Tag: notboredanymore

Washcloth Animals – #3 – Chick

It’s been a fun week of making washcloth animals! If you missed making the bunny, you can find it here: https://thekidsniche.com/2020/05/11/washcloth-animals-1-bunny/ If you missed the bear, this is where you can find it: https://thekidsniche.com/2020/05/13/washcloth-animals-2-bear/

So let’s make one more washcloth animal! This little chick is quite adorable and fun! You’ll need 1 washcloth (a yellow one makes him super cute), 1 regular size rubber band, a piece of ribbon or twine, 2 wiggly eyes and a small piece of orange construction paper.

Lay the washcloth out flat on your work surface.

Starting at one corner and working across on the diagonal, roll the washcloth up tightly into one long thin roll.

The place where the end of the washcloth is in the center, you will want to make sure it gets folded inside with the next step.

Fold the rolled up washcloth in half.

Bend one side down so that the tip reaches the bottom or is just slightly longer.

Fold the second side down in the same manner.

Squeeze the top part a bit to make a rounded head and wrap the rubber band around it several times.

Glue on the 2 wiggly eyes.

Tie a piece of ribbon or twine around the chick’s neck to cover the rubber band.

Using the orange construction paper, cut a rectangular piece about 1 inch by 1/2″.

Fold it in half.

Keeping the folded edge on top, cut from the center of the bottom up to the top outside edge on both sides so you end up with a triangle.

Open the triangle and you have a beak for your chick.

Glue the beak in place and your adorable little chick is done! 🙂

Thanks for visiting my blog! I hope you’ve had fun making washcloth animals with me! 🙂 Tune in next week to see what other kinds of fun things we’ll be doing!

Washcloth Animals – #2 – Bear

It’s time for another edition of making washcloth animals! Our first washcloth project was making a bunny. If you missed that project and would like to check it out, you can find it here: https://thekidsniche.com/2020/05/11/washcloth-animals-1-bunny/

Today’s washcloth animal is a cute bear. Let’s get started! You’ll need 1 washcloth, 1 regular size rubber band, 2 tiny rubber bands and a piece of ribbon. If you want to, you can also add 2 wiggly eyes and a nose and mouth made from felt.

Lay the washcloth out flat on your work surface.

Begin rolling from one side and roll to the middle of the washcloth.

Then roll the opposite side to the middle too.

While holding each end of the rolled washcloth, twist one end over.

While keeping the washcloth from unrolling, bend the twisted end down about 3/4’s of the way.

The bottom 2 rolls become the bear’s legs. Open the top part just enough to place the top 2 rolls along each side for the bear’s arms.

Using the larger rubber band, pinch the washcloth in to make a neck and head and wrap the rubber band around as many times as you can.

Now pinch up a little bit of the washcloth on each side of the head to make 2 ears. Wrap a tiny rubber band around each one to hold it in place.

Tie the piece of ribbon around the neck to cover the rubber band.

Ta dah! Your bear can be finished now. Or you can add some wiggly eyes or even make a nose and mouth from felt. I like the look without the eyes better but here’s what it looks like with eyes so you can decide which way you like better.

I hope you found this project fun! 🙂 Be sure to check back on Friday for Washcloth Animal #3!

Washcloth Animals – #1 – Bunny

Have you ever made an animal out of a washcloth? This week I’ll be sharing how you can do just that and how to make 3 different animals. Today’s craft is making a bunny from a washcloth.

This can be a fun project for kids to do or we’ve even made these for baby shower favors. They are cute, cuddly and easy to make. Depending on the age of the child the bunny is being made for, you can decide on how many details you want to add. You’ll need 1 washcloth, 1 rubber band and a piece of ribbon. Other things you might want to use include 2 wiggly eyes, a small pompom, a medium sized pompom and some glue. Lay the washcloth flat on the surface you’ll be working on.

Grab one corner of the washcloth and take fold it across to the opposite diagonal corner so you have a triangle.

Starting at the point across from the long side, begin rolling the washcloth tightly until you’ve formed one long roll.

Fold the roll in half…

Holding the 2 strips together fold them the other direction.

Can you see where the bunny’s ears will be? Take a minute now and make sure the 2 sides look about even on the end of the fold. This will be the bunny’s face.

Holding the “ears” back, put a rubber band around the “face” end.

Now you can fluff up the bunny’s ear and make sure the face part looks rounded.

Tie a piece of ribbon around the neck area to hide the rubber band.

Your bunny can be finished now or you can continue on to add a few more details. You can glue on 2 wiggly eyes.

A little pompom can be glued on for a nose.

A medium sized pompom can be glued on for a tail.

And there you have it! Your adorable bunny is finished and ready for some hugs!

I hope you enjoyed making a bunny from a washcloth! Be sure to check back on Wednesday when we’ll be making a teddy bear from a washcloth! 🙂

Let’s Draw Carly the Cat

Hello and welcome to today’s drawing fun! All you need is some paper and something to draw with. Let’s get started drawing Carly the Cat. Meow!

Start out with a circle.

