Cute and Creative

The Dangers of Distracted Parenting When it comes to children’s development, parents should worry less about kids’ screen time—and more about their own.

A little something to make your Christmas letters/cards a little more festive. And sooo simple that the kids can do this themselves.

Reindeer envelopes :)

Hope everyone had a great Diwali filled with lights, love and good food!

We decided to incorporate a little origami into our celebrations by making these cute diyas. My son enjoyed making them and was very proud to have them displayed at our main entrance.

Do try it. They are super simple to make even with little kids and you can decorate them however you want. The possibilities are endless!

We followed this you tube video to make our diyas.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4uxqeeAgAk

Son has been sick for a couple of days now :( and it has been hard to keep him entertained at home. So after a while of reading and watching tv, we came up with these. I did not want to spend too much time making them or use fancy things so we just created them with paper. But you can go all out and use cardboard, ribbons, glitter .... Really - the sky is the limit! We used them for role play and made up stories but you can thread them to make a mobile or make an aquarium...again - the possibilities are endless :)

Presenting - Sea Creatures!

3D Cross section of a volcano for class project

You will need cardboard, old newspapers, fevicol or equivalent, colors, tape and labels (optional)

Form the cross section of the volcano with 3 sides of the base (about 10 cms high) and the mountain with 2 sides about 12 cms high)

Tape the mountain to the base really well with tape. Fill in the gaps with rolled up newspaper.
Dilute the fevicol with some water and cut strips of newspaper, dip them in the glue solution and start covering the back of the volcano (the uncut side) till you have a mountain.

Let this dry well and paint according to your imagination. Use the inside to depict the inside of a volcano as shown.

You can add labels if you wish. We did since we made this for our class project.

Son's school had a "Come as your favorite character" day recently. Did not really remember about it until the very last minute. Searched the internet and found the "pirate" costume to be the easiest to do on short notice and that was agreeable to my son. Here is the lowdown on how we made it rock!

You will need:
1. Old pair of pants (something in the T-shirt material will work best)
2. Cardboard
3. Glitter paper
4. Elastic (we used the one from our old eye mask)

For the pants - just take a scissor and cut ragged edges to the ends of the legs making sure that the lengths are mismatched.

Very simple and easy home made gifts for.. anyone actually!

Here is a bug themed birthday invite that I created. This was done for my son's 5th buggy bash.

It is a pop up card with all sorts of bugs on it :)

Who is looking to learn some art from an artist?? She is my friend and very talented. Check it out!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vernas-Wonder-Arts-and-crafts-Studio/132060646990561

Verna's Wonder Arts and crafts Studio We provide a platform to all art lovers, who is passionate to create and learn fine arts of all med

Who remembers the good old days when there was not an abundance of toys in the market and summer vacations were all about reading books, lazing around, making your own toys and having hours of make believe play!

Here is an ode to that time :)

All you need is cardboard (we used cereal boxes), colors, and scissors and lots of imagination!!

Draw and cut out shapes of anything that you want - it could be an aeroplane, rocket, house, barn...just about anything!

You can make human figures, animals etc to complete the scene.

Have your child color them. Make slits on the figures and assemble them as shown.

We made a scooter and our family of three!!

Now be prepared for hours of made up stories and fun!!

Looking for something to keep your young ones occupied in the afternoons??

How about making a leaf print tree?

It is very simple, uses stuff around the house and it is messy!! What better to keep kids entertained with :)

You will need:

1. Leaves, medium in size - you could get real leaves - we just used fake plastic ones clipped from the fake plants around the house. This works better i think with little kids as they do not rip as easily as the real ones.

2. Paint - poster colors, water colors, fabric paint all will work

3. Paint brushes

4. Brown craft paper or white paper that you can color brown

How do we proceed?

First draw out an outline of a tree branch either on the brown craft paper (or on the white one and color it brown) and cut it out. Make sure the tree trunk is in proportion to the leaf sizes that you have. Crumple this into a ball and spread it out again - this is to give it some character like a real tree.

Paste this tree trunk on to a white sheet of paper.

Then lay the leaf with the bottom side facing up. Paint the leaf with the brush and the colors you have picked - it could be green for the summer or yellows, oranges and reds for the autumn.

Press the leaf on the paper and keep repeating it as many times as you want.

Your tree is ready!

Hope you and your children have fun doing this like we did!

Here is a website that explains how to make the hot air balloon mobile.

http://www.happyclippings.com/2013/03/diy-springtime-paper-hot-air-balloons.html

We love the colors on the paper they used - so spring time and fresh!!