Felt Christmas Decorations

Activity 3 in our five days of Christmas brings you these lovely felt Christmas Decorations. 

Christmas Pudding brooch

Brief Description: These are cute little decorations which look great as badges, keyrings, mobile phone dangles or as Christmas tree decorations. These give children the opportunity to explore their sewing skills but can be adapted for younger children using either felt or funky foam.

Keywords: Sewing, stitching, felt, brooch, Christmas, festival, winter, decoration

Materials Needed: Felt (or funky foam), needles, thread, glitter glue, scissors, badge pin/keyring/mobile phone dangle

Instructions:

• Using funky foam of felt material cut out all the different sections required for your decoration. Draw out your design on a piece of paper and carefully consider what shapes and colours you require. For younger children you can have the pieces pre cut or prepare a template ready for children to draw around.

Prepare all the pieces of felt before you start sewing together

• For the pudding, the first parts to be sewn together are the brown circles which make up the core of the image. Using a blanket stitch, stitch all around the circles. You can use any stitch you like but I think the blanket stitch leaves a nice finish.

Sew on the custard

• Next add the “custard” on this is stitched onto the pudding using the same stitch.

Make sure you use the same stitch all the way around the brooch

• Add your final decoration pieces to the pudding such as holly at the top and the black currant spots. These can be stitched on or adhered using pva or a fabric glue.

All on details such as currant and holly

• Finally glue or stitch your brooch back to the back of the pudding. If you are using a keyring fixing, stitch this on the top of the decoration or if you want to place you pudding on a tree, leave a loop of thread at the top of the pudding.

Glue or sew on a brooch back

Here are some examples of other badges, decorations ready to be made

Completed Robin brooch

Completed Penguin Brooch

Differentiation:

Key Stage 1: Key stage one children might find these a little difficult to sew, but there are options to make this more adaptable. If you have the time you can use a hole punch and make holes around the outside of the felt/funky foam and younger children can sew the pieces together with a tapestry needle and wool. Obviously this takes a lot of time in the preparation stages, so planning ahead is vital. Alternatively children can draw and cut to the best of their abilities around templates. These can be cut out with the help of an adult and then the pieces can be glued together rather than sewn.

Key Stage 2: Using patterns or pictures as guides, key stage 2 pupils should be able to use a template and cut around this to acquire all the shapes and piece for their decoration. Once again key stage 2 children can sew the main body of the piece together and glue the additional pieces to the decoration for speed. Why not have the children make a couple of decorations and sell them at the school fete?

Gifted and Talented: Gifted and Talented pupils could play around with creating their own designs and making their own templates. Encourage the children to look carefully at the theme they are going to make, i.e a robin. What are the main parts they will need? what are the shapes? how many pieces? what size is your decoration going to be? Look at the size of the wings on the robin compared with the body, the beak, the eye and so on and so forth. Think about scale, character, colour and adding your own unique finish. 

Christmas Story Suitcase

Literacy Christmas suitcase

Our second project for our 5 days of Christmas crafts is a lovely literacy suitcase.

Brief Description: This is a great project to aid and encourage creative writing in children of all ages. This cardboard suitcase can be filled with text about journeys and travels over the Christmas holidays, or used to create a short story.

Keywords: Suitcase, Luggage, Travel, Modes of transport (such as trains, planes, cars, coaches), Adventure, Platforms, Christmas, Festival, Winter, Decoration

Materials Needed: Card, paper, scissors, glue, patterned paper/or painted paper, stamp images, ribbon, felt tip pens

Instructions:

• Decide what shape your luggage is going to be. Once you have planned out the design for your luggage fold a piece of card in half and draw your design on. It is important to make sure that the bottom of your luggage is in line with the fold on the piece of card.

Cut out your basic shape

• Cover your card template with some patterned paper. This can be wrapping paper, magazine images or even painted paper prepared by the children. Think about what is going to be happening in your story and try to find some images that will relate to this.

I have used a cuckoo clock paper to cover my cardboard template

• Cover your handles with a contrasting patterned paper. I have chosen candy cane strips to add to the festive feel for my suitcase.

The contrasting handles add a bit of detail to the piece

• Why not add some finer detail emphasising your suitcase design. I have added on some mock brown leather straps and trim to my design.

