Thursday, December 21, 2006

Packing tape transfers

from http://www.quietfish.com/notebook/?p=586

Materials:

  • clear packing tape
  • magazine or photo with image
  • spoon
  • scissors

Instructions:

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Gingerbread man

gingerbreadman This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Materials:

  • brown construction paper or craft foam (the one shown was made with craft foam)
  • festive stickers, ribbons etc to be used for decorations (the one shown used festive foam stickers)
  • glue
  • markers, crayons, glitter etc for further decoration
  • ribbon (if you wish to make a hanging decoration)

Instructions:
  • have the gingerbread man shape cut out by an adult
  • decorate with stickers etc
  • affix ribbon (if yo uwish to make a hanging decoration)

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Santa

santa_plate

This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Materials:

  • paper plate
  • cotton balls
  • red construction paper
  • white glue
  • stickers, markers, crayons, glitter etc for decorating

Instructions:

  • cut out hat shapes (red hat and white trim)
  • glue hat to paper plate
  • create eyes, nose, cheeks with stickers or markers
  • glue on cotton balls as beard and hat decoration

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Six pointed snowflakes

snowflake_21_d3 snowflake_22_dx snowflake_23_d1

Materials:
  • An existing pattern (choose from the following PDF files*: Pattern One, Pattern Two, Pattern Three or the blank template should you wish to make your own design)
  • use this legend to decipher the folding symbols
  • material for making the snowflake (practise with regular printer paper, delicate snowflakes can be made out of tissue or tracing paper, more permanent snowflakes can be made from vilene (as recommended in this Kiddley.com post)
  • should you wish, materials for decorating your snowflakes (eg. glitter and glue)

Instructions:

  1. print out the desired pattern (PDF file*) and transfer the pattern to your desired material or print it out as a practise run (be sure to check the specifications of your printer before printing on unusual media -- using "out of spec" materials can cause permanent damage to your printing hardware) (These instructions use Pattern Two (PDF file*))
    snowflake_01
  2. Cut along the vertical red dashed line as shown below:
    snowflake_02

  3. Discard the small piece.
  4. Turn the square face down as shown below:

    snowflake_03

  5. Fold the paper in half, so that the cut edge meets the uncut edge (and the pattern is completely visible).

    snowflake_04

  6. The paper should look like this after the fold:

    snowflake_05

  7. Raising the lower right hand corner, make the "valley fold" by folding the paper at a 30 degree angle as indicated in the pattern. (The paper edge should line up with the "mountain fold" line.)

    snowflake_06

  8. Once folded your paper should look like this:

    snowflake_07

  9. Turn the paper face down to look like this:

    snowflake_08

  10. Raising the lower right hand corner, again fold the paper at a 30 degree angle as indicated in the pattern. (The paper edge should line up with previous fold line.)

    snowflake_09

  11. Once folded your paper should look like this:

    snowflake_10

  12. Cut along the curved red dashed line.

    snowflake_11

  13. The right hand side of your paper should now be rounded.

    snowflake_12

  14. Fold the paper in half (blank side under the patterned side).

    snowflake_13

    snowflake_14

  15. Cut out the pattern along the red dashed line.

    snowflake_15

  16. The finished piece should look something like this:

    snowflake_16

    Note that one edge is longer than the other. This is what makes it a 6 pointed snowflake. If you are making your own design, remember to leave some of the folded edges in place -- if you cut these all away the paper will fall apart!

  17. Begin to unfold the snowflake.

    snowflake_17


  18. And again.

    snowflake_18

  19. And again.

    snowflake_19

  20. Voila! Your six pointed snowflake.

    snowflake_20_d2

  21. Decorate with glitter etc.

As you get proficient with the folding, you no longer need a pattern or a template, just an approximate square. The smaller the square, the thinner the paper you should use or it gets too difficult to fold accurately.

I've posted three patterns here.

    These can be taped to windows, used as tree decorations, present decorations, etc, etc!

    snowflake_21_d3 snowflake_22_dx snowflake_23_d1

    --

    (*) When printing out PDF documents, be sure to set "Page Scaling" to "none" (you'll want the document to print at 100%). You may need to adjust the template on your paper depending on your printer's "offset" settings.

    Six pointed snowflake patterns

    Patterns:



    Instructions:
    1. print out the desired pattern (PDF file*) and transfer the pattern to your desired material or print it out as a practise run (be sure to check the specifications of your printer before printing on unusual media -- using "out of spec" materials can cause permanent damage to your printing hardware)
    2. See the following post for detailed instructions.

    --

    (*) When printing out PDF documents, be sure to set "Page Scaling" to "none" (you'll want the document to print at 100%). You may need to adjust the template on your paper depending on your printer's "offset" settings.

    --

    Other sources of snowflake patterns:

    http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dstredulinsky/patterns.html

    Saturday, December 16, 2006

    Approximating a square

    Materials:

    • a rectangular piece of paper
    • a hard working surface (eg. table top)
    Instructions:

    1. Take a rectangular piece of paper.
      square_approx_01

    2. Fold the paper at right angles. In the example below, the left edge of the page aligns perfectly with the top edge of the page.

      square_approx_02

    3. Lay the folded paper to look like the photo below.

      square_approx_03

    4. Fold the left edge over, using the vertical edge of the folded triangle as a guide.

      square_approx_04

    5. Align the bottom edge of the left flap with the bottom edge of the folded triangle.

      square_approx_05

    6. To look like this:

      square_approx_06

    7. Undo the folded left flap. Your sheet should look like this.

      square_approx_07

    8. Cutting along the folded vertical edge will give you a good approximation of a square!


    Paper bags

    from http://www.quietfish.com/notebook/?p=578


    Materials:

    • scissors
    • tape (or glue)
    • paper (for funky product, use old greeting cards, old thick magazine covers, old calendars)

    Instructions:

    Thursday, December 14, 2006

    Origami box

    from http://www.kid-at-art.com/htdoc/lesson16.html via http://www.quietfish.com/notebook/?p=573

    Materials:

    • scissors
    • pencil
    • ruler
    • glue
    • T-square or triangle
    • paper (to make it more fun use old greeting cards, old calendars, thick magazine covers etc)

    Instructions:

    Tuesday, December 12, 2006

    Plate for Santa

    This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre exclusively uses Christmas themed foam stickers.


    plate_for_santa

    Materials:
    • small paper plate

    • hole punch (for adult to use)

    • ribbon

    • things to decorate plate in theme of snacks for Santa Claus (such as foam Christmas stickers, markers, crayons, paint, cutouts, glue)


    Instructions:
    • deocrate plate to look like snacks for Santa Claus

    • punch hole in paper plate near the "top"

    • put ribbon through the hole and tie in a loop

    Use the plate to hang as a tree or door decoration!



    Friday, December 01, 2006

    Homemade Snowglobe

    Have a look at this great post:
    http://kiddley.com/2006/12/01/make-your-own-snowglobe/

    With notes about What Not To Do:
    http://littleelephants.typepad.com/little_elephants/2006/10/arts_crafts_how.html

    and about what worked:
    http://littleelephants.typepad.com/little_elephants/2006/10/snow_globe_succ.html