Crafts: Chinese New Year Red Envelopes

During Chinese New Year children are traditionally given red envelopes, or red packets containing money as a gift. The red envelopes are a symbol of good luck and the amount of money in your Chinese New Year Red Envelopes should end with an even number; though it’s important that the money should not be given in fours, or the number four should not appear in the amount, such as in 40, 400 and 444.

2019 is the Chinese Year of the Pig. Chinese New Year falls on 5th February and in Manchester there are already plans afoot for a parade and celebrations across Chinatown and beyond. Chinese New Year is a glorious, colourful celebration in what I think is the gloomiest month of the year.

To celebrate Chinese New Year, I’ve created this simple template to make your own Chinese Red Envelopes. You can decorate your envelope however you like; perhaps with some Chinese writing, or with gold glitter. I’ve kept it simple by creating a sheet with all the animals of the Chinese Zodiac so you can print them out and stick them to the envelopes.

Click here to download the envelope template.

Click here to download the Chinese Zodiac animals.

Crafts: Chinese New Year Red Envelopes

Make your own Chinese Red Envelopes

You will need:

Bostik Fine & Wide Glu Pen
Chinese Red Envelopes template printed on red paper
Scissors
Chinese Zodiac Animals print out

How to make your Chinese Red Envelopes:

Print your envelope templates out on red paper. Using a pair of scissors cut around the template.

Fold along the lines of the template and using the Bostik Fine & Wide Glu Pen, fold the two side flaps into the centre and glue them together. Fold the bottom flap up and glue that into place. Put your envelope under a book or something which will keep it flat while the glue dries.

Crafts: Chinese New Year Red Envelopes

Once the glue is dry, cut out your Chinese Zodiac animal and glue that into place, slip some money into the envelope, tuck the top flap inside and it’s ready to gift for Chinese New Year.

Remember, you can decorate your Chinese New Year Red Envelopes however you want. My calligraphy isn’t great, but if yours is you could try your hand at writing some Chinese characters on the envelope. Gold glitter would also make this envelope look fabulous.

Here are some more Chinese New Year Crafts you might enjoy –

Crafts: Chinese New Year Red Envelopes

Kids Crafts: Simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath

I’m all about the Christmas wreaths at the moment and wanting to make a Hand Print Christmas Wreath before my son’s hands grow too big, this week we set our minds to making this lovely hand print wreath.

My son has just turned 8 years old and he’s growing so fast. A few days ago we were looking at some clay hand prints he did as a baby and we were marveling at how much he has grown. His hands are shaped like his father’s hands, square, stout and strong. In a year or two his hands will be the same size as mine. It’s going too fast, too fast.

Kids Crafts: Simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath

Wanting to preserve his hand print a little, this easy to make Hand Print Christmas Wreath is a lovely thing to do with children. Here’s what we did…

Make a Simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath

You will need:

A paper plate
A pencil
Scissors
Coloured paper, preferably two colours.
Glue, I used a Bostik Wide & Fine Glu Pen
Some ribbon

Kids Crafts: Simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath

How to make your Hand Print Christmas Wreath:

To begin with, take your paper plate and in the centre of the plate draw around your child’s hand. Then carefully, making sure not to cut across the plate (because you’ll be making a ring out of it) cut out the hand shape, this will be your template.

Now carefully trim around the inner ring of the plate, so you have a nice ring to glue your hand prints too later. Cut a small slit in the top of the ring and thread a piece of ribbon through, knot the ribbon. This is how you will hang your wreath once it’s finished.

Kids Crafts: Simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath

Take your hand print template and draw around it on your coloured paper. I think I ended up using 8 pale hand prints and 22 darker hand prints, but the more you have, the better the effect I think.

When you’ve got all your hand shapes cut out, it’s time to sit down with the glue. Put a layer of glue all over the plate ring and then place your first hand print on it. Don’t press it down yet as you’ll have to slip another hand shape under it, and then under that.

Put a small dollop of glue on the palm of each hand shape and work around the ring layering the hands under each other. This will make sense when you’re doing it. If you’re using two colours of paper, make sure they are evenly distributed.

Once you’ve worked your way around the ring and the hand shapes are all overlapping each other pretty evenly, then you can press the shapes down onto the ring. Leave the glue to dry for a few hours. Once it’s dry it’s ready to be hung up. If you wanted you could add some embellishments, like little red pom poms or something.

Kids Crafts: Simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath

So there we have it, one very simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath – a great way to remember your children’s little hands. It’s a handmade Christmas decoration which will look great year after year.

If you enjoyed this, you might also like to try –

Kids Crafts: Simple Hand Print Christmas Wreath

Christmas Crafts: Paper Plate Holly Wreath

I love a good wreath at Christmas. We always buy a nice foliage one from our local Community Farm and have it on the front door. Inside the house we have a few more delicate wreaths on some of the internal doors, it just makes the place look more festive. I really enjoy making wreaths with my son. Once you’ve got your paper plate base sorted, you just let your imagination run wild. This week we’ve made a Paper Plate Holly Wreath and we’re really quite pleased with it.

Christmas Crafts: Paper Plate Holly Wreath

I had the idea for this Paper Plate Holly Wreath, but I knew that I’d probably be the one who would be spending some time cutting out the individual holly leaves and my son (with direction) would be doing much of the sticking. I sat down with a giant mug of tea and Say Yes to the Dress on TV and got cutting. I’ve no idea how many holly leaves I cut out, but it was about two A4 sheets worth.

