June - "I love you... this much... Daddy"

This is a really neat present for a parent or grandparent. Our little man made this at nursery but I thought it was so cute it was worth a mention.

It's basically two hand prints with the words 'I love you' and 'Daddy. Love Huwie', then when you open the hands up a painted, paper accordion expands to read 'this much'. It came tied together with a ribbon. Cute!

June - Recycled Father's Day Card

This is a really simple, easy and non-messy Father's Day card. The basic idea is to reuse pictures and messages from previous greetings cards to create your very own, unique Fathers Day card. Simple, cheap and non-messy!

Below is a list of the things that you need to make your recycled Father's Day card:
/ Cut out images and message from greetings cards
/ PVA glue
/ Crayons
/ Assortments of stickers
/ Glitter
/ Coloured crate paper
/ Blank cards and envelopes

The things required to make your recycled Fathers Day card

Follow these steps to make your recycled Father's Day card:
1/ Start your card by writing your message in the card - this way you wont be waiting for the card to dry before it can be finished
2/ Adorn your card with as many of the recycled messages and images as your craft toddler wishes, don't forget to decorate the back and inside too.
3/ Finish off with a sprinkle of glitter!

A selection of the recycled Father's Day cards made at our toddler group

A selection of the recycled Father's Day cards made at our toddler group

A selection of the recycled Father's Day cards made at our toddler group

Inside one of our recycled Father's Day card

The back of one of our recycled Father's Day cards

May - Mr Rollie Heads

This is a very fun piece of craft to do with your toddlers and creating Mr Rollie Head in all different colours and expressions went down a treat too. The prep time is minimal but does require you to have stored up some toilet roll iners.

Mr Rollie Head - Bring him to life using your fingers as arms

The things you will need to create your Mr Rollie Heads are:
Toilet roll inners
Paints
Glitter
PVA glue
Pom poms
Sheets of coloured tissue
Boggling eyes OR white circle stickers
Felt tip pen

Here are the things that you need to create your Mr Rollie Head

Follow these steps to make your Mr Rollie Head:
1/ Add some PVA glue to your paints so that the glitter will stick to the paint without needing another layer of glue
2/ Paint the toilet roll inner
3/ Add glitter and sequins then leave to dry
4/ Once dry, stick on the boggling eyes or white stickers and draw on pupils with the felt tip pen

Top tip - draw on eyelashes or eyebrows or draw different shaped pupils to create a character

5/ Stick on a pom pom for the nose
6/ Draw on a smilie mouth

Top tip - draw on teeth or a tongue to create a character

7/ Take a sheet of coloured tissue and glue in in to the top of the toilet roll to give Mr Rollie Head some hair!

Mr Rollie Head - The finished product

Our family of Mr Rollie Heads

May - Summer Skies

This crafty idea of creating a summer sky is really simple, it has loads of bright colours and sensory pieces too. It requires very little preparation time all you really need are some bits and bobs that you find around the garden.

Summer Skies

Here are the materials that you could use to make your craft summer skies:
A4 paper
Yellow paint
Cotton wool
Coloured tissue paper
PVA glue
Assortment of things from the garden (grass, leaves, petals)

Follow these simple steps to create your craft summer skies:
1/ Use the yellow paint to make a circle (sun) of hand prints on the A4 paper
2/ Stick randon puffs of cotton wool on to the paper (clouds)
3/ Go mad sticking all the bits and bobs on that you found around the garden
4/ Leave to dry and your  summer skies are done!

Here are a range of our summer skies created at toddler group

Here is my favorite summer sky

May - Ice Cream Tower

Thought that these ice cream towers might help make the summer feel more real - these are fun to do and can be enjoyed by older children too. Prep takes a little bit of time (15 mins) but the actual decoration time can be as long as your little ones are interested.. there are loads of way to decorate the scoops.

Ice cream tower

Things you will need to make your crafty ice cream tower:
Coloured card (cut in to rough circles or oval shapes)
PVA glue
Felt tip pens
Coloured paints
Glitter (optional)
Sequins (optional)
Art tissue paper (or other light materials to decorate with)
Paper plate
Coffee stirrer

Craft preparation for ice cream towers

Follow these steps to make your craft ice cream tower:
1/ Fold the paper plate in half and draw the outline of a traditional ice cream bowl on it using the felt tip
2/ Take any number of the coloured card circles / ovals and decorate with paint / pens / glitter / tissue paper / sequins

Top tip - why not make some look like waffles or draw on some swirls or cut some of the card away to make it look as if it were melting or draw on some fruit.

3 / Once dry, stick the ice cream scoops to the paper plate to create an ice cream tower
4 / Stick the coffee stirrer diagonal across the back of the ice cream scoops to add stability but also look like the neck of a spoon when viewed from the front and voila you tasty looking ice cream tower is ready to admire.

Top tip - if your ice cream tower begins to lean forward, add another coffee stirrer along the back length.

April (week 12) - Spring animal prints

Spring animal prints are fun and easy to do, prep time is about 10 mins and you can create multiple backgrounds for different spring scenes.

Spring animal prints

Things that you will need to create your spring animal prints are:
/ Farmyard animal sponges
/ A4 paper
/ Felt tip pen
/ Paints and brushes
/ Glitter

Spring animal prints - preparation kit

To create your spring animal prints with your crafty toddlers, follow these steps:
/ Draw the background on to the paper - the spring scenes that we used were duck ponds, cow shed, rabbit hutch and fenced field.
/ Help your crafty toddler to paint the sponges then squish the sponge on the paper.

Top tip: don't be shy with the paint on the sponge as more paint makes for better prints

/ Use paint brushes to add some splashes of colour to the background scene
/ Add glitter for the finishing touch!

Top Tip: using different coloured paint on a sponge can produce some really colorful prints

Spring animal printing in progress

Spring animal print

Spring animal print

Spring animal print

Our spring animal print family

March (week 11) - Easter bonnet

A really cute Easter bonnet to make with your craft toddlers. My craft toddler made this at his nursery but I thought it was such a simple and good idea that it was worth a post.

Easter bonnet