Christmas Bunting - Printable Templates!

A simple string of Christmas Bunting - can be made out of felt, as above, but will also be just as effective cut out of card. Mine has just five shapes, but you can make the String of Christmas bunting as long as you wish, using a mixture of the shapes or just choose one or two of them...

You will need...Felt sheets or Card

Buttons and other embellishments

Tacky Glue

String, ribbon or tape and small craft pegs 

To make...

Print your Template of Christmas Shapes

Cut out the shapes - in felt or card

Decorate with embellishments / buttons, using fabric or tacky glue and leave to dry

Peg the shapes onto your string and hang them up...

Enjoy this exciting time of the year - have fun preparing for the Festive Season...!!

Three New Christmas Placemats - Print and Colour-in..!

Keep everyone busy, in the run up to the Festive Season - Three new printable Christmas Placemats, for you and your groups and families to colour-in, ready for your Christmas Dinner table...

Here is the link ...   Three Christmas Placemats

Also - why not make this little felt Christmas stocking - fill it with candy and hang it on your tree...!

Tutorial - Felt Christmas Stocking Decoration

Easy 3D Tissue Flowers in a Vase - Tutorial and template

So easy to make these 3D Tissue Flowers - we put them in a vase and mounted them onto black card...! 

These tissue flowers can also be made to decorate greeting cards - just make them smaller to fit your card.

What you will need...

Tissue paper

Stems - we used wooden coffee stick-stirrers but you can use string, paper strips etc

Print-out of template for vase

A4 sheet black card

Strip coloured paper for "table cloth"

Double sided sticky pads

Glue stick

Stapler

Stickers and bows (optional)

How to make them...

Cut out one vase template (there are two on each print-out) crease down lines on sides and bottom.

Turn it over and colour-in your vase front.

Then on the coloured side - Apply glue to the tabs - bottom and sides..

Attach the bottom tab to your black card and then ...

folding your glued tabs inwards, attach you vase to the black card. Push the tabs inwards so the vase is 3D and not flat.

Fold your tissue paper so you have about 20 layers of tissue (approx 9cms square) and staple twice in centre as per picture below.

Cut into a circle (no need to measure - doesn't matter if a bit wobbly!) and then cut into edges about 1cm (as below)

Then, one layer at a time, separate the tissue layers and pinch up into the centre.

Place your stems in the vase (fix in place with a piece of double-sided adhesive pad) and then attach your flowers - also using double-sided adhesive pads.

Finish with a strip of coloured paper across the bottom "table cloth" and we added a few butterfly stickers...

These 3D Tissue Flowers can also be used on greeting cards - make them any size you want...!

Paper Lanterns - Tutorial...!

I'm sure most of you have made these Paper Lanterns at some time in your life - either as a child or with your own children - but in case you need a brush-up here is a good tutorial...

First Pallette

Diwali - an ancient Hindu festival, known as "The Festival of Lights" is celebrated this week and these lanterns are also great for Christmas decorations too...

We used thin card for the Lanterns and decorated them with glitter, stickers, ribbon, lace and shiny confetti, but you can use anything you have, that will enhance these colourful Lanterns.
 

Enjoy making your lanterns....!

Spider Halloween Headbands!

We had a lovely afternoon at Mencap making our creepy, crawly, scary, colourful Spider Halloween Headbands...

Using ready-made spiders, flowers, feathers, organza bits and ribbons we attached a elastic headband - using plastic coated ties and lots of black sticky electrical tape to secure the embellishments...

The girls will be wearing them to the Braintree Mencap Halloween party!

Beady Head Keyrings - Tutorial Wooden Bead & Felt Dolls

You just must love these little Beady Head Keyrings!

We made them at Mencap this week and even two little boy Beady Heads appeared..

We discovered how to make these little fellows by following 

this very good Tutorial...

Artmind

We used self adhesive felt for the clothes and stuck the buttons and bling on with double side adhesive tape. 

