September Kids Crafts, Kitchen with Kids, and Kids Craft Supplies

July 8, 2016July 8, 2016 admin

‘Leaf’ It to Me – September Kids Craft Club

September Crafts – Leaf Placemat Crafts and Bookmark Crafts from the Kids Craft Club! If you’re not already in the club, there’s only a few days left to subscribe for this craft package.

Summer has passed in the blink of an eye, and it’s time to get back into the fall routine. Nature has it’s own routine in the fall, which means we can look forward to brilliantly coloured fall leaves every year!

Make a fun fall leaves place mat with this month’s Kids Craft Club. Then get ready to settle in to a fall reading routine by making your own bookmark. It’s all part of the fun with this month’s Kids Craft Club craft supplies!

Subscribe by August 23rd to receive this craft package at the beginning of September.

Free Newspaper Pencil with your Themed Sketch Pads

It’s almost time to begin the back-to-school rush, and we want to make sure you’re equipped with fun and earth friendly craft supplies! Sketch books always come in handy for school and while on the go. Order your themed sketch book (Elegant Oval or Nuts and Bolts ) by September 1st and receive a FREE newspaper pencil with your purchase.

Elegant Oval Drawing Pad for Kids Mudpuppy

Construction Themed drawing pad for kids mudpuppy

Craft Idea for Outside – Inukshuks

Here’s a simple building activity for kids that can be completed almost anywhere you travel this summer. Make an Inukshuk, or simple stone figure resembling a human. Your Inukshuk may start out as a bit of a scavenger hunt if you’re not in an area with lots of rocks, but that just extends the fun of this crafty activity! Finding the perfect rock for arms, body, legs or head makes the final figure that much more rewarding!

Kitchen with Kids – Make Some Road Trip Pretzels

Pretzels made by kids - daycare or camp craft idea

If you’re looking for some yummy ideas for your next road trip or camping expedition, enlist the kids to do some baking. Kids can roll and shape pretzels with this simple pretzel dough recipe. This would be a great playgroup or daycare activity too – just like playdough time and they can eat the results!

Craft Kit Giveaway – Flip and Draw Book

Congratulations to Rebecca, who won this month’s craft kit draw from our homepage!

This month we’re pleased to give away a set of recycled paper pencil crayons. They’re made from recycled newspaper, wax, natural mineral pigments and glue derived from corn and potatoes and they work just like regular pencil crayons.

We’ll be contacting Rebecca by email to get shipping information for your recycled paper pencil crayons. You can enter next month’s draw here.

Be sure to join our Facebook page and follow our Twitter feed as well – for quick craft ideas, interesting articles, and giveaways.

Craft Ideas: Nine Crafty things to take and do while camping

June 19, 2016 admin

We try to squeeze in some camping over the summer months to get our fill of water time, marshmallow roasts, hiking and biking. But there are also times when we just feel like hanging around the campsite enjoying the beautiful shade of the forest from our lawn chairs. Quiet time at the campsite is a great time to pull out some activities for the kids, and we’ve got a few crafty ideas to recommend:

Drawing Supplies – a sketch pad and pencil can lead to treasure maps drawn, stories written, leaf rubbings made, games played (such as tic-tac-toe) or, perhaps most obviously, inspired drawings
Paints and brushes – gathered sticks and rocks can become art forms as they get a coating of bright paint from the kids. Transform rocks into bugs or animals, and sticks can become wands.
Wikki Stix – an easy portable activity, these wax covered strings can bend into any shape and can be used by themselves on a playboard, and could even be wrapped around a found rock or twig to give it a shock of colour
Collage Boards – our kids spent over an hour searching for just the right foliage to adorn their butterfly boards. Also try sprinkling sections of sand on these for a beach activity
Masking Tape or painters tape – mask out a giant x & O board in the dirt, and find some sticks to mark X & O. Then ‘erase’ your game and start over again. Or, make a nature walk bracelet by putting a piece of masking tape sticky-side-out around your wrist. Collect little treasures such as leaves and twigs to add to your nature braclet
Sunpaper – this is one of our favourites for summer, whether at home or out camping. Find a pretty leaf or flower, add a ray of sun and a sprinkling of water, and watch these prints come to life.
Fort building supplies – Clothes pins and string aren’t only for hanging laundry to dry! A good nook of trees can be transformed into an uuber cool fort with the help of some towels or blanket secured with clothes pins on a line.
Building supplies – we have a bin of building blocks that comes on every single camping trip and gets used on a blanket outside, or under cover if we’re hit with rain
Leaf Press – collect samples of your favourite trees or flowers (if permitted by the park) and store them between the folds of this leaf press. Patient campers will have pretty mementos to add to scrap books or to use with other craft projects.

Kids Nature Crafts – making bird nests with seeds

June 16, 2016June 16, 2016 admin

My kids and their friends discovered a really fun way to make bird nests from seeds collected from ornamental grasses. View their video demonstration here. We happen to have a smoke bush in our yard, and I thought maybe the seeds from the bush would work well for this craft too. If you’re not familiar with smoke bushes or smoke trees, they look like this:

making a birds nest craft from seeds See all that seedy fluff waiting to be transformed? I snapped off a handful of the fluff and set it out to dry (the fall rain has started!!)

collect seed branches to make nature bird nest To make your birds nest, strip the fluff from the stems by running the stem through your fingers. Collect the fluff and roll it into a ball:

Roll Seed stems into a ball to make bird nest Then shape the nest by carefully pulling at the edges, and squishing your thumb or fingers in the middle. Your finished nest will look something like this:

Final Step - shape your nest Finished nest with egg in it!

Tip: the smoke bush seeds were fun to shape into a nest, but they didn’t stick together as well as the nests that were made from grasses (see video). To make sure your smoke bush nest sticks together, dilute some glue with water (2:1) and moisten the nest with the glue mixture as you work. Let your craft dry on a piece of waxed paper so that it doesn’t stick to your work surface.