To add Carly’s ears, draw 2 triangles on the top side of the circle. Then add 2 smaller triangles inside the first ones, and color the smaller triangles in with your pencil.

Now for 2 eyes. Draw 2 ovals, then a circle in the bottom part of each oval. Color in the circles.

Draw an upside down triangle for her nose.

Now draw 2 circles, one on each side of the triangle you drew for her nose. Under that draw a “U” with a smaller “U” inside of it. This is Carly’s mouth. Color in the smaller “U”.

Now let’s add some whiskers by drawing 3 lines out on each side of Carly’s face, starting inside the mouth circles.

If you want to draw only a cat’s head, then you are finished! Good job! If you would like to add a body, then keep going with me. Add 2 curved lines under the head like you see in the following picture.

Let’s add 2 front legs and 2 front feet.

Draw the lines for the body on down till they meet the legs and then draw a small line between the legs to finish Carly’s body.

Add 2 ovals for her back feet and add 2 curved lines to each foot to make her toes.

Let’s see…are we done? Have we forgotten anything? Wait…check again…what’s missing? Her tail? Of course! Draw her tail coming out the side.

If you would like your cat to look like a boy, then you are finished. If you’d like your cat to look like a girl, then you can add 3 eyelashes to the top of each eye.

Great job! Now you’re ready to draw a whole litter of kittens! Hope you had fun with our latest drawing project! 🙂

Making a Paper Treat Box

Are you stuck at home and wishing you had some little treat boxes for your kids? You can make some with just a piece of paper and some glue or tape! Let me show you how. If you have card stock paper it will make a sturdier box, but I made one with printer paper, so you don’t need anything fancy. Using a piece of scrapbook paper will mean you don’t even need to color the box. Let’s start by making a 6″ square piece of paper.

Using a ruler, mark each side of the paper at 2″ intervals.

Draw 4 lines – 2 in each direction – across the box at the 2″ and 4″ marks.

Line your ruler up with each line and bend the paper up and run your finger along the ruler edge to make a crease in the paper.

Remove the ruler and press the paper flat to make a stronger crease.

Make a similar crease along each line for a total of 4 times.

Now we will make 4 small cuts. Using the following picture, cut on the crease between squares 1 & 2, then between 2 & 3, then between 7 & 8 and finally between 8 & 9 – ONLY up to the first crease!

Next turn your paper over. Color or draw on the squares EXCEPT for each corner square. You can make an X on the 4 corner squares so you’ll remember which squares to color.

Here’s an example of what it will look like after the correct squares have been decorated.

After you are finished decorating your box, it’s time to fold the paper up into a box. Begin by bringing up 2 opposite sides of the paper.

Fold one end square piece in until it matches up with the crease on the bottom.

Fold the end in from the opposite side so the 2 pieces meet and cover each other.

Using tape or glue, fasten the 2 pieces together.

Now fold the bottom square up to meet the box. Glue or tape it together.

Turn your box around and repeat the steps for the other side. And you’ve made a treat box! 🙂

Fill it with whatever special goodies you have on hand and enjoy!

I’m sure it will bring a smile to your children’s faces. Thanks for stopping by!

Let’s Draw Sherry the Sheep

Let’s make today a drawing day! We’ve had lots of fun drawing together in earlier posts on this blog. We drew penguins…https://thekidsniche.com/2020/02/17/lets-draw-penguins/ We drew Bessie the Cow…https://thekidsniche.com/2020/03/26/lets-draw-a-cow/ And we drew Bart the Bull…https://thekidsniche.com/2020/04/08/lets-draw-bart-the-bull/ If you missed any of those, be sure to go back and add them to your drawing collection. 🙂 Today we are going to tackle Sherry the Sheep.

All you need to get started is a pencil or other drawing utensil and a piece of paper. First thing we’ll draw looks like a cloud tipped a little at an angle. This is the top of Sherry’s wooly head.

Next let’s draw the front of her head and nose like we’re drawing most of an oval.

Add an ear on each side of her head.

Now let’s draw 2 ovals that will be her eyes and two tiny ovals that will be her nose.

Color in about half of each eye and all of each nose hole.

Looking good! Now she needs a curved line for her mouth.

Then draw more of a cloud edge between her ear and under her chin for a wooly neck.

Great job! You can stop here if you like or we can do a couple more things. Since Sherry is often used as a girl’s name, you might like to add some tiny eyelashes to each eye. If your sheep is a boy you don’t need to add eyelashes. And you might want to make his name something different…like Sammy Sheep or something else. Here’s Sherry with eyelashes added.

You can also add 2 little hair bows, one by the top of each ear to make her look more like a girl.

I drew a second sheep because they are so fun to draw and for this one I made the ears black.

You can add any details you like to your sheep. I hope you have had fun learning to draw a sheep today! I’d love to see the pictures you draw! Will you draw one or maybe a whole flock of sheep? Have fun! Thanks for visiting! 🙂

Orange Peel Bird Feeders

Watching and feeding birds can be a very interesting pastime for people of all ages, but children especially can enjoy learning about the birds that live close to them. We love to put out bird feeders and then keep a record of what birds visit us. Today’s project is making a little bird feeder from an orange! To get started you’ll need an orange, a small bowl for the orange “insides”, some bird seed, a little bit of peanut butter, a knife for cutting the orange and a bowl and a spoon for stirring the seed.

