Zip Lock Bag Butterflies

I love searching the internet for wonderful crafts clever people have already thought of. Here is a super simple craft you can do with things you have at home! Easy butterflies, made using zip lock bags, tissue paper and pipecleaners. Thanks to Busy Bee Kids Crafts for this one!!!



Here is what we did.

1. Before we started I cut the tops off the zip lock bags just above the zip so that they still closed but didn't have any over hang.

2. Scrunched up little squares of tissue paper to fill the bags (about half way, fabulous for fine motor)

3. Closed the bags carefully squeezing out as much of the air as we could.

4. Gather the bag in the middle and wrap a pipecleaner around a couple of times leaving two ends to be bent into antennae.

5. Voila Zip lock bag butterflies!

Miss A very busy scrunching her tissue paper into balls to put into her bag.

Miss L, Miss G and Miss A all busy scrunching!

Master J filling up his bag.

Miss M and the lovely birthday girl Miss O filling their bags.

Testing out the pipecleaners.

Carefully squeezing the air out of the bag.

Master E flying his butterfly!

Simple Sorting

I came across this idea on the Crafty Mumma's Facebook page and loved it. Such a simple activity to make and educational too!!
So here's how we did it. While Master E and Miss M were asleep I added coloured paper spots to the bottom of an egg carton for some colour matching fun.
We headed outside to see what we could find!

All ready for some matching! 

Master E picking some RED leaves to pop into the red spot.

Slowly getting there. White flower, red leaves, brown stick, green leaves, purple flowers!

Miss M was keen to help but not so great at working out where things should go.

All done, we found something for each spot minus the light blue! Master E got right into the matching and was really good at finding the colours. He did need a bit of direction, for example I would say "Can you find something to put in the white spot?" and off he would go searching for the appropriate colour. With some of the more difficult colours I would prompt with "I can see something for the blue spot" followed by a location.   

Master E was really into this one and when we came inside he started to do some matching with his cars.

Fruit and Vegetable Printing

This is a really simple and very effective printing activity. Choose a variety of fruits and vegetable to create prints from. We used potatoes, orange and apples. If you cut the apple across ways and remove the seeds you reveal a fabulous star shape which looks brilliant when printing. 

I cut a few apples, oranges and potatoes in half and mixed up some simple colours in poster paints on some lids from margarine containers.

The fruit and vegetables were cut into chunky pieces that were easy for little hands to hold. 

Sliding the fruit and veg made some great colouring mixing occur!

We also had some great paint pads which worked brilliantly with the oranges showing all of the lines and details very clearly.

 Some hand painting and face painting added to the sensory experience.   

 The results were simple yet very effective and will look great on my wall!

Pasting without the Paste!

My kids are super keen crafters and if I let them would happily craft the day away. I too love a craft, but sometimes can't be bothered with the mess. This is where pasting without paste comes into play.  Instead of paste, which tends to end up everywhere we will often use sticky tape. I collect lots of bits and pieces for pasting and cut up all sorts of things from old birthday cards, catalogues, wrapping paper, bits and pieces of cardboard and anything textured that I can find. Then I stick lots of pieces of tape around the edge of my kids play table and let them at it. They love using the tape and come up with some wonderful creations all while practising their fine motor skills!

The craft table all ready with tape around the edges and lots of bits and pieces for sticking.

Practising our fine motor skills by picking up and pushing down the tape.

The is easy enough for Miss M to do at age 20 months.

Master E's paste free pasting creation.

Miss M's artwork!

Coloured Pasta and Pipecleaner Necklaces

Yesterday Master E and I dyed some pasta. Today we were lucky enough to have a group of product testers and we set to making some necklaces. A great fine motor activity.

 We started with the dyed pasta and pipecleaners. The pipecleaners we had weren't long enough for necklaces so I twisted two together to make longer lengths.

The children chose their own coloured pipecleaner and started threading.

The rigatoni was a great size for little hands and the kids soon got the hang of it. 

Master T busy threading.

 Miss O happily showing off her finished necklace. To finish them off we just twisted the ends of the pipecleaners together.

 Master E very proud of his work.

 Master J sporting his handy work!

Once all the necklaces were finished Master E and Master S did some sorting and pattern making. I always love seeing what else the kids come up with other than what was intended!

So there you have it, simple and very effective pasta necklaces. One thing to note, Miss M was keen on sucking on her pasta which did cause the dye to run. This didn't matter as we dyed the pasta with food colouring and vinegar, but did leave an attractive stain around her mouth!

Do it yourself Coloured Pasta

Making coloured pasta is simple. Here is how Master E and I made up ours.

You will need
Pasta ~ We used Rigatoni as we are planning on using it for threading and it's nice and chunky
White Vinegar
Assorted Food Colouring

Zip Lock Bags

Paper Towel or Baking Paper

All our bits and pieces ready to go!

Pop the pasta (I used about a cup) into the zip lock bag with 2 tablespoons of vinegar and as much food colouring as you like.

Zip up the bag and shake, shake, shake! Leave in the bag for about half an hour.

Pop onto some paper towel to dry and absorb and extra liquid.  

And there you have it, coloured pasta ready for threading, crafting or whatever you like!!!! 

Reuse your Art

We have collected so many paintings, far more than we have room to display. So we have started to re-purpose some of them. Here is a cute way to reuse those extra paintings.

I cut up a whole lot of old paintings into heart shapes

Miss M and Master E pasted and pasted making beautiful collages of their works. 

Miss M's finished artwork.

Master E's finished artwork.

I framed both of these pieces and they were given to both Grandmother's as Mother's Day gifts. They looked amazing in simple black frames and made for a very cost effective one of a kind gift!