Plastic Egg Crafts

Have some extra plastic Easter eggs? Why not make a bee or a bird/chick?

You can make a nest out of a small Dixie cup and some strips of brown paper.

Other awesome ideas:

Egg Cupcakes

Elegant silver ring box

Tiny teacups with plastic eggs and buttons

If you have tea lights, you can make fireflies that really light up

Book Totes

There are several library book tote ideas out there that I really love. The one for this project came from Spoonful.com (although Disney changed their urls once again, so the link does not work but I'm keeping it because it will make me feel better to link to it on here as my source. I've tried visiting their Family Fun site to search for the bag, but haven't had any luck so far.).

Oriental Trading has book totes in several sizes. I used acrylic paint (you can find it at Wal-Mart for 97 cents to two or three dollars in many colors) and adhesive buttons also from Oriental Trading. You can also dress up your tote with stickers! 

I attempted to make it as nice as the example on Spoonful, but alas, it was not to be. When the paint was dry, I wrote the names of some of my favorite books on the spines with permanent marker. I brought in my blow dryer to speed up the drying process, but also had bags where the kids could put their totes in if they weren't completely dry by the end of the program.

                                              

Here are some other great book tote ideas:
Bookish Book Totes for Kids @ BookRiot
Personalized Library Tote @ Ink and Squid
Library Tote Bags @ Occasionally Crafty

Snowman Jars

I love jar crafts. You can recycle jars and make beautiful things with them. I got the idea for these from Crafts by Amanda and tweaked it only a little bit. This is the original by Amanda, using paint and delicious marshmallows:

I substituted cotton for marshmallows and other materials for the parts that are painted.

Materials:
Jar
Buttons
Ribbon
Cotton
Mittens cut out from construction paper

And this is the final snowman jar:

I try to insert facts and science whenever I can, and for this program I talked about snowflakes and their formation, made fake sensory snow that the kids could touch, and talked about Wilson Bentley and the major contributions he made to the science of snowflakes and other forms of precipitation through his study, handling, and photography of snowflake crystals. We luckily have his work Snow Crystals here at the library, so I showed the kids some of his photographs from the book. A very inspirational man.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds have been really big for some time now. There are Early Readers with Angry Birds/Star Wars crossovers, and we have been getting a lot of National Geographic/Angry Birds nonfiction science books for children that I really love. I think kids see Angry Birds on the cover and check them out, and I'm really glad because I hope this helps them become interested in animals, dinosaurs, and other topics.

I'd collected a bunch of Angry Birds stuff (posters, postcards, stickers, etc) for some time and I thought they would make great giveaways at an Angry Birds program. I found a treasure trove of printables at this awesome website and printed out some of the boxes with handles. I cut off the handles while making them so they could just be cube boxes. The TNT boxes came from this website and a good tutorial for the popsicle stick catapult can be found at this cool site. 

I found the little bouncy Angry Birds balls shown on the catapult site, but they were really expensive. Oriental Trading has some Crazy Bird Molded Bouncing Balls that were cheap and fit perfect in the bottle cap of the catapult.

Here are some images of the final products, and you can see some really awesome kid lined up his Crazy Bird balls to take a turn on the catapult.

Sock Creatures

The idea for this little guy is from Fun with Fabric by Annalees Lim.

Materials:
Sock
Ribbon
Buttons
Google Eyes
Pipe Cleaner
Cotton

I found the Halloween socks and ribbon (and the Halloween eraser he's holding) in the Target dollar section.

Crafts for Hispanic Heritage Month

These are great books if you are looking for crafts for Hispanic Heritage month, or to study world cultures, ancient civilizations such as the Aztec and Inca, or to celebrate holidays such as Dia de los Muertos or Cinco de Mayo.

25 Latino Craft Projects

Ana-Elba Pavon, Diana Borrego

Hispanic-American Crafts Kids Can Do!

Fay Robinson

Manualidades con cilindros de cartón

Bernadette Theulet-Luzié

Multicultural Art Activities: From the Cultures of Africa, Asia and North America

Darlene Ritter

This fall I am doing two bilingual story times and for the first time I will be adding on a craft at the end which I am very excited about.

The first craft will be a shaker made out of a toilet paper roll. Kids can put masking tape on one end, put in a little rice, cover the other end with masking tape, and then cover the roll with a colorful paper that they can pick out of a bunch I printed out. This is the example I created along with some of the colorful papers in the background.

The second story will take place at the beginning of November, so I thought a great craft would be a paper sugar skull mask. I found this awesome template over at Spoonful.com (sadly it looks like it's a little more difficult to find now).

Happy crafting!

Fabergé Eggs

If you are searching for an activity for April, why not go with Fabergé Eggs? I had been wanting to do a fabergé egg craft for some time; when I visited a nursing home, I took some large oversize books about the eggs and the jewelry created by the House of Fabergé, and I thought, why not have a craft for kids during April, when it's egg season?

