Simple Art Activity : Paper Monster/Alien

When you need a quick activity with your child and you do not have time for much preparation work.. This activity is really simple and easy! Minimal materials needed and minimal items to prepare too. :D

Materials :

• Coloured Paper (I am using origami paper from Daiso 24 colours/180 sheets)
• Glue
• Pom pom balls (optional)

Steps for Preparation and Activity :

1. Leave 2 pieces of the coloured paper as "base/body" and cut up the remaining coloured paper into different shapes and sizes.

2. After telling my little one that we are going to make monsters for activity, I got her to choose some poms poms for eyes. If you don't have poms poms you can use hold puncher to punch some holes on coloured paper to be used as eyes, or you can draw dots on paper to be used as eyes.

3. Starting with the eyes, slowly glue on features of the monster/alien.

As you do this activity together with your kid you will notice many things about him/her.

• He/She may get ideas from what you are doing, sometimes attempting to do exactly the same thing. 
• Sometimes he/she may get animated and starts telling you stories about the monster.
• Sometimes he/she may have certain ideas about his/her artwork but couldn't do it due to skill. 
• Sometimes you may notice he/she likes playing with glue more.
• Sometimes you may realise he/she is actually more arty (creative) than you are...

These are our monsters.

I'm not very creative but it looks cute right? *self praise*

The thing about Monster/Alien is that there's no "form" that you must comply with.. so you can just paste it anyway you like. It's your monster and only you can judge if it's done "right".

Any simple craft you've done with your kid this week? :)

Simple Handmade Toys : Sushi

Made these many months back but forgot to post it up. :P

My sewing is still really crappy but it should get better right? :P

From very far still looks quite cute right? haha.

The "seaweed" doesn't need any sewing as felt fabric can "hold on" to each other..

I don't know how to explain but if you really want maybe sew a button on? :)

Okay I am hungry haha.

Got to go eat now~~

Simple Homemade Toys : Banana and Cookie.

It's been a while since I last made toys for my little one. Just the other day she was feeding small toys to her elmo hand puppet and I decide that I should make more toys for her.

So.. I made a Banana for her monkey soft toy and Cookies for her cookie monster toy.

Sewn the banana, filled it with cotton and also made the skin "peel-able" by adding velcro.

Sewn "chocolate-chips" on both sides of the "cookie". Felt fabric, thread and needles are from my favourite shop (Daiso).


It's not perfect but that's the point, if I want perfect looking toys I would purchase it from shops, or maybe I wouldn't cause simple toys aren't that cheap nowadays.. :P


Have you made any toy for your little one recently? Share your ideas with me? :)

ArtnCraft : Umbrella (Easy)

Had some "free time" with little one and decide to do a little craft project with her.

It's been raining the whole month so Umbrella seems very fitting for this little project? :D

Materials:

• Umbrella shape printout
• Colour Pencils/Crayons/Paint (anything to colour the printout)
• Straws
• Tape
• A clothes peg with handle/hook (optional)

Steps:

1. Design and printed an umbrella shape using Ms Word.

2. Cut out the shape and colour them.

3. Tape Straws to the back of the umbrella shape

4. If you have the clothes peg with hook you can clip it to the straws to make it look more like an umbrella but it's fine without it too. :)

Now get ready to hear your little one sing "Rain Rain Go Away" on repeat...

This is one of the more simple craft that I've done, do you have any simple but fun crafts to share?

Feel free to share them with me! :D

Cotton On Online Purchase + Art Stencil for my toddler

I love free shipping and I love sales.

I think I've blogged about cotton on before and yes I just ordered some items online again.

This time I bought 10 items for SGD50 including delivery.

 

1. Slippers $2

2. Stencil Kit $5

3. Huge Wooden Peg $1

4. Bralette $10

5. Long sleeve top $5

6. BATGIRL Tee $5

7. Red Shorts $5

8. Kids Raincoat $5

9.  Kids Long Sleeve Top $7

10. Kids Shorts $5

This is to replace my previous pair of slippers which is getting too slippery.

Fits me quite well and it's only $2.

Fine Motor Skill : Stencil Kit

This Stencil kit is really worth it!

Usual Price is $17.95 but it's only $5 during sale!

Originally thought it's a small stencil but it's actually 10 huge stencil.

Here's my little one exploring the stencil using Homemade Paint and a little sponge.

It's fun and it's reusable!

Love it! Best purchase.

Fine Motor Skill : Homemade Paint for Toddlers

I love art but I'm terrible at it. If there's anything that I did as badly as history, it would be art (okay maybe and social studies too?)

