Crafts

     Handprint Turkey

Materials Needed:

• Drawing paper - 8 x 11 standard size works well

• Crayons, washable paint, or washable markers

  

• Paint brush if using washable paint

• Wet washcloth to clean mess

• Newspaper - to cover work surface

Procedure:                                           

1. This project can be messy, make sure to cover your work
    area with newspaper or work outside.

2. If using crayons or washable markers, trace the child's 
   hand (make sure the child's fingers are spread apart).  
   Using the crayons or markers, decorate the turkey.  
   Make sure to give the turkey a beak, wattle, eyes, and legs.

3. If using washable paint, use a paint brush to paint the 
   child's palm.  Then paint each finger a different color.  
   With the child's finger spread  apart make a handprint
   on the paper.  Use paint or markers to give the turkey 
   a beak, wattle, eyes, and legs.

    Hidden Pictures    

Materials Needed:

• Drawing paper - 8 x 11 standard size works well

• Crayons - lots of them and especially black

• Pencil, lollipop stick, or popsicle stick

• Newspaper - to cover work surface

Procedure:                                           

1. This project can be messy, make sure to cover your work area with newspaper or work outside.

2. Use a fun array of brightly colored crayons to cover the entire paper.  Encourage the child to make the colors vibrant and to press fairly hard to give rich colors.

3. Now take a black crayon and color the ENTIRE colored piece of paper with the black crayon.  Make sure it is completely covered in black.

4. The magic begins - using the pencil, lollipop stick, or popsicle stick you can etch out a drawing from the now blackened paper.  The etching will cause the buried colors to magically appear.

  Crayon Rubbings     

Materials Needed:

• White paper

• Peeled crayons

• Various objects - leaves, pine needles, shapes, sandpaper, coin, etc.

Procedure:

1. Peel the paper wrapper off several crayons.

2. Give each child a sheet of white paper.

3. Have various objects for the child to choose as a print.  (Leaves, shapes, sandpaper, feathers, etc.).  

4. Let the child select some of these objects and put them under the paper.           

5. The child then rubs with the side of the crayon onto the paper and the object shows through as a print.

• Paper
• Wet sponge
• Chalk

1. Each child should wet paper slightly with wrung out sponge.
2. Draw freely with colored chalk.  Show the children how to use side and ends of chalk.
3. Allow paper to dry.

• 4 cups flour
• 1 cup salt
• 2 T cooking oil
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups cold water
• food coloring

Oatmeal Play Dough

Ingredients:

• 1 part flour
• 1 part water
• 2 parts oatmeal

No Cook Vinegar Dough

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 cup water (a bit more if necessary)
• 1 cup salt
• 1/4 cup oil
• 2 T vinegar 

Playing with Play Dough

Keeping children busy indoors on rainy days can be a challenge for babysitters.  Playing with play dough is always a favorite activity and it's even educational!  Children enjoy pushing, rolling, squeezing, molding, and pounding gooey play dough.  Here are some play dough tips:

• Allow the child to just play with it without necessarily making something.

• Children enjoy making "play food" out of play dough, but be sure they really don't eat it!

• Hard plastic toys, such as action figures and dinosaurs, are fun to hide in the play dough or to press to make an imprint.  Be sure the toys are at least as big as the child's fist.

• Be creative, have fun, and those showers will be over before you know it.

Personalized Wrapping Paper

Supplies - 

• roll of brown wrapping material (find at the post office,  moving company, or craft supply store)

• sponges, paint, stencils

Project how to -

Some ideas:
sponge paint ABC's for a child's gift and tie ribbon!
attach autumn leaves and moss to the top of package for the nature lover and wrap with raffia!
stencil Christmas trees, ornaments, and stars for the holiday season!
Very simple:  Simply wrap the gift as you normally would and decorate.

You are only limited by your imagination!  Have fun!!

Yarn Octopus

Supplies - Two different colors of yarn, a small ball of cotton, glue, googly eyes, felt (optional), ruler, scissors, and glue.

Project how to -
1.  Cut twenty-four 12 inch long pieces of yarn (yarn color number 1).
2.  Lie the yarn on a flat surface so that it looks like the spokes of a wheel, and so that the yarn pieces intersect with each other in the center of the wheel.
3.  Put a small ball of cotton, a little bigger than the size of a ping-pong ball in the center of the wheel.
4.  Gather up the pieces of yarn around the cotton and tie them with a piece of an other color of yarn (yarn color number 2).
5.  Separate the yarn into groups of three, and braid them.  Tie each braid at the end with a piece of yarn color number 2.  You should then end up with 8 braids.
6.  Glue two googly eyes onto the yarn surrounding the ball of cotton.
7.  Use either yarn or felt to make a mouth for your octopus and glue it on.
8.  Now enjoy your yarn octopus!

Bookmarks

Supplies -

• Clear Contact Paper

• Old artwork or magazine pictures

• Scissors

• Ruler

• Pencil

Project how to 

• Measure and make back of artwork into rectangle(s) of bookmark size. (1 1/2 inch by 5 inches is a good size.)

• Cut out bookmark carefully.

• Cut out 2 rectangles of Contact Paper for each bookmark that are 1/2 inch  wider and longer.  (2 inches by 5 1/2 inches)

• Remove backing from one piece of Contact Paper and carefully center artwork rectangle on sticky side.  Press down.

• Remove backing from the other piece of Contact Paper and carefully place on other side of artwork, making a sandwich.

• Air bubbles can be smoothed out using the edge of the ruler.

• If the edges of the Contact Paper are not even, they can be trimmed slightly after first drawing a new straight line as a guide.

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This page was last updated 01/10/08