Add further details such as luggage straps and trimmings

• In my story my reindeer is going to be travelling the world to find the most perfect gift for Father Christmas. On the cover of my suitcase I have printed off various travel stamps and stuck these on for decorations. Once again try to look for images that say something about the content or a character in your story.

Add images that will help tell your story

• Now we need to turn the suitcase into a book. Cut some white (or what ever coloured paper your desire) to the size of your suitcase. I folded mine in half and laid the suitcase on top of the paper. I then drew around the outside of the suitcase with a pencil. This was then reduced by 1 cm all the way around to ensure that the pages would fit snugly into the book.

Make sure the pages are slightly smaller than the suitcase, otherwise you will have pages that stick out over the edge on the case

• To secure the pages in the book you can staple them in place. However I think that they look much nicer if they are stitched in place. To do this make two holes about 3 inches apart. Carefully thread some string through the holes and tie securely.

Pages tied with coloured string in the book

• You are now ready write your story in your book.

Differentiation:

Key Stage 1: For key stage one pupils you can lay out a range of Christmas themed decorations allowing the children to decorate the cover of their book. Instead of using a suitcase for a template, you can fold a paper plate in half and add a string handle on. The text can be typed on a computer, printed and stuck into the book – adding I.T skills to the project.

Key Stage 2: key stage 2 pupils should be able to write and illustrate their story in the book. You could encourage them to write this on different coloured paper and glue into the book or write directly onto the pages. Sometimes children get a little worried about making a mistake. If the work is drawn/written on paper prior to going into the book it can help relieve some of the worry.

Gifted and Talented: Gifted and talented pupils could add pop up elements to their book or little pockets with pieces that pop out. You could also ask pupils to consider taking photos to tell their story. This adds a different dimension to the book and pupils have to consider, lighting, composition and content of the photo to say or create the mood in the story.

Christmas Collage

Welcome to five days of Christmas Crafts for all ages. These have all been differentiated for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 but are also lots of fun for adults.

Christmas Collage

Brief Description:

Students will exercise their scissor-skills, learn about spatial awareness and design whilst they create vintage style collage.

Keywords:
Collage, Space, Balance, Design, Complimentary, Christmas, Journey, Sparkle, Space, Travel, Winter, festival, celebration

Materials Needed:

Paper, card, pencil, Coloured printed Christmas themed paper/ or hand draw designs, glitter or glitter glue, ribbon, vintage image of favourite place or sepia photograph, scissors

Instructions:

• On a piece of paper, plan out the design of your collage. Think about your favourite place you would like to visit at Christmas it could be a country, a favourite spot at a park or even grandmas sofa.
• You will need to decide what image you are going to collage on top of your favourite place. I have chosen a Christmas tree but you could use an angel, a star, the nativity, a bauble etc.
• Collect all of your images. Be careful if you are using the Internet to look for images, shutter stock has some great images that you can use for a small charge. Alternatively you can collect your images from magazines, newspaper, photographs, wrapping paper, Christmas cards etc.
• I have decided to create my collage in a square shape but again, you can create your collage to any shape or size. Cut out your image of your favourite place to the size and shape required. Mount this picture onto a piece of brightly coloured paper to give you’re your base for your collage.
• Carefully mark on the back of your image to be collaged on top of your base. Cut along these lines with care. Think about how you are going to space these on your collage.

• Cut along the lines you have marked on the piece of paper

• Glue the pieces in place on top of your base.

• Add any additional detail to your collage, I have added a star on the top of my tree and a line of glitter glue on each shape.

• The date has been added to the collage using glitter glue.

 For a final touch print off or create a wish list for Santa. Roll this into a scroll and secure with a piece of ribbon

• Glue the scroll onto the collage

Differentiation:
Key stage 1: You can use pre cut shapes or templates for younger children to colour and cut out. This is a great activity to practice scissor skills, however why not have the children rip and tear the images out giving your rough edges – adding to the effect. Painted hand prints with a red dot on the middle finger and a squiggly off the thumb makes a great reindeer – give it a try.
Key stage 2: Why not extend the collage by adding additional layers that can hang from the central section? This can be done by cello taping another shape to the bottom of the shape above. Once again you have to carefully think about weight distribution and balance. If you make one side to heavy the collage will tilt when hung. Instead of using string why not use pipecleaners to attach the hanging images. You can bend the pipecleaners into lots of different positions so the hanging images don’t all hang in the same direction.
An alternative method of adhering the hanging images to the central image could be to use a hole punch and tie the hanging images in place using wool.