My drawings always end up looking way different from what's in my mind and my projects always looks like I didn't put in effort on them. *You will get to see my artwork at the end of the post and you will know I am not lying. lol.

I remember that when I was young my mother hates it when I paint cause the paints are so expensive and I always makes a mess. She would line newspaper on the floor and I would work on  the newspaper, but somehow the paint will get on the floor, the walls and even on my face, hand, legs and hair. The newspaper would also give me dark patches on my hands and legs.

Oh don't get me started on the favourite paints always running out before the other colours. Or when you're painting and then you realise you run out of paint or the paint is so old that it has dried up..

~

Fast forward 18 years, today I'm preparing paint for my little one to explore and play!

Just like the play dough that I blog about recently, this recipe for non toxic paint idea came from the mummies online too!

Using simple kitchen ingredients to make non toxic paint !

Materials:

• Flour (plain/all purpose flour)
• Salt
• Water (Warm-hot water)
• Cup/Bowl/Palette
• Something to stir
• A Sieve
• Food Colouring (I use Yellow, Blue and Red)

Steps:

1. Mix approximately 1/2 cup Flour and approx. 5 spoonful of Salt together.

2. Slowly add in 1/2 cup of water (I prefer to use warm-hot water) while stirring with (spoon/chopstick/anything)

Stop when you feel that it's just right (thick liquid just like paint)

3. Using a sieve, pour the liquid through the sieve to the container for the paint.

This step ensure that there is no lumps of flour in the mixture that is not mixed well.

4. Drop a few drops of food colouring in the mixture and stir it till the colour is even. If the colour is too light just add more food colouring. You can also mix the colours to get another colour. :)

Here are some photos in case you're not too fond of words..

Flour + Salt + Water

Remember to sieve it if you want a smother paint.

I use 3 small containers to store the paint as each time I make the paint I can use it for about 2 sessions of art and craft with my cutie pie.

Food Colouring

I let my toddler help me with stirring in the food colouring.

If the colour is not to my liking I would add more drops of food colouring.

and carrying on stirring..

3 Primary Colours

If we are doing painting with paint brushes I would pour them onto a palette for us.

It's good for making more colours too.

If we are doing sponging art I would use old paper plates

(yeah still I keep paper plates leftover from buffet in 2012-2013)

*For sponge I purchase the cheap ones from Daiso just for her to play.

Usually she gets to work on her own, sometimes I do a "sample" and she would attempt to follow.

Once it's done, sun it or just let it dry on it's own..

Hers look very watered down because she kept cleaning her brush in the small bowl of water I placed there for her to wash her brush.

I try to let her do her art on her own because that's how she would get to practise using her hands.

By the way we are actually painting a happy cartoon SUN, in case you can't tell..

Yeah.. I wasn't joking when I say my art is not very good...

Would you try this with your little one? Let me know? :)

Fine Motor Skill : Homemade Dough for Play

I love playing play-dough when I was a kid but unfortunately it's quite messy and expensive so I didn't really have much chance to play with it.

Thankful for the internet, for google and also to all the mummies who shares information online, I found out that you can actually make non toxic play dough with kitchen ingredients!

Materials:

• Flour (all purpose flour)
• Salt
• Water (lukewarm water works better imo)
• Big Bowl
• Food Colouring (optional*)

Steps:

1. Mix approximately 1 cup Flour and 1/2 cup Salt together in a big bowl.

2. Slowly add in 1/2 cup of water while stiring or mixing with your hands/fork.

Stop when you feel that it's just right (mushy, not watery)

3. Keep kneading it until it's ready to play, if it's too wet add a bit of flour, if it's too "flour-y" add a bit of water.

4. Drop a few drops of food colouring in the dough and knead it till the dough changes to the colour that you want. This is optional, no need to add food colouring if you are okay with white dough. :)

3 Primary colours (Yellow, Blue and Red) is all you need.

You can mix the colours to get different colours.

Eg Yellow + Blue = Green

Yellow + Red = Orange

Red + Blue = Purple

From another playing session:

I did the dough-man and she gave the it legs! lol.

Also did the numbers and held her hand to trace them.

Previously I made her some cards with shapes and their names in English/Chinese, decide to take them out so she can fill up the shapes (e.g. see star and heart which was done by me lol.)

Then she decide to fascinate me by making little pieces of dough and placing them on the points on the shapes instead. (Other than oval and circle which has no points so she placed the dough randomly, the rest are right! 3 points on triangle and 4 points each on rectangle, square and rhombus.)

Cutie pie loves playing with them and could play whole day. Usually I would make them in the morning/noon and she will play for a few sessions throughout the day. When it's time to eat I would keep them in a box and so that it will not dry up so fast. :)