Today we are thinking of all those that are getting hit by the historic Winter Storm Olive! Yikes! In support of you, we are making some friendly snowmen using craft sticks. (Or some might call them popsicle sticks.) We used the wider sticks for our snowmen. Here’s a sneak peek! 😉
You will need 1 wide craft stick for each snowman plus glue, markers, small wiggly eyes, confetti type decorations (or just draw “buttons” on with markers), white paint, paintbrush, small pieces of pipe cleaners and a bit of black paper. (Or white paper that you color black.)
Begin by painting your craft sticks white and allowing them time to dry.
Once the paint is dry, glue 2 small wiggly eyes on each stick.
Using the markers, draw a carrot nose and a mouth on each snowman. If you add a few tiny lines to each orange carrot nose, the nose will look more realistic. 😉
Now wrap a piece of a pipe cleaner around the stick to be the snowman’s scarf. Twist the ends together once.
Glue on 3 small decorations for the snowman’s buttons or use your markers to draw some buttons.
If you would like your snowman to have a hat, color the top part of the stick with a black marker.
To finish making the hat, cut a very small strip of black paper and glue it on at the bottom of the black area you just colored in.
And that’s it! Your snowmen are finished! If you would like to hang up your snowmen, you can glue a magnet or a loop of string to the back of each one.
I hope everyone enjoys making their snowmen and that each and every one of you stays safe and warm! Hang on! Spring will be here soon! 🙂
I went on another trip to a Dollar Tree store to check out what might be new for some Christmas/Winter fun. I found this felt gingerbread man kit that I thought was cute and is simple enough for even the little kids to do with a little help with gluing.
I know you can’t tell from the picture, but this guy is big! He measures about 15″ tall by about 11″ wide. 🙂 Since I bought him at a Dollar Tree store, he only cost $1.25 plus tax. Pretty cheap fun, right? All you need besides the kit is some glue. Be sure to save the small picture of the finished gingerbread man to use as your guide in putting him together.
One tip before you get started…you might like to make a pattern for each felt piece before you glue them together and then you can make as many gingerbread men as you would like to make. 😉
Here’s what is inside: felt shapes for the gingerbread man, eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, snowflakes and rickrack.
The eyes and mouth punch out from the black piece of felt.
And the light green piece of felt punches out into 4 pieces of rickrack.
Please note that there is a wrong and a right side to the gingerbread man. One side has printing on it so that will, of course, be the back side.
Grab your glue and let’s put this guy together! 🙂 I started by gluing on his eyes, nose and mouth.
Add his cheeks and snowflake buttons down the front.
Glue the 4 pieces of rickrack on his arms and legs and your gingerbread man is finished! 🙂 Note: the rickrack pieces didn’t quite reach from side to side on his arms and legs but it looks cute anyway.
You can add a magnet or a piece of string to the back of your gingerbread man if you would like to be able to hang him up. Check your nearest Dollar Tree store for this simple and cute gingerbread man felt kit! Have fun! 🙂
January is here and so are cold temperatures and snow for some of us! Let’s make some snowflakes today that won’t make us any colder! These are easy to make and so pretty! (And they are great for practicing some fine motor skills.)
You’ll need 3 pipe cleaners (or chenille stems), a pair of scissors or wire cutters and some colored pony beads.
Cut the 3 pipe cleaners in half.
3 half pieces will make 1 snowflake so you now have enough pipe cleaner pieces for 2 snowflakes. Here are 2 different ways to wrap the pipe cleaners into the snowflake shape: #1.) Fold 2 pieces into a “v” shape.
Put the 2 pieces together at the bends.
Wrap the 3rd pipe cleaner around the center of the other 2.
OR way #2.) Hold the 3 pieces of pipe cleaner together…
And give them a twist or two in the center.
Now it’s time to use the pony beads. You will need 5 beads for each “spoke” of the snowflake for a total of 30 beads. The colored beads can be in whatever order you decide to use. You can make a pattern of colors for your child to duplicate like the following pattern: green, white, blue, pink and purple.
When they have enough beads laid out in the right order, it might look something like this:
Slide the beads onto the piper cleaner spokes in the same order.
After the 5 beads are on the pipe cleaner, bend the rest of the pipe cleaner spoke into a circle and push the end back into the last bead.
Continue sliding the beads onto each pipe cleaner spoke and bending the end in until all 6 spokes have been done. Isn’t it pretty?!
You could also have your child find 5 beads of the same color for each spoke. These beads match the color of the pipe cleaner spoke they will be placed on.
This way is also quite pretty!
