It is suppose to be a Rain Stick, when you turn the tube upside down slowly the sound is suppose to be like rain. But when a 4 and a 2 year do it, it is a bit more like a shaker, but fortunately not a loud one.  So here goes enjoy making this with your little ones.

This is what you need to make it:

Card board tube - the longer the tube the more rain sound you are going to get, we just used the one from the kitchen paper.
Paper for decorating
Rice and or Pasta
Nails
Sticky Tape
Little people to decorate the paper

What you need to do to put it all together:

1. Get the cardboard tube and push the nails in the cardboard, randomly all around the tube. See the pictures if you are not sure what I mean. The nails don’t go right through the tube, just a bit shorter the the tube.

2. Place sticky tape over one end of the tube, you will need to either put some paper over the tape or another piece of tape the opposite way to stop the rice from sticking to the sticky tape.

3. Place a few handfuls of rice into the tube, we also added a handful of pasta to give it a bit more sound. But if you tube is long then probably just rice would work fine.

4. Stick up the other end of the tube.

5. Small people should decorate a piece of paper how ever they would like, then wrap the piece of paper around the tube and stick it down. You may want to put a bit of tape around the ends to stick it to the tube so it doesn’t slide off.

6. Now the small people can turn it up side down slowly to make a lovely rain sound or just shake it about and make some noise.

It isn’t the greatest photo as I couldn’t get them to stand still long enough to take a good one.

Fun, Fun, Fun!

Cardboard Stove
Grass Head

The Little Man kept on at me that he wanted a stove and oven like Mummy’s so that he could do his own cooking. So I thought to my self, it can’t be that hard to make one. We just happened to finish a box of Nappy’s so we used the box to make the stove, but you could use any cardboard box that you can get your hands on. Easy peazy!

What you will need

- Cardboard Box
- Roll of paper (I can get rolls at Ikea) or you could use sheets but it may take a bit longer to stick it on.
- Glue Stick
- Sticky tape
- crayons/ pencils
- Ruler
- Cake cases - just the small ones
- Ribbon - small piece for the handle
- Sharp knife

What you will need to do to put it all together

- Get your cardboard box and tape it closed, if it has handle holes in the ends tape those up also.

- Get your roll of paper and wrap it around the box to cover it then put to the side. Cover the box with glue then get your paper and stick it to the glue. It is better to cover in Glue as then the paper is smooth on the box and not moving around.

- You should now have a box that is completely covered in paper. On the sides that had joins I glued them and then put sticky tape on the joins so that is was harder for small fingers to rip the paper off.

- Next draw your stove top on the top of the box, we used black crayon and drew 4 circles and then coloured them in.  See photo above.

- On the front of the box, I just did an outline of the oven door in pencil to make sure that it looked ok, then I got the little man to colour it in, and added a bit of colour and  did the outline in crayon.

- Next you will need your cake cases and stick them on with glue for the buttons, you can make the colour in the middle of the button by folding up another case and sticking on.

- An adult must definitely do the next bit, get a sharp knife and cut out the three sides of the oven door, leave the bottom bit so it is like the hinge. Pierce a hole in the handle area and feed the ribbon through, tying it at the back.

- Presto! you now have a play stove and oven. If you are adventurous you could put a shelf on the inside of the oven, I just cut another piece of cardboard and stuck it with tape on either side.

Hours of fun for your little ones. The little man has already had a great time with it. It is a shame that little miss thinks that it looks great to pull apart, so we have to keep it up high away from her.

Just a picture to finish off with, this is what the dining table and area looked like when we finished, even teddy was on the table helping out.

Other craft projects
Grass Head
Elephant Photo Holder

We made these before Christmas, the Little Man had a great time helping me with it, and even more fun watering and watching his hair grow. An easy and fun craft project that everyone will get a laugh out of.

What you will need

- Old Stocking
- 3x elastic bands - small ones
- Cotton balls
- Grass seed - handful
- Paper cup
- Wobbly eyes
- Pipe cleaners
- Glue

What you need to do to put it all together

- Cut the stocking at about the thigh, you can cut more off later when you are finished if you need to.

- Place a handful of the grass seed in the toe of the stocking

- On top of the seed, push the cotton balls in to the stocking so it is reasonably firm, and in the shape of a head.

- Now you need to shape the face, make a nose shape and then put the elastic band around it to hold in place. Then do the same for the ears.

- Tighten the stocking at the bottom and tie into a knot, leave a bit of stocking hanging as it helps to soak the water up when watering it, but if it is too long then chop it shorter.

- Glue on his eyes ( a good craft glue is better, or his eyes will keep falling off), and his pipe cleaner mouth.

- Place in a paper cup in a sunny spot on the window.

- Water him every day and you should start to see him sprout in 7 days or sooner.

- Cut his hair how ever you like.

TIP - Wait for the glue to dry before you water him.

We had so much fun with making the first one we had to make another, the second one we put a bit of grass seed just under his nose to make a mustache, very funny.

I am glad that this is not how mustaches grow in real life, men wouldn’t be able to see where they were going.

A couple of pictures taken a week after making, after having a hair cut. They are just fun!.

Other projects that we have done -

- Paper Flowers
- Cardboard Flip Flops
- Elephant Photo Holder

These are great little flowers to stick on the wall, you can put a bunch together and they look great.
Plus they are extremely easy, you can make one in no time, so a bunch of them wouldn’t take you long at all.