For those of you in the Houston area, if you have a chance please visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science, where the McFerrin Collection is currently on display. There are two fabergé eggs in this collection, and as a big admirer of Peter Fabergé, I was ecstatic that they allowed photography!

The Fabergé website has a beautiful gallery of the eggs, and the Examiner has a good article that touches on the history of the eggs. I also made sure to mention to the kids that a man recently purchased one of the eggs thought to be lost at a sale, and was trying to sell it for about $500 (to be melted down into gold). No one was offering him any money, and a Google search soon led him to the discovery that it was a very valuable ($33 million dollar) Fabergé egg.

One of the handouts I had available was a Martha Stewart Crystal Egg Geode handout; I'd wanted to do this with the kids also, but it takes about two days with drying time, so it was not possible. But I made sure the handouts were available so they could try it at home. A very beautiful and scientific craft! Additionally, the Houston Museum of Natural Science has a really awesome Fabergé egg craft on their Beyond Bones blog, which gave me the idea to use tiny dinosaurs as a special surprise to go inside of the egg.

For our eggs we used: plastic Easter eggs, pipe cleaners, self-adhesive jewels, and tiny dinosaurs. I had some foam eggs and tissue paper as back up in case we ran out of plastic eggs.

The dinosaurs went inside the eggs, which were decorated with the self-adhesive jewels. Kids then made an egg stand out of pipe cleaners, and they could choose from two designs which I found at Spoonful.com: the Egg Pedestal  and a smaller stand that also has instructions on creating a Fabergé Egg.

These are the foam eggs with tissue, above the Martha Stewart Crystal Egg Geodes handouts. There was a really big turnout for this craft, probably the biggest I've had. I talked a little bit about the history behind the eggs, and used the book Masterpieces from the House of Faberge because it has beautiful, large photographs of many of the eggs.

Craft Site: Kizclub.com

I was trying to think of a theme to go with for May outreach story times, and I decided to go with farms/farm animals, and to do dinosaurs in June. I was looking for a nice craft to go with the theme but having a difficult time finding something that could just be cut out. Most of the things I was finding required paper plates, a lot of gluing, etc.

I stumbled upon the website Kizclub and I love it! I have bookmarked it and will be going back to it often. It has really great crafts; I immediately went to the animal crafts and found some amazing farm animal finger puppets that were just what I wanted (in black and white as well as color).

Everything is so well organized and there are so many resources: crafts, flash cards, items dealing with nursery rhymes, booklets, and a huge database of props that go with specific stories. I even found props for Bark, George!, one of my favorite books to use for both English and Spanish story times. Definitely one of the most well-organized and creative websites I've visited, with easy navigation and adorable crafts and learning materials.

Animal Valentines

A really cute Valentine craft we had this year:

An elephant, a cat, a fish, and a dog.

This great idea was from Sassy Dealz. I thought the elephant would be the most popular, but the dog turned out to be the most popular.

Peppermint Candy Craft

This is a great craft to do during the holidays. You can make a peppermint candy ornament or decoration using toilet paper rolls, striped peppermint candy-like wrapping paper, cellophane paper, tape, and ribbon and/or yarn.

This cellophane has snowflakes on it.

Wrap the wrapping paper around the toilet paper roll and secure with a piece of tape. Cut a piece of cellophane larger than the toilet paper roll and wrap around the toilet paper roll and secure with tape. Pinch the ends like a candy wrapper and tie a piece of yarn to create the candy wrapper look. You can also use ribbon if you prefer, or use ribbon to make a loop to hang the candy from your tree. 

Too cute!!

Turkey Craft

Toilet paper roll Turkey craft

Materials: toilet paper roll, google eyes, waddle (red construction paper), beak (orange construction paper), pipe cleaners for the feet, feathers

Supplies: tape, glue sticks

I love how goofy mine came out!

You can also use pine cones for the body.

Talk Like a Pirate @ the Librarrry!

Earlier this month, in honor of the 19th being Talk Like a Pirate Day, we had a pirate preschool activity where the children created spyglasses and decorated pirate hats and swords. Tomorrow we will be having an elementary aged activity where the children will be creating their own treasure boxes (and spyglasses if they'd like). We've asked the staff to dress up as pirates, and if the children show up wearing a pirate costume (or something pirate-related), they win a prize (a small pirate beach ball).

There are a bunch of grrreat (couldn't resist!) ideas dealing with pirate crafts. The kids will be making their treasure chests first, and if they'd like they can make a spyglass. They then can bring their treasure chests over to a table that will be set up with beads and jewels that they can take and place in their treasure chests. They'll be able to take these home with them. I have a few eye patches, so if there are enough then each child can also have an eye patch. I also put together a "pirate code" book that has information on the crew members of a pirate ship, the parts of a ship, and a pirate dictionary so they can talk like a pirate! (Spoonful.com has The Code craft and template).