Gifted and Talented: Think about the use of symmetry with the Collage. Imagine there is a mirror held in the centre on the image, both sides should look alike and mirror each other.
Consider additional impact such as cutting out the windows from buildings house, having a door that opens, a star that lifts to reveal a message etc to create areas of interest to your collage and make it stand out.

For more information on arts and craft classes for all ages contact Lisa Smith at the_laboratory@hotmail.co.uk

New Venture

I am really excited to finally have the opportunity to open my own art studio - the laboratory at Wat Tyler Country Park in January 2013.
the laboratory has been a vision of mine for a few years now and I am delighted to be opening the space next year.

The laboratory will not only be a space that allows me to move my practice from the kitchen table to an art studio! but also a space where you can join me in a range of classes and explore, experiment and create!

A big thank you to Lisa Dunn for designing our lovely logo

To find out more follow the laboratory on twitter@1the_laboratory or facebook facebook.com/1thelaboratory. You can also follow the laboratory blog to keep up to date with information on the grand launch on the 12th January 2013 www.1the_laboratory.blogspot.co.uk

Opening January 12th 2012

Bling a Poppy

This time of year you are hard pushed to see anyone walking about without the adornment of a red paper poppy. Traditionally the poppy is worn in remembrance of soldiers past and present that have served in the British forces. Poppies are worn throughout the end of October until the 11th of November – Remembrance Sunday.

This blog will show you how to customise you official poppy to suit your style. Popular TV programmes have seen the stars wearing Swarovski poppies, which in turn has led to alot of companies making replicas and selling them on to the public under the pretence of raising money for the Royal British Legion. I want to show you how you can use an official poppy and create similar effects with a few crafts resources. 

Customise your own poppy and ensure that your donation reaches goes to The Royal British Legion.

This poppy has been made using glitter and PVA glue. To get this effect I covered the centre of the poppy with pva glue and sprinkled over the top with black glitter. I repeated this process on the petals using red glitter and once again on the leaves using green glitter. Leave to dry overnight. Cost of materials – Glitters from Hobbycraft £5.97.

Glitter being added to an Official Poppy

Completed Glitter Poppy

This poppy has been made using glitter glue, gem stones and glitter. To get this effect I covered the centre of the poppy with pva glue and sprinkled over the top with black glitter as above. I then covered the petals with red glitter glue. Using a pair of tweezers I applied rows of red gems onto of the glitter glue. I repeated this process for the leaf using green glitter glue and green gems. Leave to dry for 24 hours. Cost of materials, glitter £1.99, glitter glue £1.99 and pack of gems £2.99 – total cost £9.93 (purchased from Hobbycraft).

First apply glitter glue then add gems

Completed Gem covered Poppy

This poppy has been made using glitter glue. To get this effect I covered the centre of the poppy with black glitter glue, the petals with red glitter glue and the leaf with green glitter glue. Leave to dry for 24 hours. Total cost £5.97 – glitter glue brought from Hobbycraft.

Glitter glue being added in a circular pattern

The completed Glitter Glue Poppy

This poppy have been made using acrylic paint. To get this effect I mixed up a couple of shades red acrylic paint using black, red and white paint. I then painted the red petals using various shades. The leaf was painted with green acrylic paint. The paint add a sheen to the poppy which can be enhanced with a varnish or a coat of PVA glue. 

Applying acrylic paint to the poppy petals

The completed Acrylic Painted Poppy

More than 40 million Remembrance poppies, 500,000 poppies of other types, 5 million Remembrance petals, 100,000 wreaths and sprays, 750,000 Remembrance Crosses and other Remembrance items are made at the Poppy Factory each year. 
Make sure you wear your poppy with pride.
For more information on the fantastic work the Royal British Legion carries out, check out their website http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/poppy-appeal

Spooky Mobile

Here is the first in a series on Halloween, Bonfire Night and Autumn themed arts and crafts lesson plans to inspire a creative curriculum. I hope that you find them useful.