Now that I’ve seen the finished Paper Plate Holly Wreath, I am really pleased with it. I think it looks really effective and I’ll be pleased to have it hanging in my kitchen this Christmas.

How to make a Paper Plate Holly Wreath

You will need:

A paper plate
Scissors
Green paint
Paint brush
A pencil
Ribbon
3 or 4 different kinds of green card or foam
Bostik Glu Dots
Red embellishments – mini pom poms, beads, paper shapes etc

Christmas Crafts: Paper Plate Holly Wreath

How to make your Paper Plate Holly Wreath:

With a pair of scissors, cut the middle out of your paper plate so it looks like a ring. Near the top of your wreath, cut a small slit where you can thread your ribbon through later.

Paint the wreath all over, front and back with green paint and leave it to dry. If you’re impatient like me, you can use a hairdryer to speed up the process. Your ring might need a second coat of paint on the front if you think it’s a bit patchy looking. This process does take a bit of time, so factor that in if you’re crafting with slightly impatient kids.

While your paint is drying, take the piece of cardboard which you cut out of the paper plate and draw a holly leaf on it. It needs to be about 5cm long, but you can make your leaves as big or small as you want really. Cut out your leaf shape, this is now your template.

I found whatever green card I had in my craft cupboard, which was a nice piece of corrugated card, some shiny card and some glittery card. I also found a piece of glittery foam. Using the pencil I then drew around my holly leaf template all over the back of each piece of card. Try and do this so you get minimal waste when you cut them out.

Once you’ve drawn all your holly leaves, you need to cut them out. This takes a little bit of time, so do factor that in.

Christmas Crafts: Paper Plate Holly Wreath

Once you’ve got a big pile of leaves, it’s time to stick them onto your wreath. Before you start sticking, thread your piece of ribbon through the slit you cut earlier and tie a knot in the ends securely.

Take a Bostik Glu Dot and stick it to the back of each leaf, towards one end if you can. Then stick your leaves however you like all over your wreath. We chose to stick the corrugated leaves all around the outside of the wreath. I suggested he try to stick them in pairs, like holly leaves often are and I think he did a good job.

With the other types of holly leaf, we arranged them in an attractive way around the inner circle of the wreath. Ben then stuck them in place. All the holly wreath needed now was berries. Using the red embellishments; mini pom poms, paper shapes and stick on gems, we decorated some of the leaves with red “berries”. I find stick on gems a bit tricky, so I always use a glu dot on them to make sure they stick.

Your wreath is now complete. It looks pretty impressive yes?

Christmas Crafts: Paper Plate Holly Wreath

Check out my other craft tutorials here!

If you enjoyed this wreath craft, you might also like to try these –

I am a Bostik Craft Blogger and I was sent the materials to create this craft from Craft Merrily. I have not been compensated for this post.

Recycled Crafts: Robot Junk Modelling

My son is always coming home from school or from Beavers with things he’s created out of junk. They have a big box of little boxes, cardboard tubes, bottles, egg boxes and other junk which they can use to create all kinds of things. I fancied getting in on the action. So I gathered a some junk and a selection of crafty bits and bobs and we had an afternoon of robot junk modelling.

I had the idea of taking one of those small cereal boxes and covering it in tin foil, then letting our imaginations go wild. It was pretty simple to cover them in tin foil. I just cut a piece to size, covered it in glue and wrapped it up like a present.

Recycled Crafts: Robot Junk Modelling

Robot Junk Modelling

You will need:
A small cereal box
Tin foil
Bostik White Glu
Empty toilet roll
Sticky tape
Various crafty bits like pipe-cleaners, sticky foam pieces, googly eyes

Recycled Crafts: Robot Junk Modelling

How to get started with Robot Junk Modelling:
Take your cereal box and with some sticky tape, seal up the box. Take a piece of tin foil and cover it in a thin layer of the Bostik White Glu. Carefully wrap the foil around the box, folding the ends in like you would when you wrapped a present.

Grab whatever crafty bits you have. I found some pipe-cleaners, some self adhesive foam shapes, some googly eyes, little pom poms and some beads. Have a think about how you might use your craft pieces to create a robot face, just use your imagination. Use the glue to stick anything which isn’t self adhesive on.

Recycled Crafts: Robot Junk Modelling

I cut down some toilet rolls, covered them in foil and attached them to the sides of the robot head. I also twirled some pipe-cleaners for antennae and embellished them with some beads.

As you can see, both me and the boy had the same pile of crafty bits in front of us, but our robots are completely different. I think his is pretty cool, mine is pretty conventional. What will your robot look like?

Recycled Crafts: Robot Junk Modelling

Check out my other craft tutorials here!

Crafts: Make your own Space Themed Felt Busy Box

Over the summer holidays my son turned into the snack king. He seemed to be constantly hungry and as a result, we went through an awful lot of fruit, bread sticks and little pieces of cheese (he grew an inch over the summer, so we know where all those snacks went). I was throwing another empty box of cheese triangles into the recycling bin when I wondered if there might be a better use for this handy little box, so I put it to one side and got thinking. A few days later I’d hatched a plan to make a Space themed felt busy box.

A busy box is a box with a lid which you put together for children to play with when they’re out and about. Big fun in a little box if you will. Busy boxes usually have felt inside, with felt figures, shapes or characters to play with. I knew my son with his space themed bedroom, love of the night sky and slight obsession with Tim Peake would enjoy a space themed busy box. If I’m honest, I enjoyed making it for him too.