Miss Meghan’s Craft Corner ~ Beaded Snowflake Craft

For the November/December edition of our library magazine Miss Lucy and I planned fun snowflake crafts and snacks.  For the snowflake snack, Miss Lucy shared a super simple and yummy idea.  Take a large marshmallow for the center of the snowflake.  Place 6 small pretzel sticks radiating out from the center and place a mini marshmallow on the ends of each of the pretzels.  Cute snowflake snack!  You can see a sample on this blog here.

Beaded Snowflake craft

Materials needed:
2 glittery silver pipe cleaners
Assorted beads
Ribbon

1. Cut each pipe cleaner in half. You will only need three halves.
2. Twist the three pipe cleaners together in the centers so that they form a 6 pointed shape.

3. Add beautiful beads to the pipe cleaners. You can layer them all edge to edge or keep some space so the pipe cleaner shows through.

4. Fold over the ends of the pipe cleaner so the beads don’t slide off.
5. Make a loop at the end of one of the pipe cleaners and tie your ribbon to it.
6. Hang your beautiful snowflake somewhere special!

Handprint Owl Craft

For the Septmber/October edition of my library’s magazine I submitted a fun owl handprint craft.  I’m a little behind on posting it here, as we are already getting ready for the Nov/Dec issue!

I loved this craft which I originally found on the cool blog Meet the Dubiens.  I thought these owls were sch a cute idea to document your child’s cute little hands and looked really nice on the wall.  We’ve hung our owls up in the girls’ room near their bunkbeds, and I just love seeing them everyday!

Materials needed:
Construction paper in several fun colors
Contrasting sheet of scrapbook paper
Glue
Crayons/marker
Washable paint
Optional feathers

1. Cut out a simple owl shaped body, and then cut out two round eyes, a triangle beak, and two legs.

2. Assemble the owl on the scrapbook paper and glue in place. Color in the pupils on the owl’s eyes with black.

3. Paint your child’s hands and have them carefully make a hand print on either side of the owl’s body to make the wings. The fingers should be pointing out. Make sure they do not wiggle their hands if you want a clear print. (If you’d like to cut down on the messiness factor, you can simply trace your child’s hands, cut them out, and glue them in place, instead of doing the handprint)

4. Once the paint is dry, children can glue on feathers if they would like.

These are wonderful decorations or gifts that document your child’s small cute hands!

Miss Meghan’s Craft Corner ~ Sail Boat

I’m posting this a few days early, as I have like 900 other blogs queued up to post over the next few days.  Ahhh, crazy busy!

For my library’s May/June magazine I am sharing a fun sail boat craft I found at Family Fun.  It was super easy to make and the girls loved sailing it.  The fact that it actually worked and didn’t immediately sink or fall over is perhaps the most amazing part of this whole project!  Especially when working with small children…  I just loved making this craft with the girls and they are really enjoying playing with their boats 🙂

In her Baking With Miss Lucy section of the magazine, Lucy shared a fun recipe for celery sailing ships.  We thought it would be fun and summery to go with a boat theme 🙂

Sailing Boat Craft

Materials needed:
Small foil pan, like the size of a loaf of bread
non hardening modeling clay
plastic folder (like an old school folder)
Bamboo Skewer or chopstick or thin dowel rod (about 9 inches tall)
long length of string (so you don’t loose your boat)
scissors
permanent marker

1.  Cut out a tall triangle shape from your folder.  You can use the permanent marker to make a shape first or just eyeball it (my preferred method).  Make sure it’s about 2 inches shorter than your stick..  If you have stickers or other colors of permanent marker you can decorate your sail as well 🙂

2.  Fold the sail in half vertically and make a small slit about 1 inch from the top and a second slit about an inch from the bottom.  This is where the dowel rod will go through the sail.

3.  Take the foil pan and pinch one of the short ends a little to make a ship’s bow.

4.  Place a small circle of clay (about an inch) in the bottom of the boat.

5.  Thread the stick through the folder leaving the extra length of stick at the bottom.

6.  Insert the base of the stick into the clay ball.

7.  Poke a hole in the bow of the foil boat and tie your string to it.  Make the length of the string as long as you would like it to be.

The best part is that the boats can actually carry small animals in them. We let an ostrich take a ride in one of the boats!

We took our boats out back to the canal and the girls had a great time “sailing” them, mostly the boats just kind of hung out near the edge of the yard. The girls are planning on taking their boats to the beach tomorrow to try them out there 🙂

Happy girls (and ducks) with their boats and shiny eyes

It was a beautiful night for a sail 🙂

Miss Meghan’s Craft Corner ~ Growing Flower

In this month’s edition of our library magazine we are beginning a fun new series where families with young children can find a simple and yummy recipe and a fun and easy related craft both of which will usually reflect the seasons.  So here is the first round of ‘Baking with Miss Lucy’ and ‘Miss Meghan’s Craft Corner’

For the March/April Magazine, Miss Lucy and I decided to feature a snack and craft for spring.   In the magazine, Lucy shared a recipe for making yummy dirt cups complete with worms!  And I am sharing a cute growing flower craft.

Growing Flower Craft

Materials needed:
Popsicle stick, paper or styrofoam cup, paper, glue
Optional: markers stickers, etc.

1.  Ask an adult to make a small slit in the bottom of your cup, just large enough to fit the popsicle stick through.
2. Cut out your flower and leaves using the provided pattern.

3.  Glue the flower and leaves to the popsicle stick and insert the stick through the bottom of the upside down cup.

4.  Reach your hand in from underneath (the opening of the cup) to raise and lower the flower so it looks as if it’s growing.

If you’d like you can color the popsicle stick ahead of time with a marker
Decorate the cup with markers, crayons, and stickers for a fun spring look!
Use pretty sheets of scrapbook paper for fun patterns on your leaves or flower.

Pattern for flower

cut two leaves and one flower.