Salaric

Here are all the things that our two year old daughter made at nursery for Christmas:

This little pot was her Christmas present to mummy and daddy; it’s made out of a peat pot that you would normally grow seedlings in. Around the rim there are metallic Christmas shapes of the kind you would find in table confetti like stars and bells, probably stuck there with PVA craft glue. A piece of green sugar paper has then been placed in the pot with a few chocolate coins.

This calender is now hanging up in my husband’s office. It is made out of a paper plate painted green and blue with a metallic sheen to it. The middle of the paper plate has been cut away, leaving just the rim. A photo of our little girl was cut out and laminated, then attatched to it by being sellotaped to a metallic red and green pipe cleaner which was bent into a loop and also sellotaped to the paper plate. This gave it a nice effect, as if the photo was a pendulum in a clock. They then stuck on a little tear-off calender on the bottom.

All the Christmas stuff arrived home in this snowman bag. It was made by taping two large sheets of thin purple card together along three sides to make the actual bag compartment. The handle was made of purple metallic parcel ribbon approximately 1.5cm wide, which was again sellotaped in place. The actual snowman was made of three white circles, starting with the smallest as the snowman’s head. These had been glittered and then painted over with white poster paint and glued, overlapping, onto the bag. The carrot nose was cut out of orange paper and stuck on and the blue hat was again just cut out and stuck on. Then the mouth, eyes and buttons were drawn on in thick black colouring pencil. The writing was then done in thick silver paint pens. On the back of the bag Jean had made handprints in white poster paint.

These three napkin rings are incredibly simple and I thought they were really effective. One orange and one black Christmas tree and one pinky red bell were cut out to use as decoration. Each ring was two of the decorative shapes connected at the bottom by a strip of card. They were decked out with glue and glitter - gold glitter on the black Christmas tree, white glitter on the orange tree and more gold glitter on the bell. A hole punch was used to punch through both shapes at the top and tie them together with a bow of parcel ribbon in metallic Christmassy colours. A sheet of kitchen towel was then rolled up and put them into them as napkins.

This Christmas tree was Jean’s Christmas card to use - again this is incredibly simple. A Christmas tree shape was cut out from a folded piece of card, making sure that the points of the branches weren’t cut too finely by the actual fold, so that it remained a card and not two tree shapes! With help, Jean added baubles to the tree by finger-painting with red and yellow. A red glittery pom pom was then stuck on the top.

During their Christmas party I got the scouts to make Christmas cards - I just put the equipment out which included: ink pads in green, dark green, red, cherry red, orange, yellow, navy blue, purple, black, silver and gold (all bought from The Works in Stroud for £1.45 for three colours in one box); two lots of Christmas foam stamps from The Pound Shop which included bells, reindeers, snowflakes, Santas, candy canes, robins, holly, sleighs, gingerbread men and Christmas trees; foam Christmas shapes like baubles, reindeers, trees and holly; lolly sticks in red and green; lots of pom poms and pipe cleaners in festive colours; Christmas shapes punched out of last year’s wrapping paper such as snowmen, snowflakes and presents; PVA white craft glue; glitter; goggly eyes; safety scissors; stencils of a nativity scene; metallic gel pens; ordinary colouring pens and pencils; cotton wool and card of lots of different colours and textures that they could fold up to make Christmas cards with. Here is what they produced. (We also had quiet a few younger children there as it was a party).

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.

I made these about three years ago, so apologies for them looking a bit battered! I thought people might find how I made them useful, even if I do not have step by step photographs.

The Christmas Wreath

This is currently hanging on our front door!

What I did was use a piece of metal wire I found at my uncle’s car garage/workshop place. It was basically a perfect circle and I knew instantly what it would be useful for - however, I doubt this would happen if you were looking!

So its probably best to bend a wire coathanger into a circle, or if you are feeling adventurous, use some willow whipping canes! You can also buy twig circles and stuff for this sort of thing from lots of haberdashery shops and craft shops, not to mention flower arranging places (both sick flowers and floristry).

I had two nice bunches of silk flower poinsettias, which I had picked up in a pound shop along with some nice gold and glitter acorns and twirly bits and flowers (plastic) picked up in Romford market.

I had also picked up some pine cones earlier in the year (they may even have been from the year before!) which I attached some floristry wire to.

I then took four of the poinsettias and, envisioning a square inside the circle of wire, positioned them at what would be the four corners. I twisted their wire stalks around the wire circle, then discovering I had no florestry tape, I raided our electronics book and selected the red electrical insulating tape. This I found worked really well, though only if you aren’t going to be seeing the result! I wrapped it round the wire and stalks, fixing them in place.

I then raided my mum’s leftover materials box and found some red satin back material. It had some frayed edges which I folded behind it and stuck down with more electrical tape (mum was not impressed, but then I don’t do sewing. I would advise that if you have the time and skill that you do sew it, as it will last longer!).

This was for the banner across the middle. I laid it out flat, and making sure that there was plenty of room at each end, painted ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ onto it. I used a gold, glittery fabric paint that I had picked up in WH Smith’s of all places!

This had to dry - it took forever!

I got impatient though and put it on the wreath - hence one of the letters is smudged! I placed the piece of material so that it was cutting the square in half, then I folded the ends over and secured them with a mix of stitching and yet more electrical tape.

I then got two of the golden glittery things with acorns and attached them either side of the banner in a similair fashion to the poinsettias. Then I attatched the pine cones in the spaces - not all of these have survived! Place them where you think it will look good. I had two between the bottom poinsettias, one between the poinsettia and golden arrangement, each side etc…

One I had all of this on, I wrapped green and red tinsel around it all and was quite chuffed with the result. I originally had a piece of wire wrapped round the top for hanging it up, but unfortunately this rusted through and it’s now just tied up on a mangy old piece of string.

