Rainy Day Umbrella Craft

It was raining this morning and Master E wanted me to sing him a rain song. All I could remember at the time was this one:


Rain is falling down, 
Rain is falling down, 
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, 
Rain is falling down.

He was suitable impressed, (luckily for me!) and we have been singing it on and off all day. Which is where the inspiration for today's craft came from. I have been thinking about making umbrellas for awhile and today's weather really did lend itself to making them. They are super easy and we used all things we already had.

We started with

Paper Plates
Dot Painters
Pipecleaners
Sticky Tape (I intended on using staples but the kids were have too much fun with the sticky tape!)
Ribbon Scraps
Blue Card
Scissors

Before we started I cut a paper plate in half with a zig zag pattern to form the top of the umbrella.

We then used the dot painters to decorate our umbrellas. I love these as they are technically still painting but there really is hardly any mess and set up is so quick.

A decorated umbrella. While Master E and Miss M were busy decorating I cut some of the card into rain drop shapes. I wasn't very fussy so the shapes and sizes were rather varied.

While we waited for the umbrellas to dry we used sticky tape to tape raindrops onto pieces of ribbon. Master E loved the challenge of using the sticky tape.

Once we had taped a number of raindrops onto each ribbon we taped the ribbons to the back of the umbrellas and added a pipecleaner for the handle. 

Miss M's finished umbrella. 

And Master E's.

We would love to see any of your rainy day crafts!

Threading with Leaves ~ Simple Cost Effective Crafting!

We had a visit to a lovely park this week and managed to come home with a great collection of leaves. I had previously seen a wonderful post on threading with leaves from A Little Learning for Two and decided we would have a go too!

We used:
Leaves
Curling Ribbon (I seem to have an abundance of this!)
Child friendly Needles 
Scissors

We started by removing all the leaves from the twigs we had collected. 

I cut off lengths of curling ribbon and tied a knot at the end to prevent the leaves from all slipping off and attached the child friendly needle at the other.

We then got busy threading, the needles pushed through the leaves quiet easily and is great for fine motor development and hand eye coordination. We used eucalyptus leaves so there was also a lovely scent when the leaves were pierced.

Once we had enough threading I tied the ribbons off to make a necklace. This is Master E with his beautiful necklace.

A very proud Miss M showing off her necklace.

We had lots of fun with this one and it was soooo easy and very cost effective too. Next time we might add some flowers into the mix!