First step is to cut the orange in half.

Remove the edible orange parts from the inside, being careful not to tear the orange peel. Now is a good time to pause and eat a snack of orange goodness! 😉 Yum!

Set the 2 halves of the empty orange peel aside for the moment.

Now put some bird seed in your bowl and add a glob of peanut butter. No need to measure anything. Just put some of each in your bowl with enough peanut butter to hold the seeds together.

Stir the seeds and peanut butter together with a spoon.

Put the seed and peanut butter mixture into the empty orange peel shells, packing it in to fill the entire shell.

And you’ve done it! Your orange peel bird feeders are ready to go outside and feed some new friends!

It’s nice to find a place to put your little bird feeders close to a window where you can watch the birds come to eat from them. If you prefer to hang them from a tree branch, you can poke 2 holes in the sides of each orange peel half and tie some string through the holes. We have an old flower pot that we have been feeding the birds in so that’s where I placed my 2 bird feeders.

I hope you will try this project and then enjoy some wonderful family time together as you watch the birds find your feeder and you learn more about the birds native to your area. 🙂 Thanks for visiting!

A Place for Special Treasures

When you were a child, did you ever have a place where you stored your special treasures? A box or a can that was just yours and you kept important little things hidden in it? Maybe it was a special picture that you colored or a keepsake from a vacation trip or a picture of you and your best friend or a really cool seashell or stone that you found or any number of other things. Today let’s make such a spot for your kids to hide their special mementos! You can use a box if you have one, but I used an empty oatmeal container.

First remove the lid and take a slightly damp paper towel and wipe out any tiny bits of oatmeal that might be left behind. Keep the lid off for a while so the container will dry completely inside. Now collect the other items we’ll need for this project such as a piece of construction paper, markers, a ruler, scissors, a pencil and tape.

Using the ruler, measure to see how long the side of the can is. We will be wrapping a piece of construction paper around it, but first we’ll need to cut the paper to the right size to fit top to bottom.

My container measured 5 3/4″ long in between the top and bottom rims. The size of my construction paper was 9″ x 12″. Take your piece of construction paper and mark a spot on each end whatever the length of your container is. Draw a line between those 2 dots and then cut along the line. For example, since my container was 5 3/4″ long, I cut my construction paper to a piece that was 5 3/4″ x 12″.

Take the piece of paper that you cut and wrap it around your container to see if it will wrap all the way around. Mine was a bit short and the edges didn’t meet.

I used the leftover piece of construction paper to cut another piece that was 5 3/4″ long and the width of the paper that was left.

I taped it on to the backside of my oatmeal container.

Now wrap the first piece of paper you cut around the container to make sure it will fit…but don’t tape it down just yet.

Mine fit just fine so then I was ready for the next step. Lay the first piece of paper you cut down on your table and write, draw and color whatever words and designs you would like to have on your special treasures container. I chose to write “My Special Treasures” in large letters and then in tiny letters at the bottom I wrote “This can belongs to Nita”. You can decorate your container in your own way. I drew some flowers, a bunny, a couple hearts, some designs and lots and lots of polka dots.

Once you have decorated your paper, its time to tape it onto the container. I used double-sided tape so that I could tape on the back side of my design. You could also tape it from the front side or use glue to hold it in place. I like the idea of using tape because later you can remove this cover and put on a new one.

On the back side of the container where I added the extra bit of paper so the container would be completely covered, it looked like this.

You can leave it like this or you can add a few more tiny designs to make that part blend in with the rest of your design. Since I had drawn so many polka dots, I just added a few more on this part.

And that’s it! Place the lid back on the top and go find some treasures to store inside!

I hope you’ve enjoyed our fun craft for today! May you find lots of wonderful things to store in your special treasures container! Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

More Things to Do in Quarantine

How’s it going at your house? Anybody going stir crazy yet? We are doing good here! I never seem to run out of things I enjoy doing. (And there always seems to be enough work to keep me busy too!) I wanted to share a few more things with you that you can do while everyone is cooped up at home. These all involve using the internet.

#1.) Olaf voice actor reading books to kids online every night – https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1OdKrqwYAgyxX This looks to be fun and entertaining!

#2.) The Big List of Children’s Authors Doing Online Read Alouds & Activities – https://www.weareteachers.com/virtual-author-activities/?utm_content=1584565321&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR3WY8h07GxYTdhoyRW6hsnik2Q7te9_nHI3hIYMF0GJZm_w-BTv8HL7da0

#3.) Arree’s FREE Creativity Camp – Free writing, drawing and storytelling classes from award winning author/illustrator Arree Chung. I’ve signed up for this one too! https://arree.com/camp/

I hope these websites will help you and your kids find fun things to do together! Have a great weekend! Thanks for visiting!