We added a keyring and some of the class made a string of beads to hang alongside.

Have fun making your own Beady Heads!

Village Collage - Easy but so Creative!

Jenna with our Village Collage

Collage is always a favourite project at our Art and Craft Group. It is very creative and I am always intrigued with what our group produces.

We chose to do a Village Collage this week. We used old magazines and I asked them not to worry about the actual pictures, but to just look at the colours in the pictures.

After all the cutting and sticking had been done, we outlined their houses with a black felt tip pen. No precise measuring was done! The charm of the houses in our village is their slightly wonky look - straight out of fairyland...

Then we cut around each cluster of houses (on the A4 card) to make an interesting shape and stuck them all onto a sheet of A2 black card.

All you will need for this project is...

Old magazines or junk mail

Glue sticks

Black pen

A4 Card (we used mixed colours)

A sheet of A2 card (for every 4 x  A4 cards)

Butterfly stickers (optional)

Have fun making your village!

My Blog is now User-Friendly! Eight new Craft and Quiz Menu Buttons...

After five years of posting Craft and Quizzes onto my Blog, I felt it was time to make it more User-friendly...

I have added eight new pages - each one containing a list of links to the Tutorials in my Blog.

Each page has a button in the Menu above - so do have a browse and see what you fancy having a look at...

Thanks to all my visitors - do hope you find my Blog helpful in finding suitable Craft and Quizzes for your groups, yourself and your families...

Pop Up Books Monsters and Frozen - a lot of fun and easy to do craft - Tutorial!

 Monster Pop Up Book 

Frozen Pop Up Book

 When we say we made Monsters and Frozen "Pop Up Books" at Mencap Art and Craft Group, we actually made one Pop Up page in our Project Books. These books are carried through the year and added to, with different themes - many relating to the seasons and holidays in the calendar year. 

What you will need -

Either, like us, an A4 book with good quality art paper or you can just fold an A3 sheet of card in half and use that...

Glue stick

Colouring in pens

A4 sheet of thin card to make the Pop Up facility - to make this, look at this excellent tutorial...

Extreme Paper Crafting - Pop up basics  (Follow Tutorial 1 The Box)

If you want to use my Frozen or Monsters prints, here is the link

Monsters Pop Up

Frozen Pop Up

or you can use you own pictures - do check the sizes as they need to be within the page when the book or card is closed...

How to make up...

Colour in the pictures

Glue the Pop Up facility into you book or card - make sure you do not glue the bits that Pop Out...

Glue and place your pictures 

Here are some we made...

Mod Podge on Hardback Notebooks - Decorating the cover!

This week, at Mencap, we decided to try our hand at using Mod Podge...!

What you will need...

Deciding that working on a flat surface was the best choice for a first attempt, we bought some A5 Hardback Notebooks.

A Bottle of Mod Podge Gloss 

Some Sponge "Brushes"

We decided to use some fairy and woodland cutouts we had and some craft paper that we use for backing paper, on greeting cards. 

(Mod Podge works best on fairly thick paper we found - sheets of thin paper wrinkled a lot - sometimes this is a desired effect, but not for our project)  

How to do it...

We found Mod Podge Rocks a very useful site, with loads of tutorials - here is the link...explains how to use Mod Podge far better than I can!

 Learn How to Use Mod Podge

So enjoy using this wonderful product - don't worry if it looks white and patchy when you finish your work - by the next day it will have dried clear and bright - very rewarding! 

Beach Hut Birthday Cards Tutorial - Summer Activity!

Caroline and Paula's cards

 As we started the last term of the year at Mencap, we decided to make Beach Hut Birthday cards - a last bit of Summer fun, by the look of the changing weather, here in Essex...Autumn approaches!

What you need...

Blank greeting cards (rectangular shape)
Coloured paper 
Thin card (for the door)
Happy Birthday wording - stickers or print my sheet out here
Colouring-in pens 
Glue stick
Seaside theme stickers (optional)

How to make...

