get the full tutorial for this great holiday activity – homemade slime – ew! – budding scientists will love it.
STC Craft has put together a collection of 20 free patterns from their books, for you to download for some holiday / gift giving crafting: whether you knit, sew, stitch, or stamp, there’s something here for everyone.
Man Crafts: Leather Tooling, Fly Tying, Ax Whittling, and Other Cool Things to Do (Popular Mechanics)
An eccentric collection of ‘manly’ crafts, from 100 years ago, that includes ‘axe’ crafts, whittling and fly tying to cartooning and book binding. The instructions are by no means definitive and really only provide a taster for getting started on these crafting pursuits.
The value in this book really lies within the detailed instructions and beautifully done illustrations giving the would be crafter a really good taste of beginning these ‘manly’ pursuits.
Jan emailed me ages ago [sorry for the belated reply] with a query about activities for the elderly with gnarled hands and/or dementia.
Having taught art and craft for many years I am now working with the elderly, some with dementia. There attention span is limited in many cases. I liked your article on 50 activities for children and was wondering if you had any ideas about simple activities these elderly residents with gnarled hands might enjoy please?
Here are 4 ideas that I think might be useful – readers if you have any more ideas please leave a comment for Jan.
1. Punchneedle – recently I featured June’s patterns and e-book on this craft and due to the simplicity of the tool needed I think this would be a great craft – here is a tutorial on how to do it.
2. Wet felting small projects I think would also be great – warm water would be lovely on the hands and fine movements are not needed - felted soap - felted balls are just two ideas.
3. Loom knitting – with its large tools and simple designs – nice repetitive motions without tiny finicky movements – here is a tutorial.
4. Weaving - t-shirt weaving or weaving with rags – would be an ideal creative outlet – there are some great basic basketry projects.
share and be inspired by the ideas behind the little writers centre.
alpha mom has a neat tutorial how to make a tiny toolbox using altoid tins – totally cute! [via craft gossip.]
Kids project – bed bug hand warmers at Se7en.
I love these cute speech bubble thank you notes – great idea from Inchmark.
Maya*made – “how to: make your children feel like royalty” or even “how to: keep kids happy while tending to the mountains of laundry (upon returning from vacation)” – love it thanks Maya.
School holidays are soon to be upon us – or are already in some parts of the world – for me its winter and for others its summer. Whatever season though – if you have kids you will need to think of some activities to keep them occupied. Here are my top 10 activities for kids to do in the holidays. These are things that 6 year olds and up can do without a lot of supervision – although there will always be questions and chatter. And best of all these activities are bound to keep them occupied for longer than an hour.
1. Reading and drawing takes up a lot of my kids time and I like to enable this by providing interesting drawing materials – nice pencils, fancy crayons, and lovely books.
2. I love sewing and usually my kids like to have a go if they think it looks fun – my daughter especially is into making her own clothes and with my recent sewing machine acquisition I was able to pass on my old machine to her. Why not let your kids experiment with making some costumes or dressing up the family cat.
3. Felting is another fun family craft – we went through a bit of a felting craze for a while – and the kids loved it – why not let them try needle felting or making some simple felt balls even felted soap – such a lot of messy clean fun.
4. Playing shop is a major favourite activity in our house – give them some materials to really make it authentic. Collect empty food packaging, cardboard boxes – they can even make their own currency.
5. puppets, masks and other dressup / theatrical opportunities can last all day. My kids are now directing their own movies using the digital camera. Hilarious.
6. Playdough has always been popular in our house – we make it ourselves and playing with warm fresh playdough is so tactile and nice. We have graduated slightly from this and now the kids beg me to let them play with real dough so they can bake funny shaped cookies and then eat them.
7. Paper crafts are also popular – give kids some recycled paper, scissors and glue and just sit back and watch. If you want to direct them or give them some creative ideas – try making flowers, boats, paper dolls and a doll house to go with.
8. The shower curtain playmat is a great idea – we do a papier mache version – making cubby houses and pretend houses – whatever your skill level as a parent – getting your kids to use their imagination and crafty skills will keep them happily busy for hours -
9. A yarn craze has entered our house – with competitions running for the longest finger knitting. We are doing 1 finger knitting, whole hand finger knitting, French knitting and are about to move onto bigger loom knitting projects.
10. Getting outdoors – this is a must no matter what the whether. Collecting leaves, stones and bits of bark to make things with later – try rock painting, bark boats and nature collage. So many possibilities.
