Salaric

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.

I made Boris the blue and yellow spider back when I was a young leader at my Guide Troop. I was given lots of fuzzy pom-pom type balls in various colours and sizes, several sheets of coloured felt, some pre-cut felt shapes, scissors, and lots and lots of sticky glue – PVA or white craft glue. Then they left me to it with about ten girls.

I chose a pre-cut piece of yellow felt that I thought was a suitable shape for the legs, and then glued a 5 cm blue fluffy ball onto it as Boris’s body. I found a 5 mm beige ball which I stuck on for the nose, and then drew some eyes in pencil on some paper that I cut out and glued on. I also had to make eyes for all the guides!

I also cut out a curved piece of yellow felt for a mouth and stuck that on – this was lots of fun and very easy to do. Boris is over ten years old now, hence he looks a bit battered, especially as he came to university with me as a homework aid!

The only thing I would do differently is that I would also get lots of goggly eyes to stick on, as that would be so much easier than having to draw them and cut the tiny fiddly shapes out.

Boris is always a favourite at halloween parties too. 🙂 I feel that it would be a good craft activity to do with children for halloween, as the technique could be used to make cats, bats and pumpkins!

My fathers’ day present to my dad was a garden dragon ornament, depicting a dragon emerging from an egg, and it’s made out of a cement/concrete type material, created to look like stone. My dad appeared to be chuffed with this dragon and proceeded to paint it in fantastic detail, bringing it to life!

He loves painting toy solders and little scale models and when my brother and I were young, made us a whole fantastic range of toys! I asked him if he would write up what he did to the dragon – here is his account. 🙂

MY FATHERS’ DAY PRESENT It was a dragon, as mentioned above, given to me by my daughter. As the finish was a rather dull grey I decided to paint it to resemble a real dragon. Of course as I have never seen a real one I was forced to guess at the colouring. I was very happy to find that the eyes are made of glass and look really authentic.

THE METHOD I used an artist’s brush, with bristles that come to a point, for the fine details. I believe it is called a rigger, and I used a larger one of the same type for the bigger areas. However, I think that an artist’s flat brush might have been better for covering these parts. The paint was Humbrol enamel, which I purchased in a model shop. It is also available in hobby shops. As it is a garden ornament, I finished the whole thing in yacht varnish to protect the paint from the elements.

The egg is the largest part of the ornament that I wanted as a single colour, so I painted it first – grey. Well, yes it is only a shade lighter than the cement but it is somehow better if the whole thing is covered in paint. As there are some pieces of shell that are inside out, I highlighted them with grey paint mixed with yellow.

The next part is, of course, the dragon. I chose a dark green with which I painted the whole dragon, then I mixed a little yellow and/or white into the green to create a lighter green for highlighting the creature’s throat and chest. I also highlighted around the eyes.

The dragon’s claws were painted yellow and the ridge behind the claws a dark grey. I added some black to the light grey.

The nostrils are black and the cracks in the shell are a very dark grey; I added a lot of black this time.

The base the egg stands on is either a representation of earth or rock, so I used light, medium and dark brown paint. I used actual dark brown paint for the dark brown areas and simply added yellow in medium and large amounts for the other two shades.

Finally, the dragon’s mouth. This is pink and the tongue is red. I just added white to the red to obtain the pink.

I should have already mentioned that it is a really good idea to make sure that the paint is dry before adding another colour. With model enamel I usually leave two hours drying time between coats. If it is going to stand in the garden I would leave it overnight to dry completely, before adding a coat of yacht varnish to protect the paint from weather damage.

I made this little Easter basket for my husband’s birthday; it is made of fimo and is about 7cm in diameter. The fluffy chicks came from the Pound Shop.

These are the colours I mixed for the browns to make the twigs: dark brown, yellow, orange and beige.

I then rolled a sphere of the beige to make the base of the nest with.

I then began to flatten it into a disc.

I then rolled sausages of the different brown fimos – these are the twigs!

Then I pressed them gently around the edge of the base, making sure that the first ones arched a bit in the middle, leaving ‘free space’ to allow interweaving of the twigs.

I then chose three bright fimo colours – pink, blue and yellow, for the Easter eggs to go in the nest.

I sliced up the colours and then arranged them so that each egg would get one piece of each colour in different orders and patterns.

I then rolled the three colours into a sphere. I applied slightly more pressure to one end of the sphere whilst rolling it, in order to get the egg shape.

I only did three eggs in the end, as I thought it would look better when it was less crowded and with some fluffy chicks instead!

Ta da!

I made this Easter bonnet from fimo. There was no specific reason behind this project, I just had some extra fimo and in fact was going to make it into a pot but whilst shaping it, it turned mysterously into a hat!

First off I rolled the black fimo into a ball.

I then began shaping this ball into a hat shape. I did this by initially making a depression on the top of the ball and then pinching around this depression with my thumb and forefinger whilst rotating it.

I then had a satifactory hat shape!

I decided that I wanted a nice ribbon and some flowers on the hat (I did consider Easter chicks and the like, but the hat is actually quite small, so decided that though it might be a bit more Eastery, it was also a lot more fiddly).

