• Freebies,  Projects

    Funky Fish Kids Art Collage

    This is a really simple but versatile activity which is great for using up odd scraps of paper, whether it be pieces of painted paper, children’s discarded artwork, wrapping paper or even sweet wrappers. Apart from this, all you need is a Medium Circle Paper Punch (we actually used 2 for the different sized fish, measuring 1.5cm and 1cm), some glue and pieces of coloured or painted thin card for the fish base. It’s also a great ‘drop-in’ activity or collaborative project. Each child can choose a plain card fish and they can then create something of their own which can be combined as part of a larger group artwork. Perfect…

  • Projects

    Children’s Art Temporary Tattoos

    Temporary children’s tattoos are undergoing a resurgence of popularity again at the moment, and I thought it might be fun to let the boys create their own tattoos using ink-jet printable tattoo paper This took a bit of tracking down, but eventually I managed to find some. It was easy to use, and the finished product was not only completely unique and personal but also worked really well.       I ‘cheated’ a little, in that the artwork the boys produced for the tattoos were just drawings with no colour, so I digitally coloured them in Photoshop first before printing out the tattoos. However this really isn’t necessary, and I…

  • Projects

    Children’s Family Tree Display

    I recently dug out a family tree to show my kids. I’d researched it back in the dim and distant past, and realised that they hadn’t been added to it yet. It’s a long, though not especially illustrious, lineage that I’d managed to take back to the 15th century. This kind of timescale however can be difficult for young children to grasp, so I thought it might be a nice idea to make our very own family tree, for just 3 generations of our more immediate family.     For this activity we used the printable frames which I created some time ago.  If you want to print these out…

  • Christmas,  Freebies,  Projects

    A Christmas Gift for You

    A last minute Christmas post before I sign off for the holiday, and I still haven’t wrapped the presents! Back in June when I took part in Mommy Labs’ Forest Fiesta Blog-hop, I promised to put up some scanner art trees to embellish. Unfortunately I never got round to it, so my Christmas gift is a template for a scanner art Christmas tree on a stand just waiting to be embellished. All you need is some thin card, (we used an empty cereal box) scissors and glue to get started. If nothing else, it might keep the kids occupied for a while over the holiday period! To get your own…

  • Projects

    Confetti Shakers

    I have to confess, that I wasn’t sure what to call these – they’re not quite sun-catchers, and not really snow-globes, so I decided on Confetti Shakers in the absence of any other ideas. These were born when I accidentally discovered, in one of those ‘Eureka’ moments that you have now and then, that the lid of a Pringles tube, fits exactly onto the lid of a tub of cottage cheese from Tesco (I think other products have the same lids too, mine just happened to be cottage cheese!) My mind of course ran riot with potential ideas of how I could use this discovery (you can see I lead…