crafts for kids Archives - Page 2 of 4

02/03/201315/04/2017

DIY castle

It was my niece’s birthday sometime back and Naisha wanted to ‘make’ a gift. After much thought we decided on a thermacol castle since the theme of the party was ‘Princess’. This is what it turned out as…

Here’s what we did…

I cut out a basic castle shape using a hot knife..my old trick. I nicked a shoulder of the castle but..
Naisha rationalised very pragmatically.. ‘It’s an old castle mama ..some of it has to be broken.’
And we were sorted 🙂

Naisha helped paint it pink. I tried to stick on the shoulder with no luck at all.

A little bit of detailing. The red ‘brickwork’ and the silver dabs.

Then we rolled some matching pink handmade paper to make towers

..this is what it looked like.

I wanted to add a princess somewhere but couldn’t quite figure out where. Rapunzel was ruled out.. we wanted no sad princess around on the happy day. Yes we are a little superstitious. With the birthday fast approaching we had to be satisfied with just this. What do you say?

Then we stuck/tied the bits together and we were done.

22/02/201315/04/2017

A post.. finally!

I don’t want to even begin to analyse why this space seems to have lost it’s pull these days. It’s not to do with not having time.. I mean when do we EVER have time? I’ve always MADE time. It’s also not that nothing much is happening. I’ve got loads to write, the drafts are piling up but I find I cannot get through a complete post. Sigh!

This one should have been done for Valentine’s Day but since Shruti, the Artsy Craftsy mum, is still accepting entries for her February theme here it is.

For the record.. The Husband was out on V-Day but the kids and I made up for it by having a great day. Each time I get the kids to craft something for their friends, this time I thought I’d make something for them. BFF Google came up with plenty of ideas. I picked the ones that didn’t require fancy craft material. All I needed to buy was satin ribbons and wrapping paper.

First Naisha’s tiffin had a heart jam sandwich topped with gems which had to be pink, red and purple :-).

Once they left for school I made this heart curtain. Here’s the link. http://spoonful.com/crafts/curtain-of-hearts. The original had messages written on each of the hearts but since I was short on time I simply folded over wrapping paper and cut out hearts, stuck them on a ribbon added tiny bells at the ends and that was that. I fixed them to curtain rings so they can slide aside on the curtain rod.

Then a quick fridge magnet each with ice-cream sticks that had their pictures..

and finally these baskets from the Martha Stewart site. The link’s here..
http://www.marthastewart.com/306688/heart-shaped-crafts/@center/276967/valentines-day.

It seemed complicated (by my non-expert standards, of course :-)) but turned out to be pretty easy.

To say that they were thrilled is an understatement. For that one day I was the ‘best mama in the whole world’ . By next day of course I’d fallen from grace but it was completely worth it.

This is what they looked like..

No, she’s not crying.. this is just too much happiness.

25/01/201315/04/2017

Who’s the crafty one?

Hrit and Naisha had a collage making competition at school. The topic was ‘My Family’. It seemed pretty easy since they had to simply assemble it in school.

Naisha being the artistic one, had a hundred ideas and finally settled on a heart shaped collage… how predictable is that! Hrit, meanwhile, doesn’t have a single crafty bone in his body. He didn’t want to make it at all. After much cajoling he agreed.

And he won! The first prize.

This is what he did

Naisha, changed her mind on the final day and decided the heart shape was too much trouble, didn’t put the tags either which we’d brainstormed and written out so diligently. She also ‘saved’ the heart and smiley stickers ‘to play at home’. She’s incorrigible, this daughter of mine.

When oh when will the kids stop surprising me?

24/12/201215/04/2017

Merry Christmas!

People around here are on a shopping spree. No I’m not the kind to keep tabs on my neighbours’ spendings. Just look at what my two little scavengers brought home.

I hadn’t been able to spend much time with the kids and we were lagging in our Christmas preparations too. So we decided to put all of those ‘goodies’ to good use and came up with some very quick decorations.

We began with drawing some stockings on the sheets..

Cut them out with a hot knife and painted them green and pink..

..and silver and strung them out on a ribbon.

Then we did some bells… which have still to be painted

and some stars and circles too.

.. and then it was time to do up the ‘tree’.

And now if you’ll excuse me I’ll be off.

We have to hurry up and clear the way for shy Santa.

Tonight’s Santa’s busy busy night. Besides clearing the kitchen and

dinner table he has still lots of gift-wrapping to do.

Merry Christmas folks.

19/11/201216/10/2017

Of scavengers and hoarders

While most people are cleaning their homes during Diwali H and N turn into merry scavengers. They lie in wait for people putting out ‘interesting’ stuff. They then try to beat the cleaning lady and carry it all home before she can carry it away with the garbage.Here’s what they brought over this week..
1. Empty shoe boxes, really smelly ones .. ugh!
2. An old bamboo basket.
3. Countless empty mithai gift boxes – some were really prettily decorated, I have to admit.
4. An empty PSP carton with a huge picture of G-One from the SRK film Ra-One
5. Sheets and sheets of thermacol.Okay I have a confession – some of their finds do get me excited. Yes well genes and all.

Getting to the point, their last find – thermacol, is one of my favourite craft supplies. What with the maids playing hooky and tons of Diwali cleaning to be done I’d barely spent time with the kids over the last few weeks. So this Sunday we decided to have some fun.

I cut out some shapes from those thermacol sheets. I used a hot knife to cut through and it was really easy (That tip shared by my sister). The kids along with some friends spent a happy time painting them. Check out their creations.

I let them choose their own colours and designs, not that they would have listened to me anyway. Check out H’s Tigerfish. Craft is not really his forte :-).

The phones were an old idea and they got bored of them even before
they painted them. The fish and flowers they loved.

I have to admit this was the kids’ idea. Over the summers in Lucknow they had super fun with thermacol. They made some interesting things.

The phones were a superhit then, made with masi’s help.

This was a project that took a long long afternoon.

Dreaming of rain during the summers.

..almost done.

And finally.. pride of place on nanima’s wall.

For now I’m wondering how to smuggle out and throw away lights that don’t work, bits of candle wax, blackened diyas and many many mithai and chocolate boxes they are hoarding in their room.