I rolled a thin 0.5mm diameter sausage of yellow fimo for the ribbon and I also rolled some little balls of fimo to be the middles of the flowers. I then flattened the sausage of yellow fimo and fitted it around the hat, making sure the two ends overlapped and were shaped so that they looked like ribbon blowing in a breeze.

Warning, fimo and other polymer clays are quite brittle and therefore thin structures like the ribbon will be relatively fragile. This is why I made sure the ribbon would have contact with any surface the hat rests on.

I decided that three flowers would look good and rolled 2 balls of blue fimo about 2mm diameter, and one of pink. I gently used the pad of a finger to squash these balls into little discs.

I then placed the yellow bits of fimo in the middle of these discs and gathered them up in three to four little pleats around the yellow. This makes very effective little flowers.

I then put the flowers on the hat by gently pressing them onto the ribbon.

However, it looked over the top so I took two of the flowers off and the result was a lot more eye-pleasing in my opinion!

I made this pot of gold for St. Patrick’s Day for an Irish friend.

First off I got some black fimo and rolled a ball/sphere out of it, about 1.5cm in diameter.

I then made a slight depression in it – this would be where the gold coins would sit. I realised that I would not have to make a hollow pot as the coins cover up the black fimo underneath.

I then rolled three small spheres of black fimo about 6mm in diameter for the feet. I checked them against each other to see if they were all the same size. One of them was too far out, smaller than the other two, so I had to add some extra fimo. I then gently pushed the three small spheres onto the large sphere with the depression in, and the feet went on the opposite end to the depression. I had to reattach one foot as it was it was not equidistant from the other two, and in fact I didn’t get the feet completely right.

They should have been placed so that they make an equilateral triangle – ie so they are all the same distance apart – but I was in a rush so was not careful enough.

I then rolled a thin sausage of black fimo, making sure it was of uniform thickness all down its length. Using the pot itself, I measured around the depression with the fimo sausage and pinched off any extra sausage. I then attached the two ends of the sausage to each other. I smoothed and rolled the join so that it was no longer visible. This is a bit tricky and can end up with you twisting the sausage or ending up with thin and thick bits in the sausage, it takes a bit of practice!

I then place the rim on the pot, made sure it was in the desired position, and gently pushed it onto the pot to secure it.

I then rolled two tiny sausages of black fimo for the handles, about 5mm in length. I also tapered the ends of these sausages so that they ended in points.

I then curved them and pushed one gently onto the side of the pot, just under the rim. I checked to make sure that the handle was suitably aligned with the feet, and then repeated the process on the opposite side with the other handle.

I then broke off little bits of gold metallic fimo and rolled them into little balls. I flattened the balls between my thumb and forefinger to create little 3mm discs or coins.

I then laid these in the pot, making sure that all the black was covered underneath so it looked full of gold, and just to make it look more like it was overflowing, I made sure that one of the coins was overlapping the rim of the pot.

I then baked it in the oven for 30 mins (1/2 hour) at 130 degrees C. This hardens the fimo or polymer clay.

I made this card to send to my relatives in Wales for sort of St. David’s Day – spring etc… as I missed sending lots of people Christmas cards this year.

I chose light blue card as the backdrop, custard yellow paper for the outer petals and orange for the central ‘bell’ of the daffodil flower. Then I picked out a bold green for the stem and leaf.

I cut the stem and ‘bell’ out freehand but after three attempts gave up and cut a square of yellow paper for the outer petals. I then folded this in half and half again so that I had a small square of yellow paper. Then I held the corner that would be the middle of the paper when opened up, and cut a leaf/lensoid shape, snipping off the paper to a curved point. When opened out you have the four petal arrangement.

I then arranged these on the pale blue card (which I had folded in half and then in half again). Once satisfied with the look, I glued the pieces on using Pritt Stick.

I think this would also work as a mother’s day card or an Easter card! I was not too happy with the result though, and feel that perhaps I should have been more patient and drawn the shapes out first before cutting.

Shrove Tuesday or pancake day gave me an excuse to make this cool pancake tossing card to send to a friend.

I chose royal purple card for the backdrop, brown card for the frying pan, glittery black card for the frying pan handle, orange card for the hot interior of the pan and yellow paper for the actual pancake.

I folded the purple card in half and then in half again to create the ‘card’ backdrop.

I cut the shapes out – though the frying pan handle had to be cut using the already cut frying pan as a template. The orange inner of the saucepan also had to be trimmed to fit. You probably should measure and mark with a pencil but I prefer to just start cutting!

I then arranged the shapes on the card. Once satisfied that it looked right, I started sticking them on. I had to weight down the corner of the card with the scissors to do so, otherwise the shapes were just pinging straight back off the card. The frying pan had to have the orange and black glued on it first before it was glued to the card. I stuck the pancake on last for alignment purposes.

Our one year old presented us with this, or rather the nursery staff did when we picked her up. 🙂

It’s a simple idea; they’ve cut out two sugar paper (mounting paper – thick, not sure if it counts as card or not) by folding the pieces of paper in half to get nice symmetrical hearts, one larger than the other.

Using poster paints, Jean then decorated the outer pink heart with her little fingerprints in a concentric pattern in blue, yellow and red paint.

They then stuck the smaller yellow heart in the middle with the valentine’s message neatly written on it.

Being her parents we thought it was the best thing ever and it’s gone straight up on the wall. 🙂