Crafts: How to make an Egg Box Dragon

Egg boxes have long been used for all kinds of kids crafts. They lend themselves to so many things, so this month we’ve turned one into an egg box dragon.

Dragons are our favourite mythical creatures. In our world they’re mostly friendly and none of them need slaying. Of course dragons have been figures in fiction for hundreds of years but only recently they’ve developed a friendlier reputation. We’re very fond of our bright green dragon, we’ve called him Dave and he’s a bit sparkly.

Crafts: How to make an Egg box Dragon

Our egg box dragon took a couple of craft sessions to make. We painted him first and left him to dry overnight. The next day we decorated him and made him look all fierce and fancy.

How to make an egg box dragon

You will need:
One egg box
Green, red or orange paint
String or wool
Googly eyes
Sequins
Pipecleaners
Blu Tack Glitter Pens or glitter
Bostik Glu Dots
Red and yellow card
Black felt tip

Crafts: How to make an Egg box Dragon

How to make your egg box dragon:
Using whichever coloured paint you choose, paint your egg box, making sure it’s well covered with paint. Put the box to one side to dry, preferably overnight.

Once dry, cut the egg box up. we cut our six egg box into thirds, so each section had two egg spaces. You can do them individually if you prefer. Using a skewer carefully poke through holes where you want to thread your sting through and tie your dragon parts together. We also poked some holes through to thread pipecleaner horns and a ridge on it’s back. A grown up will probably need to help with the tricky cutting, poking and threading.

Crafts: How to make an Egg box Dragon

Thread the string though the holes and tie the ends together. Thread through your pipecleaner horns and using the glu dots, stick on the dragon’s eyes. Then you can go crazy decorating it. We added sparkles and sequins along its body and dabs of glitter from the glitter pens. I can’t sing the praises of glitter pens enough, all the sparkle of glitter but without the mess!

Crafts: How to make an Egg box Dragon

Draw on some details with your black felt tip, I added a snout detail on his face and leave the glitter to dry. While your glitter is drying, cut out some red and yellow flames and stick them to your egg box so it looks like your dragon is breathing fire. Your dragon is now ready for some dragon action.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you might also like to try some jelly bean architecture.

Crafts: How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate

I’ve been curious about clay crafts for a little while. A few months ago I bought myself a cheap packet to play about with and it’s sat in my craft cupboard ever since. I didn’t really know what to do with it, but with a poorly child to entertain, I thought we’d have a play and see what we came up with. We ended up making a rather lovely clay Scrabble tile nameplate.

I figured that the boy loves playdough, so I thought the clay might have similar appeal, thankfully I was right.

Crafts: How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate

I got out my box of cookie cutter shapes and a rolling pin and we set to work. In my cookie cutter collection I found a box of scrabble tile cookie cutters, we thought they’d make really cool name plates and we think they do. Here’s how we did it.

How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate

You will need:
A packet of air dry clay
A rolling pin
Some Scrabble Tile Cookie Cutters
A wooden toothpick
A length of jewellery wire
Some coloured paint, we used black
A fine paintbrush

Crafts: How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate

How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate:
Take a piece of clay and work it in your hands for a few minutes until it is pliable. Roll it out on a surface you don’t mind getting clay on, we used a plastic chopping board that could be put in the dishwasher afterwards.

Crafts: How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate

Taking your Scrabble tile cookie cutters, cut out the tile pieces you need. We were making a nameplate with the name BEN, so we cut out those letters with a few spares too. I made some holes with a toothpick so I could thread my wire through later. We left them to dry for 24 hours, though longer might be needed, depending on your clay.

Once the pieces were dry, I carefully threaded some jewellery wire through the holes and twisted the ends together. Then we took a fine paintbrush and a little bit of black paint and painted in the letters and left the paint to dry.

Crafts: How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate

We were pretty pleased with our first clay craft, it’s a little bit rustic, but we think that adds to its charm. We feel quite inspired to try to make a few other things out of clay, so watch this space!

Crafts: How to make a Clay Scrabble Tile Nameplate

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Kids Craft: Super Easy Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper

One of my favourite sights in spring is new-born lambs, we often pay our local community farm a visit, just so we can take a turn feeding the orphan lambs. Recently we’ve been doing quite a lot of spring themed crafts, so it felt natural to make something a bit sheepish, so we made this really simple Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper. It’s so cute we might make a herd of them to top all the pencils in our pencil pot.

Kids Craft: Super Simple Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper

Like I said, they really are incredibly simple to make. All you need are a few bits and pieces and no more than ten minutes of your time. If you don’t have a circular cotton wool pad (the type usually used to remove make up) then you could use a circle of plain white card instead. I think the cotton wool makes the woolly sheep pencil topper extra woolly though.

How to make a Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper

You will need:
One circular cotton wool pad
A small piece of black card for the face
Two googly eyes
A pair of scissors
PVA glue
A pencil

Kids Craft: Super Simple Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper

To make your Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper:
Take your cotton wool pad and fold it in half. Cut a slit about a centimetre from the top and another one about a centimetre from the bottom. This is to thread your pencil through.

Take your black card and draw the shape of a sheep’s head on it. Carefully cut it out. Using glue, stick the googly eyes into place, leave to dry if need be.

Using more glue, stick the sheep’s head onto the cotton wool pad body. Again, leave this to dry before threading the pencil through. Your Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper is now complete. Ewe can now use your pencil topper with pride!

If you enjoyed this, you might also like these other spring Crafts:

Kids Craft: Super Simple Woolly Sheep Pencil Topper

Crafternoon Tea at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House

Here in Manchester we are lucky enough to have a large number of historic buildings and houses. Hidden in plain sight on one of the busiest roads leading to the city centre is Elizabeth Gaskell’s House. The house is the former home of the famous author and her family. Her novels include Mary Barton, Cranford, North and South, Ruth and Wives and Daughters. I went along to enjoy a “crafternoon tea” session in the Servant’s Hall. Craft, tea, cake and a beautiful historic house – what’s not to like?