Or you can let your child put the beads on in any order that they like. If you would like to hang your snowflakes up, simply add a piece of thread or string through one of the circles. I hope you will have fun making these beaded snowflakes! 🙂
When all the hustle and bustle and excitement leading up to Christmas has passed, do the After-Christmas Blues show up at your house? Sometimes taking a break from all the “new” toys and kits that arrived on Christmas Day, can be a help. Try going back to some of the “old” crafts they’ve done before but haven’t thought about in a while. New toys and things will seem more fun again after the kids have had a little break from them. There is comfort to be found in the tried-and-true. Here are a couple of suggestions of things we’ve done on here before but might be fun to pop out for the kids again.
#1.) Making paper snowflakes. It’s still obviously winter and cold outside so how about doing a craft with snowflakes that don’t make your fingers cold when you play with them. Follow the link to this project:
There are over 450 posts here on my blog so I hope you can find some fun things to do with your kids to help everyone get back on an even keel again. Those new gifts will look even better afterwards! Have fun! Hugs to all of you! 🙂
Today I want to share with you a Christmas garland that I made using puffy stickers. It’s simple to make but does require using a hot glue gun. Regular school glue might work but I wasn’t sure it would hold the weight of the stickers so I used a glue gun.
You’ll need some ribbon in the color/design of your choice and some puffy stickers. You could use regular stickers too, but leave the backing on them for this project. Begin by picking your ribbon.
Get your stickers out and ready. I found these at Hobby Lobby for 50% off. Except for the burlap bows…those are some I had leftover from another project.
Decide how long you want your garland to be and cut the ribbon a few inches longer to allow for making a slip knot on each end for hanging.
I folded my ribbon in half and made a tiny mark on the center. I picked which sticker I wanted to be in the center of my garland. Then I put some glue on the mark.
Don’t remove the backing on the sticker. Just place it on the glue dot and hold it in place for a few seconds.
I used a ruler to measure from the center of the sticker to 4 inches in each direction. I made a small dot on the ribbon with a pen and that’s where I placed the next dot of glue from the glue gun.
I followed the same pattern on both sides of my center sticker.
Just keep marking the ribbon every 4″ and gluing on stickers until you run out of room on your ribbon.
The weight of the puffy stickers made the stickers want to lean forward when I tried to hang the garland up. So I used some of these little dot adhesives to help hold my garland to our fireplace mantel. Depending on what type of stickers you use if you will need to do this step. (The pop-adhesive dots might not work well on painted walls so be careful where you use them.)
So here you are! I think my garland is cute and I’m sure yours will be too!
I hope you will have fun making a Christmas sticker garland for your home! 🙂
I found a couple of felt craft kits at the Dollar Tree store and wanted to share this idea with you. At just $1.00 for each kit, you can craft with up to 5 kids! Pretty good price, right?! So here’s the 2 kits I found:
Let’s look at the penguin felt ornament kit first.
This little guy is so cute!
When you open the package, you will find 5 individually packaged kits.
In each individual package, you will find this:
The felt pieces for making the penguin have been punched and for the most part you can gently pull them apart to get the pieces ready to use. Have a pair of small scissors handy in case any pieces need a little help getting free.
Once all the pieces are separated, you are ready to put your penguin together. I would recommend using a craft glue like Tacky Glue instead of Elmer’s glue. I used the Elmer’s glue when making my penguin and I had some trouble getting the pieces to stay together. I switched to the Tacky Glue.
There weren’t any instructions included in the package, but you can figure out how to put the penguin together by looking at the picture on the front of the package. (Remember, this kit only cost $1.) 😉 And here is my finished penguin! I think he’s a cutie!
Now let’s look at the second kit I bought. This kit is for making animal finger puppets.
They are cute too!
I had more difficulty getting these felt pieces separated and I did resort to using a pair of scissors at times. Also this package did not have the kits divided into separate kits already, so you will have to figure out which felt pieces go with each finger puppet. It’s rather like making a puzzle. 😉
Here they are separated into the pieces for each animal. I didn’t go ahead and make the puppets because I wanted to save them for a fun project for some kids I know. 😉
These kits might be a little too difficult for really young children but I’m sure ages 7 or 8 and up will enjoy making them. I’m not sure if the felt pieces will stick together well enough to be used as finger puppets, but they would definitely make some very cute ornaments to hang around your house. 🙂 Mark these down as 2 more fun projects from Dollar Tree! 🙂
As the title of this post tells you, today I want to show you how to make a fun Christmas Wreath using only pipe cleaners (or chenille stems). Aren’t they cute?
All you need are pipe cleaners in a few colors…3 green, 1 white, 1 red and 1 sparkly and 1 pen or pencil for wrapping some of the pipe cleaners.
Begin by wrapping 1 green pipe cleaner around the pen or pencil. Make sure both ends are wrapped around the pencil so it’s all uniform.
Continue wrapping until you’ve used the entire pipe cleaner.
Slide the wrapped pipe cleaner off the pencil.
Wrap the other 2 green pipe cleaners in the same way.
Next, take the red pipe cleaner and the white pipe cleaner and while holding one end of each together, begin twisting them.
