Tag Archives: Craft

Zoe’s Pipe Cleaner and Pom Pom Craft

Posted on by

2

What do you do when no one wants to do the craft things you think they would like to do?

Get the experts in to help.

So of course I turned to Zoe.

And this is the tray of fun she put together:

Zoe's craft fun at Mudpies and Sunshine

Zoe didn’t have a specific idea in mind for her craft. She just knew what materials she felt like creating with. Pipe cleaner fun with Mudpies and SunshineAnd here are the results… Look what I made with Mudpies and SunshineI know the craft object is a little blurry but I included this photo because of the look of pure enjoyment in Zoe’s eyes.

Here are some clearer photos of what Miss Zoe created… Pipe cleaner creations with Mudpies and Sunshine

The shiny green pom pom creature on the left is a fish; the one with the orange pipe cleaner is a letter holder; the large one on the right is a nose phone and the small one Zoe is holding is a baby called “The Tot“.  Yes I know what you’re thinking and you are right. There is no way I could have ever prepared a craft for Zoe that would turn out this varied. Or maybe you weren’t, maybe you were thinking “Thank God she told me what they were ‘cos I never would have worked that out in a million years”.
Pipe cleaner and pom pom creations with Mudpies and SunshineAnyone else a little wistful for their childhood imagination?

Hmm, me too :)

So, what’s up next? Well Mother’s Day is looming here in Australia so I will be featuring some crafts and cards for Mums over the next two weeks. Us Mums love kid-made craft and I am no exception. We also do crafts for the girl’s grandmothers so they will just have to refrain from opening my Mother’s Day posts. I’d hate to spoil the surprise!

Thanks for dropping by!

About these ads

Easter Bouquet

Posted on by

3

Easter Egg Bouquet with Mudpies and SunshineI purchased some foam eggs and knew the girls would appreciate a laid back craft session in the lead up to Easter. This was essentially a free range collage session. The girls chose wool, confetti and fabric scraps as their decorating materials. Craft glue, glue stick glue and glue dots were the necessary tools.

Both girls started wrapping wool around an egg each whilst concentrating very hard. Wool just wants to slip right off the eggs so the wool had to be tied tight. We also used glue dots for the wool attached to the extremities of the egg.

Collage Easter Egg Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine - using wool

Decorating foam eggs with Mudpies and Sunshine

They were very happy, busy with their glue and their materials.

Fabric scraps with Mudpies and SunshineDecorating foam easter eggs with Mudpies and Sunshine

Collage Easter Egg Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine 031

With the confetti, Zoe just rubbed the glue stick all over the egg and rolled it in the confetti. Such a sticky and satisfying result!

Sticky Glue Fingers with Mudpies and Sunshine

Collage Confetti Easter Egg Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine

The eggs were appropriately placed in egg cups while the glue dried… Collage Eggs drying in egg cups with Mudpies and Sunshine

Then with a satisfying sharp prod with some bamboo skewers and a container or vase, you can instantly create a pretty Easter Bouquet.

Easter Egg Bouquet with Mudpies and Sunshine - the finished prodectHave fun!

Thanks for dropping by :)

100 Free Easter Printables

Posted on by

1

Wow – I found this amazing list of 100 free Easter printables over at Craftionary. It really is a comprehensive list with so many cute ideas that I guarantee that if you have never used a free printable before – things are about to change!

Here are just three of the huge list that caught my eye …

Easy to cut out table decorations from Skip to my Lou.

Childs-Easter-Table-Decor

Gorgeous little bunny bags from Mr Printables.

Party Favor Bunnies from Mr Printables

And a beautiful set of Easter table prints and cards for a lunch or brunch from The Pretty Blog.

EasterBrunchMain

EasterBrunchCard

There are so many to choose from – here is the link to the list of 100 printables again. Have fun with it!

{We have been a bit slow on the craft side of things lately. Both girls have been busy with school work, playing with new things they received on their recent birthdays and just plain decompressing. I 100% endorse giving your children space just to “be” so lately I haven’t been organising too much craft for them. 

Not overloading with things to do has been working as they have been getting along well and appreciating the space in their lives. School is tiring them both out at the moment!

However now that we are moving quickly towards Easter the girls will be happy to get into some Easter craft. To that end we have a cute Easter card post coming up on the weekend using materials you will most probably already have to hand. So please check back to see what we come up with!}

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Foam Koala Masks

Posted on by

3

We made some foam koala masks on Australia Day which we mentioned in that post but didn’t elaborate on.  They are good fun to make anytime and very handy in a dress up box so I thought a full post was called for!

Foam Koala Masks with Mudpies and SunshineFirstly I found the koala mask tutorial on the Woman’s Day website here and printed off their free koala mask template. The tutorial originated from TheHappyHome, a beautiful blog with lots of gorgeous craft. The Woman’s Day tutorial uses felt but we wanted to do ours quickly so we chose foam instead.

