Butterflies and Flowers Collage in a Vase!

 Following on from making our Collage Calendar, our group made collages of vases of flowers, mounted onto black card. Some were made into calendars by adding a calendar tab and others were just a bright picture to hang on the wall!

Here are some samples of their  creations...

Even the least artistic member of the group will end up with a very pleasing picture - on A4 piece of card - cutting, sticking and enhancing with stickers, buttons, ribbon bows etc 

Have a go with your groups!

Calendar Collage to make for 2014 - a Tutorial

 

This Calendar Collage is for any year - so easy to put together and a great deal of fun for your groups. 

It is a good idea to have some sort of theme - mine was based around UK, choosing pictures of different people in our country and of course a little map. To finish off, I cut out words I thought were appropriate to the theme...

Your theme could be food (lots to choose from in most magazines!), animals (wild or maybe pet animals), jewellery, hair styles, fashion (clothes or shoes maybe) or celebrities - there will be many more themes that will come to you as you browse through your magazines. 

You could also just have a colour theme - say purple and yellow or green and red or black and orange - endless choices here!

So you will need...

Magazines (mine were just Sunday newspaper magazines)

Glue

A4 Paper 

A4 Black or other coloured card

 

Calendar Tab for appropriate year 

Ribbon or string (about 15cms)

Putting your Calendar Collage together...

Having got all your cut-outs together, stick them first onto an A4 piece of ordinary paper from your printer. Overlapping them will give you a cleaner finish so decide on the order of sticking, before you start...

Then when dry, cut around your pictures, so no white paper is showing. 

Stick this collage onto an A4 sheet of dark card (I used black) and attach you calendar tab and then add a loop of ribbon or string at the top, for hanging.

Three New Printable Christmas Placemats

Here are some more Christmas Placemats to colour-in and use to decorate your Christmas table - either on the day or at your group's Christmas Party!

Three Christmas Placemats

If you want more of my designs to choose from, just enter Christmas Placemats in the Search Box (top right)

They are all ready to print and colour in - whatever the age group, just doing this together will get everyone into the Festive mood...

Still lots to do?? If you want a Christmas Countdown just click on this link...

It's Time to Make Christmas Cards!

We had a really good afternoon at Mencap Art and Craft Group, in Braintree, yesterday. Everyone very excited about the start of the Festive Season. We made our first batch of Christmas cards, using a few ready made (from eBay!) embellishments as well as cutting out our own backing paper and Christmas Trees.

Click here for the Christmas Tree Template

A bit of tinsel, ribbon or rick rack and "Merry Christmas"  and we were very happy with our resulting cards - made with much discussion as to who the recipients would be...

Tea, making Christmas Cards and lots of chat and laughter!

More Cards!

Enjoy making your own Christmas Cards with your groups!

Do send photos of your cards and crafts in to put up in Our Gallery for everyone to share...

Printable General Knowledge Quiz - All About Numbers!

Titanic

Time for another quiz I think...

Thirty questions - all the answers are numbers...No not maths! Just general knowledge questions. Things we all come across and work with, in our daily lives - have a go with your group or maybe see how many you know, best over a cup of tea!

Here is the link - can be printed out...

Quiz - All About Numbers!

If you enjoy this one, then do have a look at my Quiz eBook

Printable eBook - 41 Easy Quizzes

Perfect for winter days to keep the mind ticking along...!

Wall Mural - Autumn!

Our Art and Craft group at Mencap (Braintree) made this lovely Autumn Wall Mural - inspired by Shaun, our group leader.

Having decided we wanted a lake and a few hills in the Mural, it then followed that we needed to put in Nessie - the Loch Ness Monster...!

So this became a Scottish Autumn Wall Mural complete with Loch Ness, Nessie and don't you love the Sunset!

The whole background is made from torn pieces of coloured tissue paper glued onto large sheets of white paper. (the whole mural is about 4 x 8 foot) the trees were painted on white paper and then cut out and glued on. All the leaves were made by painting real leaves on the underside with poster paint and then pressing them onto white paper and when dry, cutting them out. All the other creatures and footballer (!) were then coloured-in and stuck on as well...

It took us three afternoons to put together but we were thrilled with the result...

More Lid Fridge Magnet Ideas!

 So many of you have asked for more ideas on making Lid Fridge Magnets so here is another batch...!

For more detail on how to put them together  - click on this link...

Lid Fridge Magnet Tutorial

Look amongst your craft stash - you will find lots of different bits and pieces that can be used to make up your unique lid fridge magnets - so be creative and have fun!

Make a Cone Christmas Tree - Tutorial!

Jo's Cone Christmas Trees from "Things to Make and Do"

And here is Mine!

I came across an excellent Tutorial on making these sparkling little Cone Christmas Trees.

After making one myself, I decided to give you the link to Jo's website "Things to Make and Do" so you could get your group busy making these decorations ready for Christmas...

Here is the link   Cone Christmas Tree

There is much more on "Things to Make and Do" so do have a browse around! 

Thanks to Jo for sharing her craft with us all...