Tag

clay

Salt Dough Pine Cone Fairy Houses

Salt dough and nature items are our favorites materials to create with hands down. I don’t know what is more fun, gathering the nature or pressing it into the dough and seeing what new and exciting things that you can come up with. There are so many amazing possibilities. We have made nature islands with branches and leaves and pine cone creatures with pipe cleaners. And do you remember when we made those adorable fairies with acorns, sticks and clay? Well those little fairies needed a home and we couldn’t wait to make them one. These sweet pine cone fairy houses are simple and enchanting.

Pine cone and salt dough fairy houses. Magical nature arts and crafts for kids

 

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Stick and Stone Winter Crafts

The winter is officially here and we enjoyed a couple of snowy days this week to welcome the start of winter. We played outside in the snow all day yesterday and took in all of the beauty of the season. Watching the snowfall and looking at the snow-covered trees was enough to inspire some winter crafting.

We love working with clay and nature items. We have a collection of sticks and stones set aside for occasions just like this.

Sticks and stones winter nature crafts - use clay, salt dough or play dough to set these pretty seasonal arts and crafts projects for kids, rock snowman, twig snowflake & Christmas tree
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A Piece of My Heart Homemade Ornaments

Whenever I look at our Christmas tree, I have to smile. Slowly over the years, all of our beautiful glass bulbs have been being replaced one by one by homemade keepsake ornaments.  Our tree is filled with so much love and memories.

Pieces of my heart salt dough puzzle piece ornaments that kids can actually make. Christmas arts and crafts. This is a sweet handmade gift that your children can make for the family.

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My daughter has been insistent that our tree doesn’t have enough ornaments this year, so we have been working on filling it up. Salt dough ornaments are our favorite. With cookie cutters and paint, there are a million possibilities. We had an idea to press puzzle pieces into our clay to make these “pieces of my heart” ornaments.

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Still Life Challenge

  1. Still Life Challenge for kids - Still life does not just have to be painting. Sketch, paint, cut, glue or mold a still life out of play dough or clay. Kid's and preschoolers arts & crafts - fruit

It is fascinating to watch my daughter while she creates. I love how she see things and it amazes me the details that she picks up at only 4 years old. She loves to prop things up on our coffee table and recreate them. Sometimes she draws them or sometimes she cuts out construction paper and assembles the pieces to form her project.

Last week, I did a little experiment. I put a still life on our dining room table and set out a bunch of supplies. I laid out paints, construction paper, scissors, glue, pencils, markers and clay.

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I started to paint the fruit and asked her if she wanted to join me.

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She sat down and declined the paint, but went straight for the construction paper. She cut out the shapes of the different fruits and their stems. She drew some of the fruits first and some she simply cut out.

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She glued all of her pieces to another piece of paper to form her still life.

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When she finished gluing, she used a marker to add a little life to her still. She gave all of the fruits faces and personalities and even made a cowgirl orange, complete with a lasso.

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The next day, I invited my daughter to come and look at the still life of fruit. She sat on my lap and I asked her what she saw. She named off all the fruits on the cutting board. I asked her what color the pear was and she responded that it was green. I asked her if green was the only color that she saw and she looked closer and told me that she saw brown. When I asked her where she saw the brown, she started with the stem and then went into further detail about the speckles of brown around the pear, explaining that the speckles weren’t everywhere and showing me where they were more saturated. She went on to the next piece of fruit, which was the orange. She asked me about the little dimples all over the skin. She studied each piece of fruit and made wonderful observations about every piece.

She looked over the supplies on our table and reached for the clay. We used polymer clay, but play dough would be fine as well. She carefully sculpted each piece and laid out her fruit sculptures on a cutting board from her play kitchen.

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I watched her intently as she used a straw from her juice to carve lines into her pumpkin.

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When she sculpted her orange, she remembered her earlier observations and used a pencil to poke little dimples into it. She worked through each piece of fruit and even sculpted the red apple, which was no longer on our still because she ate it after making her construction paper project.

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I was blown away by her clay sculpted still life. It came out so beautifully.

Kid's arts & crafts. Use Play dough or clay to sculpt a still life. Check out the rest of our still life challenge using a fruit still life. Great for preschoolers

She loved it too. When she was finished, she grabbed a bowl out of play kitchen and cut up her fruit and made a fruit salad for the both of us to “eat”. img_5199

Still Life Challenge for kids - Still life does not just have to be painting. Sketch, paint, cut, glue or mold a still life out of play dough or clay. Kid's and preschoolers arts & crafts - fruit

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Clay Fortune Cookies

Clay Fortune Cookies - Cute & easy to make - kid's can add their own special messages.

I had a birthday recently. All I wanted for my birthday was a quiet night at home and some Chinese food. We ordered a ton of food and with it came a lot of fortune cookies. My daughter liked the fortune cookies, but what she liked even better was the messages inside. She opened all of the cookies & asked me to read every one.

We thought we could try to make fortune cookies of our own out of clay. We tried making them out of polymer clay & also air dry clay.

They were pretty easy to make. We used colorful polymer clay first. Here is how we did it.

Use a little rolling-pin to roll out an oval shape. The shape does not need to be perfect.

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Fold the oval in half over your thumb.

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Push up in the center of the fold with your thumb & then fold the clay again towards you. Use your free thumb to indent into the fold. Bake your clay cookies according to the polymer clay directions.

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Cut a long strip of foam sheet or paper & write your special message on it.

Clay Fortune Cookies - Cute & easy to make - kid's can add their own special messages.

Next we used the air dry clay. I wanted to make an extra-large one. It was molded the same way as the polymer. I left it to dry for a couple of days & then painted it & added our special message.

giant clay fortune cookie. A sweet kid's gift idea with a great message. Would make a great paperweight

These would make great gifts. They would work wonderfully as a paperweight.

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Clay & Rock Nature Crafts

My daughter and I are always trying to come up with new arts & crafts ideas. My 4 year old has quite the creative mind & brings a lot of amazing ideas to the table. We like to think of new projects, but there are still some favorites that we can do over & over again. My daughter’s favorite activity is making nature islands out of clay & items that we collect from our yard. We gather art supplies from our backyard often.

Clay Rock Nature Funny Faces - a fun summer arts crafts project for the kids

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Yesterday, we collected a pile of small pebbles and then rinsed & dried them off.  We were originally going to make our nature islands, but my daughter inspired us towards a different direction.

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Polymer Clay Bangle Bracelets

Easy to make clay bangle bracelet craft for kids . Polymer arts & crafts - jewelry

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My daughter is truly a girly girl. Every day she wears a tutu. She even wears one over her pajamas. She loves tiaras, headbands & jewelry. A few weeks back we made some necklaces out of handmade clay pendants. They were fun to make & my munchkin loved them. Last week we made some bangle bracelets to go with them.

We started with a chunk of polymer clay in the color of our choosing. We rolled out the clay into a thin strip. We chose other colors that we wanted to blend in & rolled them out too and then rolled all the strips together. Roll & blend as much as you like to create the desired pattern. Once you have achieved the look that you like, join your two ends to form a circle. Use your eye or measure to decide how big of a ring you need to make to fit.

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Bake the bracelets according to package directions. These are so fun & easy to make. This is perfect for jewelry lovers of all ages.

 

Easy to make clay bangle bracelet craft for kids . Polymer arts & crafts - jewelry.

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How to make a clay or play dough rose in a minute. quick and easy for clay lovers - kids flower arts & crafts