Koala Mask Template with Mudpies and SunshineOnce the template was cut out, I traced around it onto the foam. I used black foam for the nose (the pic above is a little misleading – please refer to the pic below which shows the black foam!). Foam Koala Mask Cut Out with Mudpies and Sunshine

Once the foam shapes were cut out, it was time for the girls to get busy creating fluffy white ears for our cute koalas.

Glue and cotton balls for koala's ears with Mudpies and SunshineWe used cotton balls pulled into pieces and white pom poms for the ear fur.

Making a foam koala mask with Mudpies and Sunshine

With both girls finished I hole punched the edges of the ears and tied on matching ribbons. Ribbon allows for easy adjusting and is soft and barely noticeable when tied securely.

Foam Koala Mask with cotton ears with Mudpies and Sunshine

Just for the sake of aesthetics I tied the knots in the ribbon on the back side of the mask. Foam Koala Mask with Mudpies and Sunshine - tie knot in the back

Allow for plenty of ribbon which makes tying so much easier and less likely to get hair pulled and caught up in it.

Jan 2013 078

Both girls were so pleased with their masks. We have seen alot of koalas about lately…

Foam koala masks on with Mudpies and Sunshine

Have fun!

Thanks for dropping by :)

Easy Felt Heart

Posted on by

4

Need a last minute Valentine’s gift? Keep reading!

Zoe raided my felt stash and asked if we could make something for Valentine’s Day using felt. So combining two pink colours and some lovely stick on gems we came up with this sweet little craft.
Easy Felt Heart Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine

If  you are looking for a craft with a quick set up time and limited supervision (as I was) this is the Valentine’s craft for you. We already had some embroidery hoops on hand but you could use a photo frame or even make your own frame (pinterest pinterest pinterest) if you have more time. Or you could glue or stitch the felt heart onto a bag, scarf, beanie or stick it onto a strong piece of card.

Easy Felt Heart Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine - what you need

Fun and much concentration using the stick-on gems.

Easy Felt Heart Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine 007

It is a real test of the fine motor skills removing the small piece of sticky backing paper from the stickers and then placing the sticker right where you want it.

Easy Felt Heart Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine 022

Flip the finished little heart and squeeze on some glue.

Easy Felt Heart Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine - gluing

Brush on the glue and position the heart onto the felt.

Easy Felt Heart Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine - stick on the heartThen show off your work proudly! Then perhaps quickly wrap it before the 14th :)

Easy Felt Heart Craft with Mudpies and Sunshine - all finished

Quick, sweet and worthy of the most beloved valentine.

P.S. This is a craft best done with a nude child who isn’t interested in putting on a skerrick of clothing for the camera :)

Thanks for dropping by!

Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series

Posted on by

3


Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series with Mudpies and Sunshine - egg cartons

School is back for both my girls so we are doing things a little more slowly around here.  Not less craft, just more efficient craft. So to achieve some efficiency I decided that we would use two egg cartons to create 5 different craft activities. There might end up being more, who knows? I can always edit!

To start with and in keeping with the Valentines theme, I invited the girls to paint an egg carton each, anyway they liked – using pink and red paint.

Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series with Mudpies and Sunshine - painting stripes

If you have kids who love paint, then just being able to paint is an activity all of its own. Ebony was tired and found the painting relaxing…Zoe had a bit more energy and was thinking purely of decoration.

Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series with Mudpies and Sunshine 015

Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series with Mudpies and Sunshine 016

Paint, paint, paint. It’s a busy job this.

Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series with Mudpies and Sunshine 030

I love the preciseness of Ebony’s paintwork. She wasn’t going to just slap on the paint. Not when she found out the egg cartons were for a blog series ;)

Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series with Mudpies and Sunshine 033

The plan for the series is to use the egg cartons for lots of Valentine’s themed fun. And here they are, all dry and ready for action.

Valentines Egg Carton Craft Series with Mudpies and Sunshine 034

Are you going to join us on this craft series? If so, starting is easy. Paint, egg cartons and those crafty kids you’ve got.

The next post in this series will be posted here tomorrow – so stay tuned!

P.S This might be a handy time to sign up to the blog if you haven’t already. Posts straight into your email in-box so you don’t miss a thing.

Thanks so much for dropping by!

Australia Day Craft Ideas

Posted on by

3

Image

Happy Australia Day everyone! We’re looking forward to a warm day crafting and relaxing before going to see the fireworks display this evening :)

Are you looking for craft activities to do with your kids today?

Then look no further than my pinterest board with over 40 Australia Day craft ideas to inspire you to get crafty.

All of the ideas below you can find on my pinterest board.