Crafternoon Tea at Elizabeth Gaskell's House, Manchester

Elizabeth Gaskell’s House have been running Crafternoon Tea sessions for the last few months. I’ve really wanted to go to them but I was a bit worried that my sewing skills were not good enough; but I need not have worried. I went along to try my hand at some Victorian Crazy Patchwork; a craft I’ve never heard of before but one which is ideal for people like me who have fairly basic sewing skills.

The Crafternoon Tea sessions are run by talented volunteers. The Victorian Crazy Patchwork class was run by Margot, a very experienced and helpful teacher who provided everything we needed to create our own crazy patchwork. Margot began by talking us through, step by step through the process. One of the best things about Victorian Crazy Patchwork is if your sewing isn’t especially neat, it doesn’t matter because the stitching is covered by the fabric, making it ideal for beginners.

Crafternoon Tea at Elizabeth Gaskell's House, Manchester

Victorian Crazy Patchwork, Margot explained, was a style of patchwork which fine Victorian ladies would do to occupy themselves. They usually used scraps of silk from old dresses or from dressmaking to create colourful patchworks. I remember my husband’s Grandma having what I now know to be a Victorian Crazy Patchwork cushion.

Margot gave us all a pack including a template, a piece of calico and a notebook we could cover with our patchwork. There was a large bag of silk pieces on the table and we all selected a few pieces for our patchwork. We cut out our hexagon shaped centre pieces and stitched them onto our calico; then we cut pieces of contrasting silk and stitched them on. Sewing them so the stitches are underneath (this is hard to explain but hopefully you can get the idea from the photo below).

Crafternoon Tea at Elizabeth Gaskell's House, Manchester

Around half way through the session we stopped and made our way into the tea room for a pot of tea and a slice of really good cake. The tea room is a lovely airy space with the original stone floors from Elizabeth Gaskell’s days at the house. It was the hottest day of the year so far and it was the perfect place for some cool respite from the temperature outside.

Crafternoon Tea at Elizabeth Gaskell's House, Manchester

After we’d been fueled by tea and cake, we returned to the Servants Hall to carry on with our crazy patchwork. It soon became clear that despite my best efforts, I wouldn’t be able to finish it in the two and a half hour craft session. Thankfully Margot let me take everything I needed to finish it at home. In fairness, it was ambitious of me to try to finish within the time. But I left armed with the skills and knowledge to finish off my work at home.

The Crafternoon Tea at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House costs £19 and includes everything you need to create your craft as well as a hot drink and cake. Keep an eye on their website for more craft and literary events. I do know they have a few limited places left on their Crochet Afghan Squares Crafternoon Tea on 17th May and Paisley Woodblock Printing Crafternoon Tea on 21st June 2018.

Crafternoon Tea at Elizabeth Gaskell's House, Manchester — My not quite finished Victorian Crazy Patchwork.

I had the most lovely relaxing afternoon. Even though I went by myself, the rest of the crafters around the table were all very nice and chatty. It was lovely to switch off and concentrate on sewing the patchwork and enjoy the peaceful and historic surroundings of Elizabeth Gaskell’s House.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s House is located at 84 Plymouth Grove, Manchester, M13 9LW

Kids Crafts: How to make Tulip Handprint Cards

This month Craft Merrily have set the Bostik Bloggers the task of creating a flower craft. We decided we would make tulip handprint cards. They’re really simple to make and would make a lovely card to give for a lot of different occasions such as Easter, Mother’s Day or for a birthday. The handprint adds a lovely personal touch too.

Kids Crafts: How to make Tulip Handprint Cards

We went away with some friends for a week, so I planned a few crafts for us to entertain the kids with while we were away. These tulip handprint cards were one of them. The children were all so pleased with their cards and I like to think the recipients were too.

How to make Tulip Handprint Cards

You will need:
1 piece of A4 card, I used pale blue
2 pieces of different coloured paper, I used yellow and pink
1 green pipecleaner
Bostik White Glu
A pencil
An envelope which will fit your A5 card

Kids Crafts: How to make Tulip Handprint Cards

How to make Tulip Handprint Cards
Fold your A4 piece of card in half. Cut out a large rectangle of coloured paper (we used yellow) and stick it onto one side of your card with Bostik White Glu.

Take a pencil and draw around a child’s hand, carefully cut out the hand shape. A grown up might need to help with any cutting out, especially the trickily shaped handprint. Stick this near the top of the rectangle.

Shape your green pipecleaner into the shape of a flower stem, you could make a loop about half way to make it look like a leaf if you want. Glue it on the card below the flower.

I sandwiched it under a glass dish and left the glue to dry overnight. I’ve no idea why I used a glass dish, it was just close to hand I guess. It worked though.

Kids Crafts: How to make Tulip Handprint Cards

Once the glue is dry, write your card and put it in the envelope ready to delight the lucky recipient!

It’s pretty cute isn’t it?

Check out my other craft tutorials here!

Kids Crafts: How to make Tulip Handprint Cards

I am a Bostik Craft Blogger and I was sent the materials to create this craft from Craft Merrily.

Kids Crafts: Quick and Easy Earth Day Craft

Every year we celebrate Earth Day on 22nd April. Earth Day is all about loving our planet and doing what we can to protect and care for it. It’s a good excuse for us to talk about things such as recycling, reducing our energy usage and what we can do to lower our personal impact on the planet. We will be doing a few things at home to mark Earth Day, such as reading some books about the environment, learning more about recycling and doing some Earth Day craft.