Brief Description:

Students will exercise their scissor-skills, learn a few things about balance,motion and movement whilst they create their own unique Autumn themed mobile.

Keywords:
Mobile, movement, Halloween (and word related such as ghost, witch, pumpkinetc), spooky, autumn, kinetic, Alexander Calder

Materials Needed:

Paper, card, pencil, wool or thread, watercolours or felt tip pens,templates, cello tape and pipecleaners

Instructions:

The Hanuted house will make the main feature of the mobile. Ensure this is drawn on card or heavy weight paper

 1. On a piece of paper, plan out the design of your mobile. Think about what your theme is going to be and what objects, images etc you want hanging from the bottom of the mobile. For example you could choose to make a tree with lots of leaves hanging off the branches. These could all have a different words for Autumn written on them; or you could have your central piece as the horn of life with harvest festival items hanging from below. For the purposes of this worksheet I have chosen to work on a haunted house theme.

Sketch out your central piece using a pencil on a piece of card. For my mobile this will be a haunted house.

The children can be encouraged to drawn their own characters as I have above, alternatively you can google clip art to get ideas

2. Sketch out your objects that will be hanging from your central piece on a piece of card. I have chosen to use a witch, a bat and a ghost. You can have as many items hanging as you like but try to think about the balance of the piece and where they are going to hang. If you have a large shape on one side and a small shape on the other the mobile will hang crooked.

I have chosen to have a ghost, a bat and a witch for my mobile

3. For my mobile I have chosen to use water colour paints to add colour. There are lots of mediums you can use such as felt tip, coloured pencils, oil pastels, crayons and even collage materials – the choice is yours.

My witch on a broom stick will hang under the spooky house

I used watercolours to paint my house but you can use any medium

4. Once the pieces are all coloured cut them out ready for assemblage.On the back of all of the hanging items secure a piece of wool with some cello tape. You can staple these on but using cello tape leaves no marks on the front image of the mobile. Using a ruler find the centre point of your main piece (the house) and mark with a dot. Secure one of your hanging objects using cello tape where the dot is.

Cello tape the hanging piece to the back of the house

5. Once again using a ruler measure the distance between the centre of the main piece (the house) to the left edge. Half the distance and mark with a dot. Secure one of the remaining hanging piece to the spot you have marked with a dot. Repeat this process on the other side.

Completed Haunted House mobile

6. Finally add a piece of wool to the top to enable you to hang your mobile. Using cello tape secure the remaining two hanging piece to the dot marks you have made.

Differentiation:

Key stage 1: You can use pre cut shapes ortemplates for younger children to colour and cut out. This is a great activityto practice scissor skills, however if you are making a spooky themed mobilethe children can rip and tear the images out giving your rough edges – addingto the effect. Painted hand prints upside down with a pair of google eyes makeexcellent ghosts – give it a try.

Key stage 2: Why not extend the mobile by addingone of more layers to the hanging section? This can be done by cello tapinganother shape to the bottom of the shape above. Once again you have tocarefully think about weight distribution and balance. If you make one side toheavy the mobile will tilt. Instead of using string why not use pipecleaners toattach the hanging images. You can bend the pipecleaners into lots of differentpositions so the hanging images don’t all hang in the same direction.

Analternative method of adhering the hanging images to the central image could beto use a hole punch and tie the hanging images in place using wool.

Gifted and Talented: Think about the use of symmetry withthe mobile design. Imagine there is a mirror held in the centre on the image,both sides should look alike and mirror each other. You can make the sameshapes to hang each side with maybe a slight colour change. Consider colouringand working on both sides of the images so as the piece spins around presentinga 3D feel to the mobile.

Consideradditional impact such as cutting out the windows of the house, having a doorthat opens etc to create areas of interest to your mobile and make it standout.

This is an alternativeidea for the mobile.

Acrostic poem idea

Additional idea:

Why not use this mobile making activity as a creative writing tool?

 You could link this activity to a class project. I have mocked up a version of a mobile based on the theme of Autumn. I have drawn a wellington boot as the central image with a puddle underneath and my poem forming the splashes. I assembled my mobile using pipecleaners which allowed me to bend the pipecleaners to make it look like the boot was jumping in the puddle. I have then used the word “puddle” to make an acrostic poem, writing each word onto a separate piece of card. These pieces have been attached individually underneath the puddle. These look great as part of a wall display.

