Wishing you all a positive and peaceful 2023

Let's all make it a better year than 2022!

Printable Santa Template - For Tree Hangings - Tutorial

If you want to make your own Santas - here is the link to download and print the Santa Template - print straight onto thin card if you can and then colour-in and cut out the six parts. 

Attach the arms and legs with paper clips (Brads) and then glue a flat lolly stick behing the body, with about an inch sticking out at the top. 

Attach Santa's head to this with a double-sided sticky pad. 

Add a loop and hang him on the Christmas Tree! 

Cotton wool beards and glitter can be added if so desired!

Craft at Mencap Braintree - with Christmas Carols, Tea and Donuts!

Click on the Christmas button above to find all the other Christmas Craft on my Blog...

Quiz - Match the Collective Noun to the Animal - Free Printable Quiz!

 

A new quiz for you to enjoy with your groups - 

Ten common animals to match to their Collective Noun!

Here is the link - Click and Print! Quiz - Collective Nouns

Hope you enjoy this Free Printable Quiz - Collective Nouns!

If you would like more quizzes 

please have a look at my eBook - 41 Easy Printable Quizzes

Halloween Buttons!

 

A very easy Halloween Button craft to do with your groups...

What you need...

A4 sheet of card for background 

Yellow or orange card for your pumpkin 

Black buttons for your spiders and orange etc for the pumpkin

Glue stick 

Black felt tip pen 

How to make...

Print out your pumpkin - here is the Pumpkin Template 

With thanks to One Little Project for this free template!

Print your Halloween word - Halloween Template

Cut out both of these templates and stick them onto your A4 card

Stick your coloured buttons onto the pumpkin and scatter and stick the black buttons around the card

Draw on the spider legs...

Have a Happy and Scary Halloween...!! 

Tutorial - Lollipop Halloween Spiders and Ghosts!

  




Lollipop Halloween Spiders and Ghosts were great fun to make!

Lollipop Halloween Spider

You will need...

A lollipop on a stick

4 pipe cleaners (chenille craft stems)

2 Googly eyes (we used 7mm) 

Double sided sticky pads

 How to make... 
 
Fold each pipe cleaner in half and twist the centre once around the stick of the lollipop, making a leg on either side - eight legs in all. 

Push the legs up towards the round lolly "body" and attach a small double sided sticky pad to keep them in place and on this pad attach the googly eyes.

Lollipop Halloween Ghost

You will need... 

A lollipop on a stick

A piece of old sheeting (or you can use tissue paper) about 25 to 30cms square

Ribbon - we used black, purple orange and yellow - 3mm width

A Loom Band or small elastic band

Black felt tip pen

A plastic straw (optional)

How to make...

Place the round lollipop in the centre of the white sheeting and fix around the head with a small elastic band. 

Tie ribbons around the neck and draw a face with your black pen. 

As the lollipop sticks are short in length, we used the plastic straw as an extension! 

Our groups at Mencap loved this easy, fun craft...

Have fun at Halloween...!
 

Paper Plate Dream Catcher Tutorial - Easy and fun to make!

These Paper Plate Dream Catchers are great fun to make and easy for any age and ability...

You will need... 

A good quality paper plate -  needs to be rigid enough to keep its shape

A length of Yarn - we Used Cotton Yarn DK - 2.5m plus 2 or 3 pieces for the dangles - each about 40cms long - Also about 30cms to make a tag to hang it.

Beads with large holes - we used Pony Beads

Feathers - dyed ones available at craft shops

Colouring-in pens or paints

Punch to make holes 

Sticky Tape

How to make... 

Cut out the centre of the plate.

Punch holes around the inside hole as per photo - about 2.5cm apart - no need to measure - don't have to accurate!

Working on the "bottom" surface of the plate - colour or paint the decoration - our plates had ridges which added to the effect!

Take your long piece of yarn and secure one end with sticky tape to the inside of the plate.

Thread the yarn through the holes - back and forth - no fixed pattern - just as you like! When about two thirds through, thread some beads onto the yarn (see photo above) 

When all the holes are used up, secure the end again with sticky tape, on the inside of the plate.

Punch a hole centre top and make a loop to hang up your Dream Catcher.

Punch two or three holes along bottom edge for dangles...

Tie a bead about a third of the way down on your yarn - then thread beads onto the longer piece above the tied bead.

Thread the end of this yarn, above the beads, through the punched hole and secure with sticky tape inside the plate.

Repeat with other one or two dangles.

Tie feathers onto the ends of yarn below the beads.

Sweet Dreams!

Nicola with her Dream Catcher

Andy painted his Dream Catcher with Acrylics

 

Harry Potter Pop-Ups - Tutorials

 After a visit to London's "Harry Potter's World" our Craft Group at Mencap were keen to colour-in some Harry Potter characters - loads to find online and printable.

So we decided to use them to create some more Pop-Up pages...

See our previous Pop-Ups - Frozen & Monsters

For an excellent tutorial on how to make Pop-Ups have a look here...

Extreme Paper Making - Pop-up Basics

Here are some more we made...

 So easy to do and who doesn't love Po-Ups! 

Have a go - instead of just sticking pictures into your scrapbooks - make them

 POP-UP!

Painting Wild Flowers with Wet Watercolours!

This is a very exciting way to paint wild flowers, as you never know what you will end up with!

As you are painting watercolours "Wet on Wet" (wet paint on wet paper) it does its own thing - great fun and easy to do, so very suitable for your groups. 

And you get great results, even for the "un-artistic"!

You will need...

Watercolour paper (as you are wetting the paper, you will need watercolour paper - anything else won't work!)

Watercolour paints

Brushes

Black pen - waterproof ink. (I used Staedtler Pigment Liner 0.8, but any similar will do)

Get ready...

Mix your paints before you wet your paper.

I mixed green (2 separate shades - one darker)

Flower colours - I mixed Yellow (2 shades) and Crimson

Wet your paper by brushing over with clean water.

Wait a few minutes and then using a large brush, wash on the lighter green with upward strokes and feather the top edge. 

While still wet, apply the dark green - let some of the light green show through.

Next - check if your paper is still wet - if not then re-wet the top of your picture. (careful not to go into the green area)

Then apply the colours you have prepared - just load the brush with paint and then touch the paper and the paint will spread by itself.

Put different size blobs of the different colours - in random order (these are wild flowers - not planted in rows!!)

Lastly, take your brush and flick (hold the brush parallel to the paper and tap it sharply, with your finger, just below the bristles) small blobs of paint randomly over the whole picture. 

Do this with all your different flower colours.

Let it dry thoroughly (I use my hair dryer on low heat to speed up the drying process)

Once the paint is dry, take your pen and draw in your flowers. 

Try to draw freely - don't be too precise - the paint is not precise, so the drawing too must be "Random"!

To make it look natural, have some flowers "side view".

Scribble in grass at the bottom, over the green area. Stand back and admire your work...!

Have fun!