Continue twisting to the other ends of the pipe cleaners. It will look like the stripes on a candy cane. 🙂
Take the red and white twisted pipe cleaner and slide a green spiral onto it.
Slide the other 2 green spirals onto the red and white pipe cleaner too.
You will now bend the red and white pipe cleaner into a circle and the green part will begin to look like a little wreath.
Give the red and white ends a twist to hold your wreath in a circle.
Now to make the red and white bow. You will not actually tie a normal bow. Just bend a loop off to the left side and let the tail cross to the opposite side.
Take the other tail and bend a loop on the right side, letting the tail cross over to the left.
Now you’ll need to wrap a piece of pipe cleaner around the center of the bow to hold it in place. If you have a scrap piece of pipe cleaner in a matching color you can use that. Or use the end of your sparkly pipe cleaner.
Take the ends to the back side, twist them together and clip the ends short.
Your wreath could be finished now or you can use the sparkly pipe cleaner to fancy it up a bit.
Stick one end of the sparkly pipe cleaner into the back of the wreath spiral end by the back of the bow.
And then wrap the sparkly pipe cleaner around your wreath in wide wraps, leaving spaces so there is some sparkle all around the wreath.
Once you have used up the sparkly pipe cleaner, tuck the end into the green part of the wreath so it isn’t seen. And you have finished your first pretty little wreath! 🙂
You can experiment with other colors like blue and white to make more pretty wreaths. I hope you’ll enjoy this latest Christmas craft project! 🙂
Are the kids home from school because of Covid and your nerves are wearing a little thin? Or maybe you are homeschooling and you’re looking for a craft for today? Here is an adorable little snowman coloring page from Crayola that might save the day! (And your nerves!)
He’s just so cute that I had to print one and color him myself! Here’s my version:
Are you looking for a craft to occupy your kids? May I suggest this easy and fun garland made from felt mittens and stockings? You’ll need some paper to draw a pattern on, a couple colors of felt, craft glue, scissors, some string or twine and a few small decorative snowflakes, buttons or winter items (optional). Here’s what my finished project looks like:
You can make your garland as long as you like using as many mittens and stockings that you want to make. Let’s get started!
First, draw a pattern for your mitten and stocking. Mine are around 4 1/2″ to 5″ long and around 3 1/2″ wide. I also made a pattern for the top white part for both the mitten and stocking.
Cut the pattern pieces out.
Gather your felt pieces. You can use whatever colors you like. I used only red, white and blue for this example. If you are making a lot of mittens or stockings, you might like to have more colors available.
If your felt is a thick type, you could use just one thickness of felt for each mitten or stocking. The felt I have is the thinner variety and rather see-through so I cut out 2 pieces for each mitten and stocking. Cutting 2 of each also makes the stocking able to have something small and light inserted inside it. (Like maybe a candy cane.) I cut 2 topper pieces for each mitten and stocking too.
I folded my felt over and just held the pattern piece in place while I cut around the outside edge of the pattern. You could trace around the pattern or cut each piece separately, depending on what works best for your kids and for the thickness of the felt you have.
It will be easier to cut the topper pieces if you cut a little section of felt away from the rest of the piece of felt first.
Cut a little strip of felt for the loop to hang your mitten or stocking from. You will fold it in half and glue the end pieces together.
If you are using just one layer of felt for your mitten or stocking, you can skip ahead and just glue the white topper part to the colored part of the stocking or mitten. If you are using 2 pieces, grab your glue and let’s put these together now.
Spread a line of glue along the outside edge of your stocking but not across the top edge. And put a dot of glue on each side in the place where the loop goes.
Add the second piece on top of the glued one and press firmly together, holding for a few seconds while the glue starts to set up.
Spread another line of glue and put the first white piece of topper at the top of the stocking. Turn the stocking over and spread another line of glue for the second piece of topper. Hold for a few seconds again.
Now for the best part, decorate your stocking! Glue on any little snowflakes or stars or buttons you might have. Or spread a little glue and sprinkle on some glitter. Gently shake off any extra glitter.
Follow the same directions for the mitten. Glue around the outside edge but not on the opening side of the mitten. Add your loop in now. (I forgot to add my loop now and I had to add it in later. Oops!)
Add the second layer and press together. Spread a line of glue for the first topper piece and add it on.
Flip the mitten over and spread glue for the second topper piece and add it. Press together for a few seconds.
Decorating time!
Ta dah! My mitten is complete!
Make as many mittens and stockings as you would like to get the length of garland you want to hang up. The last step is to thread your string through the loops of the stockings and mittens…and have an adult help you hang it up for all to enjoy!
I hope you have enjoyed our craft project and you will have lots of fun making stockings and mittens to give your house a warm, holiday feeling! 🙂 Happy holidays!
The Kids Niche 