Spooky Book Marks

Part three of my Halloween ideas brings you these stunning spooky bookmarks. Guaranteed to inspire children to pick up a book and put them to use.

Brief Description: What a great way to inspire young readers - create your own unique book mark. These cute bookmarks have been designed with an Autumn or Halloween theme, but these can be adapted to any theme. Intricate designs can take time to complete to  make this a full lesson or designs can be supplied to make this an extension activity. This activity can also be used for fund raising ideas for school fetes, with children making numerous bookmarks that can be sold to friends, parents, governors and stakeholders

Keywords: Book mark, design, flexibilty, shape

Materials needed; Paper, felt tip pens, watercolours, scissors, crimping scissors, ribbon, laminating pouch, laminator, glue, google eyes.

Instructions:

1. Decide on the width of your book mark. I found that the average school class ruler is an ideal width. Using a pencil lay the ruler on a piece of paper and draw down both sides

Marked out and ready to add detail

2. For my bookmarks I have made a “topper” for the top of the bookmark. Ask children to think about their design, connecting with the theme/project given. I have chosen a Halloween and Autumn theme for my bookmarks. Using the ruler as a marker, draw a further column. Draw the topper over the top of the column as illustrated in the picture to the right. Make sure the topper is slightly wider than the column- this will allow the topper to sit on the top of the book page.

Make sure that the images that are going to be placed at the top of the book marks slightly overlap the edges of your ruler marks

Back grounds drawn on ready for painting

 3. Colour in and cut out you book marks. I have used watercolour paints for my examples but you can use and drawing or painting medium for this project. I have also cut out the word “Boo” on my ghost bookmark for additional effect.

I have used water colour paint to add colour to my book marks

Paint your toppers before cutting them out, this marks it much easier - plus if you go over the edge you can cut it off

4. Mount the bookmarks on a piece of brightly coloured card. I have chosen to use a red piece of card to clash against my green bookmark. This will also highlight my cut out lettered “BOO”. Glue in position using a glue stick. When dry cut around the edge of the bookmark leaving a slight boarder. I used crimping scissors but you can use a rota trim, scissor to cut a wiggly line or even rip around the border for rough edges.

Cut out the backgrounds and toppers

Mount the bookmarks onto a piece of coloured paper

I have used crimping scissors to create an interesting edge

 5. Using sticky foam pads (or a piece of cardboard and some glue) adhere the topper to the top of the bookmark. If you want to make your bookmarks more robust, before you stick the topper on place the two parts, the bookmark and topper in a laminating pouch and laminate. You will need to cut them both out again and can still adhere the topper to the bookmark using sticky pads or a small piece of cardboard and glue.

Stick the topper on the top

6.For a final touch add a bit of ribbon to the bottom.

Add ribbon on the bottom for the finishing touches

Why not laminate the bookmark for added protection

Differentiation:

Key stage 1: There are lots of websites where you can get pre-printed bookmark designs that younger children can use and colour in (website address listed at the back of this pack). Alternatively you could encourage the children to use stencils and various collage materials on their bookmarks – using wool to create spider webs, stickers of themed subjects, you can even encourage the children to collect a leaf from outside place it under the piece of paper and rub over the top using a crayon to create a unique autumn leaf bookmark.

Keystage 2: Encourage the children to write a short poem on the back of their book mark that will compliment the design on the front. Rather than have just one topper on the bookmark, children could create a series of images to adhere to the bookmark. If the bookmark was a witches broom stick you could add a witch and one end, a cat in the middle and a spell book at the end. An autumn day could have an umbrella at the top, leaves and rain drops whirling around the centre and a pair of wellington boots at the base and so on and so forth.

Gifted and Talented: Think about the use of line, the idea of design and the method of technique in the medium used to apply colour. Ie. If the children are working in coloured pencil or pencil, look at the use of shading and range of colours that can be applied. If using collage materials are they appropriate for the image, do they enhance the piece? You could also encourage pupils to add an intricate border feature patterns, words or symbols related to the centre images, or even use a needle and thread and blanket stitch a border.