The Matching Centrepiece

We have a gold pillar candle in a gold dish type of candle holder and I decided to make it Christmasy when I realised that I hadn’t even touched the second bunch of poinsettias. These ones had gold petals in the middle.

First of all, I made a metal hoop - I think this was out of some wire I pinched from the electronics bench. I bent it into shape using pliers, making sure it would fit over the candle. The making of this was pretty similiar to the wreath. I just wrapped four poinsettia flowers onto it - though I did have to trim the stalks a bit! The old electrical tape came into play!

Then between two of the flowers I put the gold acorn arrangement and then some pine cones in the other gaps. Then I wrapped silver tinsel around it.

I did find, however, that I needed to alter the postion of some of the pine cones slightly - mainly becuase they were lifting the candle holder and candle off the flate surface - never good when you think of a lighted candle!

These were quite rushed and I’m sure that time and care could make this sort of thing look professional!

I’m posting these becuase a) I’m a proud parent and b) I think some of the ideas are cool and plan to nick them for the Beavers and Cubs next year!

My baby is called Jean and is almost 16 months, so I think that she was heavily helped with these projects!

Photo rotation and spelling correction soon to follow!

This is shiny green card with Jean’s footprint as the reindeer’s face, which then has a red, glittery bobble on, stuck on as the nose, and two goggly eyes. The antlers are Jean’s handprints in gold metallic paint (I assume non-toxic!) attached with metallic, green pipe cleaners and liberal use of sellotape!

This appears to be two foam sheets cut into a bauble shape and stuck together around the green ribbon. They then stuck lots of glitter and smaller Christmas foam shapes on it - on one side an artist’s use of milk bottle tops has been made!

This is a snowman card shape with a hole punched hole and a bit of cotton that she has splashed some white and green paint on to. I think the green was an accident but you never know!

Snowflake shape cut from paper - then covered in glue and glitter.

Card bauble shape covered in glue then glitter.

Not entirely sure this Jean Angel doesn’t freak me out! It’s a cone of orange card (you make these generally by cutting out a circle and cutting a radial line, ie a cut that if a line was drawn would be the radius). Then you can slide one bit of the circle under another bit of it - fix with glue, tape or staple and you have a cone. The wings are again handprints in gold paint that are stuck on, and then a little photo of her face has been cut out to be the head. It’s sort of cut and sort of freaky - it would scare me but as I am her mother I have to think it’s sweet!

I thought up this project for the Cub pack my husband runs!

Corrected spelling soon to follow!

Needed:

1) At least one loo roll innard (you know the cardboard tube bit) per child, uncrushed or falling to bits etc…

2) Some A4 sheets of coloured paper - we used paper that was closer to sugar paper (the stuff schools use for mounting artwork and poems!) than printing or drawing paper. Again you will need at least one sheet per child.

3) Christmas stickers, ie the type for labelling presents - we got a big sheet of these from our local pound shop!

4) PVA glue

5) Paint brushes/glue applicators

6) Old yoghurt pots or equivalent for the glue - we use empty mini trifle pots

7) Ribbon or coloured cord - we used metallic parcel string from Tesco’s that I bought years ago

Scissors - preferably crinkle cut or the like

9) Sellotape

10) Decorations - we got some Christmas table sprinkles which included nice metallic Christmas trees and snowflakes, and I used some of the paper shapes I had punched myself!

11) Cracker pulls (not sure what the correct term is - these can be tricky to get when it’s not December but I will try and list a supplier at some point for you all). We didn’t use these as I didnt have time to go to the shops - some parents can also be a bit iffy about their little darlings being near explosives etc…. The kids made the crackers as a present/decoration instead of as functioning cracker.

For inside the cracker:

We made some bead bracelets with them but we were planning to print some jokes, and if there had been time we would have got them to make hats etc… The scope is endless!

Step 1:

Get things ready - we poured the glue into its pots and had a conveyor belt type system for the kids with separate tables for bracelet-making and paper cutting and gluing etc…

Cut a template piece of ribbon or cord - make sure that it will be long enough for little fingers to be able to tie a bow in!

Step 2:

Get the child to choose which colour they want - then to cut some sort of fancy border on the short sides of the paper, ie if it was in portrait then the top and bottom of the sheet of paper should be cut. We did wavy, zigzag or they can just use crinkle cut scissors!

Step 3:

Lay the loo roll on the sheet of paper with the long axis aligned to the long axis of the paper, ie lay the paper lengthways/landscape with the loo roll running lengthways on it. Cut a piece of sellotape and wrap it back on itself, making a sticky loop. Alternatively, just buy some double-sided tape.

Roll the loo roll innard up in the paper sheet and secure the sheet with the tape. You do this by putting the tape loop onto the underside of the bit of the paper that ends up on top.

You should now (if you can follow my dodgy instructions!) have a loo roll innard inside of a larger tube made of the coloured paper.

Step 4:

Put a Christmas sticker on the join and make sure the loo roll innard is in the centre of the cracker. If you are putting a snapper in, this is when to do it! Cut two lengths of ribbon, then gather the overhanging paper at one end of the loo roll innard and tie ribbon or cord around it. You can now put the goodies such as jokes etc… in the cracker!

Step 5:

Gather the remaining end up and tie ribbon or cord around it.

Step 6:

Release the children with the glue and glitter and other decorations! Make sure you leave adequate time for the glue to dry before they have to take them anywhere!

I realise that this is not the clearest set of instructions ever - but I will at some point in the future get around to creating a set of laminated instruction cards (hopefully before next year!).