What you will need:

- Paper plates - I used white ones, but if you can get coloured ones that would look great too.
- Large Cake cups - coloured ones
- Small Cake cups - coloured ones
- Paddle pop stick (just any kind of wooden stick that you can find)
- Sticky tape or Glue
- Scissors

Here is what you will need to do to put them together:

- Cut the paper plates to the shape that you want.

- Flatten or scrunch, depending on the look that you are trying to get, a large cake cup and stick it to the paper plate, either with glue or rolled up sticky tape. I doubled over the sticky tape and stuck it in the middle so that you can’t see it.

- Do the same again, but this time with the small cake cup, and stick it on top of the large cake cup.

- Now stick the wooden stick to the back for the stem, or you can leave off the stick and just stick them to the wall in a bunch, to make a flower arrangement.

- There are so many shapes that you can cut your plates, and so make ways you can stick on your cake pans, just play and enjoy making them how you like.

Elephant Photo Holder

This was a fun one to make, and it looks great on the wall when you are finished. I am going to try it in different animal shapes and put them on the wall in the Little Miss’ Bedroom, and clip some great pictures to them.

It would make a wall lots of fun. It works really well with the elephant though, as the peg becomes the trunk.

What you will need:

- Paper Coloured
- Cardboard - I just used the back of the cereal packet
- Small piece of white paper
- Glue
- Scissors
- Pen
- Pencil
- Peg - plastic or wooden

Here is what you will need to put it all together:

- Draw an elephant shape on to the cardboard, make sure you also draw a rectangle the size of the peg for its trunk.  Then cut the shapes out.

- Trace around the shape on the coloured paper, not forgetting the trunk again. Cut the shape out and glue to the cardboard. The cardboard just makes it a bit stronger, it would be a bit floppy if you just used the paper.

- Next you need to stick the peg on, if you are using a wooden peg you may be ok to use the glue stick , but if you are using a plastic peg you will need to use a PVA or craft glue for it to stick. Stick the cardboard on top of the peg to make the trunk.

- Trace around the shape with your marker, to make it stand out a bit more.

- Draw some toes and a few creases on it’s trunk.

- Next are his eyes, You can use white sticky dots for eyes, but if you don’t have sticky dots like I didn’t, then you can just use white paper and draw some circles and cut them out. Glue them in place and add the black dot in the middle.

- Hey presto you now have a fantastic photo holder that you can put on the wall.

If you have any questions or problems let me know.

Egg Carton Computer

The little Man is always on at me to use my computer, or that he wants a computer of his own. But as he is only 3 years old, I really don’t think that he needs one just yet.

So what better thing to do, but to make our own out of an egg carton.

Here is what you will need:
- Egg Carton
- Scissors
- Sticky Tape
- Paper - Whatever colour you like.
- Coloured sticky dots
- Permanent marker

Here is what you need to do to put it all together:

- Turn Carton inside out and tape it together on the sides, so that it looks a bit like a lap top computer.

- On the underneath, cut the points off the middle of the egg carton, so that it sits flat on the table.

- Place the paper on the egg carton and cut to the size, this will make the screen, you can make it whatever colour you like, the little man wanted green for his, stick it on with a bit of tape.

- Stick the coloured dots on so that they make it look like the keys of the computer.

- You can then design your screen, and with the marker put some letters on the coloured dots, to make the keys.  If you have some stickers you can decorate your screen however you like. We decorated ours with some bug stickers and put a boarder around the outside.

Just use your creativity and have some fun. Craft is great fun, and the kids love it.  I know that it is not like the real thing, but a little bit of fun and imagination can go a long way.

Works for Me Wednesday - Cleaning Tips

Cardboard Flip Flops

I saw these being made the other day, I can’t for the life of me remember where, but I do get a lot of my ideas from Play School, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that is where I got the idea from.

Well, the little man wanted to make a pair this afternoon, so we did of course, even if it was in the middle of cooking dinner.

Here is what you need:

2 or 4 Pipe Cleaners (depends how big the foot that you are making it for is.)
Cardboard
Pen and Crayon

Here is what you need to do to put it all together.

- First thing that you need is the cardboard, I got out some quiches from the freezer that we were having for dinner, and the box was perfect, just what we needed to make a pair of flip flops.

- Draw around the foot on the cardboard, cut around the shape about a centimetre bigger than the foot.

- Punch a hole with your pen, between the big toes and one on each side about half way down the foot shape.  See Picture above.

- Fold the pipe cleaner in half if a small foot or twist the two pipe cleaners together if a bigger foot. Feed the middle of the pipe cleaner through the hole made between the toes, and sticky tape it to the bottom.

- Then feed one piece of pipe cleaner through each side hole and tighten to fit the foot, sticky tape down on the bottom.

- You can colour in how ever you would like, we put spots and squiggles on ours.

Hey Presto you now have a fabulous pair of cardboard flip flops, I don’t think that they will last very long, certainly if you wear them out in the rain. But we made them for a bit of fun, I hope that you do to.

Works for Me Wednesday

Easy to Make Bird

What you will need:

- Paper plate

- Paint or crayons

- 2 Feathers

- 2 Paper clips

- Paper or Felt

What to do to put it all together:

- Paint or colour in the middle of the paper plate, fold the plate in half with painting showing.

- Draw an eye on each side

- Cut a triangle out of the paper or felt for the beak, sticky tape the beak to the inside of the plate

- Paper clip the feather so it is a tail, the other in the middle of the plate, being the top of the birds head.

Voila, finished one bird that rocks back and forth. The Little Man thought it was great that it actually moved.

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