Today we will doing this simple map of Australia sticker dot activity :-

aboriginal_dot_art

We will be eating lamingtons:-

lamingtons

The girls will be getting busy with some Australian themed worksheets :-

Australia Day word search

I also love this boomerang collage idea :-

boomerang

We’re going to be using foam and foam stickers for the boomerang – easy and fun!

More foam is being used to make these koala masks right this minute! You can get the free printable here.

Australia Day with Mudpies and Sunshine 012

Ebony is super keen to make a cork hat today so we will be attemping to make something that looks like this (what are the corks for? keeping the flies away from your face!) :-

cotton slouch hat aussie-500x500

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Thanks for dropping by :)

Related articles

Decorating Playdoh Christmas Trees

Posted on by

1

Playdoh is so wonderfully tactile, kids of all ages just love it. Therefore I was delighted to see playdoh and christmas come together in so many different ways on pinterest. I knew my girls would love making a christmas tree the most so that is what I prepared.
Title 1

Christmas paper & playdoh Dec 2012 081

Christmas paper & playdoh Dec 2012 093

You can get a really good perspective on this craft when you are near spotty christmas paper lanterns!

Christmas paper & playdoh Dec 2012 096

Christmas paper & playdoh Dec 2012 102

Christmas paper & playdoh Dec 2012 111

Zoe was totally absorbed doing all the 2D trees. I forgot to tell her that this was a sharing craft. My bad. Ebony solved her own problem and turned the left over lump of green playdoh into her own 3D tree.

Christmas paper & playdoh Dec 2012 114

Christmas paper & playdoh Dec 2012 123

3D Playdoh Tree

I love the sparkling decorations around the base of the tree. Ebony also made a green snowman :)  Playdoh 006

We might as well make our snowmen out of playdoh since we will never see snow at Christmas time in this neck of the woods!

This was such a cute and easy craft to do. Highly recommend it :)

Thanks so much for dropping by!

DIY Wrapping Paper – Initial Stamping

Posted on by

4

Welcome to the fourth DIY wrapping paper craft in our series. I have created this as a series because it is one of my quick go-to crafts. So quick and easy to set up.

So far we have had lots of fun making wrapping paper in the following ways:

This post is about personalising the wrapping paper and using the recipient’s initial as a stamp. In this case, Ebony was making wrapping paper for her friend’s 10th birthday. 10th birthdays are very special aren’t they?

First up I drew the outline of a “K” onto a household sponge and then cut out the shape.

Image

Ebony helped me lay out the paper and paints and then she was ready to start.

Image

Ebony was intriguied with the squishy feel of the paint and sponge combination. Even though she knew it would be squishy theoretically, it was not until she was doing it practically that her senses were completely appreciating it. I loved watching her enjoying it so much.

Image

Ebony was fascinated by the bubbles and holes appearing in the stamp. It was at this stage Ebony decided to add some purple along with the pink.

Image

Backwards and forwards – it’s all art!

Image

Trying to fill those gaps and experimenting with purple on pink.

Image

A happy little vegemite pleased with the results.

Image

Ebony asked if she could do another one for a different friend’s 10th birthday. Well of course I said “yes”. Initial “M” here we come!

Image

And the final product :-

Image

Ready to go and par-tay!

Image

Next up we will be doing more Christmas card craft, this time with pipe cleaners and pom poms - stay tuned and thanks for dropping by!

Paper Garland (Part Two)

Posted on by

0

Welcome to Part Two!

A quick summary – Ebony is hosting a party soon and wanted to make some decorations. In Part One we used colourful paper circles to create a falling or vertical garland. Cutting out those circles created a lot of left over paper that looked too beautiful to neglect.

Here are the left overs (the circles were used in Part One):

Image

I took the scissors to the chunky part of the paper until I had three rectangular strips that looked like this:

Image

Once cut, all the strips were then lovingly placed into old meat trays:

Image

Next up was inviting someone to come and make the garland. Zoe wanted to help out so she started off first.

Image

We used sticky tape and string as we did in Part One. Then Zoe got tired of making something that was for Ebony’s party and wandered off to do her own thing :)

Enter stage left – big sister.

Image

We were both surprised at how quickly it turned from scrap paper into a decoration.

Image

We wanted it long enough to stretch from one side of Ebony’s room to the other.

It’s this long peoples!

Image

It looks pretty cool off the ground too:

Image

Here is where the two garlands meet in true coloured paper harmony:

Image

But what happened to Zoe while all this loveliness was happening? Where did she go? I’m so glad you asked :)

I found a few paper strips on her desk:

Image

Then she caught me in her room and after letting me off with a caution, she proceeded with the craft she wanted to do:

Image

And here is the result – a lovely little colourful robot.

Image

Paper, scissors, adhesive tool – life is good.

Thanks for dropping by!