of the other kids did at which point we decided it was obviously a mutant!

This cute little creator is apparently a frog bat highbred according to the Scout who made it! He used one medium sized black pompom, two small googly eyes, PVA glue and two green foam teaar drops.

He glued the two green tear drops together so that the large round parts of each where over lapping this made what is either the wings or legs – he hadnt decided which they where. He then glued the pompom on to the green sheets again at the round end and then added the eyes.

They all had great fun with this kit and there was so much in it that it helped out with their Chirstmas craft projects too 🙂

To make this pumkin I used one large orange pompom, a rectangle of black foam sheeting, a small green pompom, a pair of scissors and white PVA craft glue.

I squashed the large orange pompom so that it became more of a squart cylindrical shape than a sphere (can of tuna shaped instead of ball shaped).

I cut out two roughly equilaterial triangles from the black foam for the eyes with the remianing black foam sheet I cut out the mouth – this took a bit of thinking about as you have to cut away the teeth you want as they will be represented by the orange of the pompom. I then glued the eyes and mouth onto the orange pompom.

I then stuck the small green pompom on the top as the pumkins stalk – this was again simple but effective.

For this bat I used, a pair of scissors, white PVA craft glue, one small-ish black pompom about 1cm in diameter, two small googly eyes and one leaf shaped black foam shape.

I cut the shape for the wings out of the leaf shaped bit of black foam sheeting – I would recomend drawing out the shapes first – what I did however is I thought – umberella – sounds strange I know but it got me the correct shape. I cut out each wing seperatly then made a slite either side of the black pompom with the scissors – I did discover that the saftey scissors are a bit useless as this and resorted to using the small pair of scissors on my swiss army pen knife.

I then squidged in some glue into the slites and pushed a wing into each – I squeezed the whole closed over the end of the wing and waited a bit before letting go.

I then left it to stand so the glue could dry. Whilst it was drying I gingerly added the eyes. I think this would have been better if I’d used a needle and some black cotton and attatched a thread to it so that it could hang up – still this was incredibly simple and i think an easy kids project – my Scout group loved the bat.