With the card folded, make a mark on the top edge, half way across. 
Make another mark on each side of the card, about a third of the way down.
Draw a line from these side marks to the top mark and then cut, to make the roof shape.

Cut a rectangle of thin card for the door.

Cut strips of coloured paper for the stripes on the roof and walls. Cut them about 1cm longer than you need.

Using a glue stick (any glue actually will do) stick the coloured strips of paper onto the roof and walls. (Leave some white stripes showing if you like)

Let the ends of the strips stick out from the card. When dry, turn the card over and trim the strips back to the edges of the card.

Glue on the door.

Colour-in and attach the "Happy Birthday" and apply the seaside theme stickers.

Nicola made this bright card!

 Enjoy making these Beach Hut Birthday Cards with your group...

The Wizard of Oz - a Poster!

 The Wizard of Oz

 

Some of our group at Mencap in Braintree are going to Southend-on-Sea in August to see the stage show of "The Wizard of Oz", so we decided to make a poster...

The prints of the original cover and first page of L. Frank Baum's book (1900) we found on Gutenberg

The characters - printable versions of Dorothy with Toto, Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Lion and The Wizard of Oz himself, were easily found on Google images. 

We added the witch's hat, a rainbow (essential!) and Dorothy's red shoes. 

The Yellow Brick Road and the Emerald City and the "frame" we made from coloured electrical tape (I was surprised at how many colours are available in electric tape these days - will have to keep it in mind for future projects, as so easy to use) 

To finish off, we stuck flower stickers down the edges of the yellow bricks and a few butterflies found their way on as well!

Next week is the end of the term so we will be having our usual party food and games afternoon... plus achievement certificates all round!

Quiz - Printable General Knowledge Quiz

Time for a Quiz! 

 

Have put together a

General Knowledge Quiz
for you to enjoy with your group, over a cup of tea or coffee. 

All printable and with the answers on a separate sheet...

If you would like more quizzes to have fun with, here is the link to my

Printable Quiz eBook - 41 x 10 Easy Quiz questions

Felt Owl Purse - with Printable Pattern

 We made Felt Owl Purses this week at Mencap

They are so cute and very easy to put together.

We used magnetic fasteners (from eBay) but  this is optional - can be made just with the flap as is...

Buttons for eyes!

 

So get your felt out and start making your own Owl Purses - would be a good item to make for a fund-raising stall...!

Here is the link 

Felt Owl Purse Patterns 

Enjoy choosing the colours for your unique Owl! Cut out the pieces and sew them as per our samples!

Enjoy!

Picture / Photo Frame Fridge Magnets - Tutorial

We made Photo / Picture Frame Fridge Magnets!

 

Here is how we did it...

What you need...

Aperture Greeting cards - the kind with a ready-cut "hole" in the card like this...

Crayons or Felt tip pens

Stickers or other Embellishments to decorate the frame (optional)

 
Glue Stick

Double-sided Adhesive Tape 

Self-adhesive Magnetic Tape (we found ours on eBay)

Picture (colour-in or draw your own) - sized to fit into frame

 
or select your own Photo

How to do it...

The card has three sides - the centre with the aperture (cut-out hole) and two back flaps.

Attach one back flap to the centre card across the bottom only - using double-sided adhesive tape.

Then attach the other back flap using your glue stick - apply glue over the whole flap and press it together.

You will now have a Picture Frame with an opening at the top

Decorate the frame... some of us pencilled in a mosaic design like this...

Colour-in your picture (or draw your own) or select your photo

Insert into the picture frame

Attach a self-adhesive strip of Magnetic Tape (about 5cms) to the back of the card, about 3cms from the top 

Paula

Angela

The picture or photo can be changed as often as you like, so put the frame up onto your fridge and have fun choosing what to put into it today!