Queen Elizabeth's 90th Birthday Wall Mural

Using the Daily Mail photos in the various magazines they published for the Queen's 90th Birthday, commemorating Her Majesty's life, we made a Wall Mural.

And then on the same theme, we completed three Pop-Up pages in Our Project Book.

If you want to make your own Pop-Ups here is the link Pop-Up Tutorial

Three Thursdays of great craft, celebrating a great occasion, by the Mencap, Braintree Art and Craft Group...

Felt Hand Puppets - Free Printable Patterns...!

What a lot of fun these were to make - Felt Hand Puppets!

What you will need...

Felt in A4 sheets for the main body pieces

Scraps of felt for belly patches etc

Self-adhesive felt for small patches (optional - can be sewn on instead)

Buttons

Embroidery thread and needle

Ribbon for bows for bears

How to make...

Print out your patterns - here they are...

Hand Puppets Patterns

Before you start cutting out your felt, check hand size against the pattern - adjust the pattern width if necessary. Rather a little big, than too small!

Cut out two main body pieces

Cut out the appropriate patches.

Work on one of your main body pieces - We sewed the belly / snout patches on, using a running stitch, and then using self-adhesive felt, we stuck on the smaller patches. All can be either sewn or stuck on - up to you!

Buttons were stitched on for the eyes / noses and the bears each got a ribbon bow!

The monsters can be created as you will - every one is different!

When you are happy with your Hand Puppet, then stitch the two main body pieces together, close to the edges - easy to do on a sewing machine, but can be hand stitched if you like.

Use your imagination - be creative and then have hours of fun with your hand puppets....!

Valentine Wall Mural...! Hearts and Glitter!

We had great fun putting this Valentine Wall Mural together...

at Mencap Art and Craft group in Braintree!

As the Beatles say "All You Need is Love"...!

Happy Valentines Day!

Tutorial for Felt Butterfly & Flowers Wall Hanging - Printable Templates

We made Butterfly & Flower Wall Hangings this week at Mencap...

If you would like to make them with your family or with your group - they really do appeal to girls of all ages...!    Here is the Tutorial with Printable Templates.

What you will need...

Felt - A4 sheet for the background

Self-adhesive felt to decorate the butterfly - or use glue...

Felt scraps for Butterfly, Flowers and Hearts

Buttons

Embroidery thread

Thin dowel (we used green garden canes cut to size) 

Ribbon or cord to hang

How to make...

Turn over a narrow hem, just wide enough to slip your dowel into, and stitch - either by hand or on your machine, as I did.

Cut out your butterfly and flowers / hearts (mine are die cut, but you can use this flower and heart template)

Butterfly Template

Flower Template

Heart Template

Stitch your butterfly onto your background with a running stitch.

Cut the butterfly body out and stitch or stick it on top.

Decorate the butterfly with pieces of contrasting felt - use self-adhesive felt or use glue to attach.

Attach your flowers / hearts - we used buttons to secure them to the background.

Slip the dowel into the hemmed top and tie on your ribbon or cord.

Hope you all enjoyed making your Butterfly Wall Hangings!

Funky Washer Necklaces - Tutorial!

These simple Washer Necklaces are very easy to put together and our class at Mencap really loved creating their own combinations of colours and designs...

What you need...

Metal washers - an assortment of sizes - look at your hardware shop for these...

Nail varnish - we bought a cheap variety - plain colours and one with sparkles in it.

Yarn or cord or leather strips - we used a cotton/rayon yarn but use any suitable - each strip about 108mm long (43inches)

Pony beads - large hole bead

Blue or White Tack (to mount beads on, when painting)

How to make...

Mount your washer on a lump of Blue or White Tack (to raise it up from your table) and paint the top side and edges with your nail varnish.

When dry, take your yarn (you can use a single piece or two or three lengths of yarn - see photos) and fold in half. 

Thread the rounded end through the washer and loop the ends through so your washer hangs from the centre of your yarn.

Thread on beads and maybe add another washer - see our examples for ideas...

Tie the ends of the yarn together and you are done...

Easy to make and lovely to wear...!

Enjoy the fun of creating these funky Washer Necklaces...!

Two eBooks - 41 Easy Quizzes & Simple Craft and Activities...

I have put together two eBooks to help you with your groups...
41 Easy Quizzes and Answers and Simple Crafts and Activities...
read on for more details on how to get yours...

My eBook Simple Crafts and Activities is now available to buy for a nominal fee of £2.75 (Paypal only please) and then can be downloaded instantly in a PDF file format - ready to print either in total or only the pages you need for a project...

This eBook will save you hours of searching for crafts and activities - suitable for the older folk, but also many craft projects for any age...

All my tutorials have printable templates to make it easy for you...

So click here and have a look...Simple Crafts and Activities

41 easy Quizzes with Answers is available if you are looking for quizzes - especially set for the older generation... Also only £2.75 and printable PDF file download.

Cat Collage A4 Calendars - Tutorial!

We made Cat Collage A4 Calendars at Mencap this week...

What better way to start a new term in the New Year?

The choice of schemes is endless but we decided on Cats!

Enjoy making yours with your group...

What you will need...

A4 Card - we used Black Card

Strips of coloured paper - plain and/or designed

Cat pictures - cut from a book found in a charity shop

 Templates to print - Cat drawings to be coloured in and cut out 

(gathered from free colouring pages)

Glue stick

Punch and string for hanging

Calendar tabs - we found ours on eBay

Doubled-sided adhesive tape

How to make...

Glue your strips of coloured paper onto the card - leave some black showing through if you like

Colour in you cats and stick them and other cut-out cats on top of your strips of coloured paper

Using double sided tape or glue - stick on the calendar tab

Punch two holes at the centre top and thread a piece of string/cord through for hanging.

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...!

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!