DLTK's Crafts for Kids has a great printable and instructions for the treasure chest. Youth Online has another similar template. If you want to get really detailed and crafty, Ashlee's Art has another treasure chest example. And a really cute one featuring a Raven can be found at Ammey's Art Attic.

For more Arrrty craft ideas, make sure to sail towards these sites:

The Classroom Creative

First Stage - this site has a great handout where we got our pirate dictionary and ship and crew sheets

Spoonful Pirate Party Ideas

Talk Like a Pirate

Mini Easter Baskets

I got the idea to create these baskets from the Easter Animal Self-Adhesive Basket Craft Kit at Oriental Trading. We had some cardboard circles that made great bodies for the bunnies and chicks. The handle is made out of pipe cleaner and the rest out of construction paper. All that was needed to put the kit together was tape, a glue stick, and a marker to decorate the bunny's face. For extra fun, a cotton ball can be used for the bunny's tail.

Presidents' Day Activities

These are just some of the many creative activities that can be done for Presidents' Day.

You can use construction paper to make a George Washington hat that can be decorated with markers or cutout stars. Artists Helping Children has a great and easy tutorial on how to make these hats. Slightly Nerdy Sometimes Cool also has instructions, complete with a cute plush dog wearing a hat.

The Lincoln hat can be made in a variety of ways and with different materials. The one shown here was made with construction paper, a toilet paper roll, and yarn. The toilet paper roll was cut so it was about three inches tall. Two black circle cutouts with tabs were made so that the tabs could be taped to the toilet paper roll. The roll was then covered with a piece of construction paper about 3" wide by 6" long. The bottom was then taped to a larger black construction paper circle. I hole-punched the circle and added string so that the children would be able to wear this adorable hat.

Enchanted Learning has a great instruction page for this hat that includes images and is very helpful. 

If you don't have too much time to create this Lincoln top hat, there are many other activities you can create to celebrate this day. You can create a Lincoln Log Cabin to celebrate and remember Lincoln's upbringing, and this Lincoln Penny Pendant is also a really creative idea. You can create a Washington pendant, or even a simple star pendant with multiple or single stars. The possibilities are endless!

Have a Presidential Day!

Valentine's Day Ideas

One of the ideas I have always had for Valentine's Day is the creation of a Valentine Mailbox utilizing either a shoe box or a Kleenex box (especially as Kleenex boxes already have built-in slits for Valentine cards to go through). The book Queen of Hearts by Mary Engelbreit gave me some of the ideas for the Valentine mailbox. If you haven't read it, please do! It's one of the best Valentine picture books I've come across, and it introduced me to Mary Engelbreit. I have now fallen in love with her dog and Scottie illustrations.

Ask for donations of Kleenex boxes early to make sure you have a good amount for the number of children you expect at your St. Valentine's Day event. You can cover the boxes with construction paper beforehand, or allow the children to cover them on their own. Use die cuts to create shapes such as hearts, castles, fairies, dragons, and other Valentine-related shapes. These can be used to decorate the box. The children can then use the box as a mailbox for all of their Valentine cards.

I have not yet managed to collect the 30 boxes I was hoping to have by Valentine's Day, so I came up with a quick and easy craft that children could do if there were not enough boxes. As it turns out, I love this craft just as much, and I'm not sure which of the two is my favorite. This craft consists of cutting the top of a brown paper bag about an inch or so, and decorating it with a Cat, Dog, or Giraffe template and heart. I found this adorable idea over at Craft of the Day, a daily craft blog from the makers of The Best Kids Book Site. There is also a very cute Panda Bear template you can use as well.

You can also check out this adorable Dog Box for Valentine Cards from DLTK.

And finally, this last craft was originally from Family Fun (by Disney, which is now Spoonful, I believe). You take the Conversation Hearts by Brachs or Sweethearts (there are also some small Valentine tattoos at the stores that would work), and you cover them with construction paper and an iPod template to create the illusion that it is an iPod. You can pretty much use any candy, however. There was a box of 30 Twizzlers and Jolly Ranchers (15 of each) that was much cheaper than buying conversation hearts, and that is what I decided to use. The candies were covered with construction paper and tape, and the iPod template was glued on the front. The adorable iPod template was incredibly hard to find, especially with the moving around on the Family Fun crafts site to the Spoonful site, but I was able to find it. I can't find the exact link I used, but I did find it available for download on this site. The iPod (or iLove) shows Valentine songs, but you can edit the template to add your own songs. For this craft, I added the following book titles: Bunnicula, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Goosebumps, and Harry Potter. 

You can see Reese's candy because you can add two strings to the iLove and attach one Reese's peanut butter cup (small) to each string to create headphones! Very cute indeed.

You can visit these websites to see how others have created Valentine iPods.

U Create Crafts

Y2K Mom

MeckMom

Mom's Crafty Space