Tips for Crafting with Preschool

While working with my 2 year old I have picked up a few tips which I hope may be helpful, and will be adding to this as I come across new ones

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* Most preschoolers have about 10 minutes attention when making crafts, work with this, try to do all thier parts within this time and worry about drying, or attaching together later as it may be very difficult to get child to keep returning to project

* Preparation. Make sure everything is prepared and laid out ready, the time with the child can be spent making activity instead of trying to get them to wait while you get items

* Remember this is about interacting with the child, developing their creativity, dont worry about perfection. Better to have a piece of art that child enjoyed making thats slanted, off centred or in weird and wonderful colours, than one that got them stressed

* Keep it simple, the child is learning so much while crafting already

* Painting and glueing can be difficult to get child to do in correct spot, create a game of chasing your finger with brush to correct area

*Children can get carried away while crafting, a handprint can pretty soon turn into a big brown splodge. I found if creating a gift create 2 copies, one which you can work on and remove while still 'pretty', and a second which you can swap it with and allow to to continue as much as they want

Treasure Chest

Treasure chest made for my son Quinn who loves Disney Jake and neverland pirates. Made using a chest blank which was then painted in acrylics. the details were hand drawn or printed then added onto chest along with stars created using a punch. Other details such as lock were created with sizzix die, all this was then sprayed with clear varnish. Inside a few sequins were added to look like treasure gems, resulting in a very happy little pirate :-)

Paper roses using 5 petal punch

Remembered from a demo at craft show

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Step 1: punch 3 flowers and cut as shown in diagram. First flower is slit from petal edge to centre, second has 1 petal cut away again from centre point, third has 2 petals cut away
Step 2: place glue on each point as indicated by yellow dot
Step 3: roll flower so edge petals over lap and glue together
Step 4: using a cocktail stick roll the single petal into a cone shape, then roll the 2 petal shape around this and glue together. shape this by pinching the cone halfway up and spreading petals to form a centre bud for your rose
Step 5: the flowers that you made in step 3, now dry start curving the petals to shape your flower
Step 6: stack your flowers together with glue, to add the bud into the centre first cut off any excess paper from base of cone shape.
Step 7: once all is dry continue to shape into desired rose, this can then be inked or sprayed

Preschool Lion Mask

Heres my first tester for preschool crafting sessions, as practised on my 2yr old

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Materials Needed
card cut into shape of lion face with eyes cut out and holes added to sides for attaching string to later (i drew round small plate for main face and then added a semi circle using a cup for the chin)
Brown card or felt cut into semi circle for nose, ovals for ears, and strips for whiskars;
Yellow card cut into triangles for front mane;
tissue paper in orange and yellow;
yellow paint; glue; string; painting equipment

Instructions
1. paint mask yellow
2. glue on nose, ears, whiskers and yellow triangles (mane)
3. on reverse glue on strips of tissue paper from the mane
4. once dry tie string to make into a mask

Tips
when painting in a single colour dont worry about letting dry between glueing, children of this age are not patient and rarely return back to a project.
make a game of chasing your finger with paintbrush to get them to paint all areas of mask, or to glue in correct area

Preschool Family Crafting

I have been asked to help with my local playgroup to design a few family crafting sessions. These have been very different to do as the materials and techniques are very limited for preschoolers. Also as i realise with my own son Quinn the attention span is about 10 minutes, so quick and simple seems to work best. Wish me luck and i'll keep posts updated with all the latest designs with instructions

All play no posts ;-)

sorry i havent been posting for a while, but i been busy learning new skills. i have been completing a number of pages created by the lovely Karen of Total Papercrafts as you can see in this album link below. Her work is fab, and i have learnt so much, even inspired me to use up all my scraps too