easy craft Archives - Joanna Anastasia

easy craft

The series that’ll inspire your kid to craft and create !

September 12, 2016 / Lifestyle / 0 comment

Today I’d like to share with you my latest discovery, the new interactive Amazon Original Kids series, that’ll inspire your kid to craft and create. Because if you’re anything like me, then probably you love seeing your kids being creative and learning while playing and crafting, right? So I’ll assume, that just like me, you really appreciate series that are both educative as amusing? Oh, and also series that encourage kids to actually get up, play and do something fun, right? I thought so!

So I’m sure that you’ll love looking at your kids crafting and learning while following their favorite characters from the Creative Galaxy series, Arty and his silly side-kick Epiphany, as they travel around the galaxy to solve problems using many different forms of art. And because is a “make-along, create-along” animated art adventure, it really celebrates creative thinking through crafts, story, music, and dance! And each episode highlights a creative medium, like painting, music, sculpting, or cooking, to teach kids that art is all around us and that it exists in many different forms!

And my both my daughters and I , we are really exited for the new season, and so we decided to make one of the crafts featured in it, a tiger mask!

Now, you know I’m not about perfection, but experience, fun and creativity! So this mask isn’t perfect. But you know what, it doesn’t have to be. Because what I want my kids to learn, is that creativity is an adventure and that the process is sometimes more important then the result. And that’s exactly what they’ll learning with Creative Galaxy!

If you’d like to make the same one with your kids, you can either print out my imperfect mask or draw your own and follow the instructions, or get creative and make it in a totally different way!

What you’ll need:

Paper
Crayons
Scissors
Pipe cleaners

1. Print out our imperfect mask / or draw your own.

If you’re crafting with a toddler, help them draw some tiger stripes and a nose!

2. Let your kids color and decorate it as they want.

Remember, it’s all about experiencing the creative process, and not necessary following the instructions, so if your child wan’t its tiger mask to be purple and green why not let him?

3. Cut it out and pierce tiny holes with pipe cleaners and insert one on every edge.

4. Put them on and get ready for the all new season of creative ideas and adventures!

Now, next time it’s rainy outside and we can’t play in the garden, we’ll be right here watching our new favorite Creative Galaxy series and crafting along. And I hope you’ll join us too! And remember, the second season will be available starting this Friday, September 16!

Disclosure:I was compensated for this post. The opinions are completely my own based on my experience!

Teaching kids how to recycle and reuse

February 1, 2016 / Kids crafts / 1 Comment

We all recycle paper and plastic and glass in our homes. We all know how important it is to reduce the waste and reuse old objects. Thanks to my city’s initiative I even do compost. But I realized that my kids don’t really understand the very essence of recycling nor they understand why we do it.

So I decided to show them the meaning of recycling in a way that they can understand, and that’ll look appealing and useful to them: reusing their old and broken crayons!

We took our crayon box and sorted all the broken crayons aside. I asked them first what should we do with these broken crayons, and my older daughter proposed throwing them away. Now, that was a clear signal to me that I should put more effort in teaching her about the importance of reusing things!

So without explaining to her what exactly are we doing, I asked her to help me with taking the papers off the broken crayons. I wanted her to first see for herself how we can recycle broken objects in to something useful, before telling her what will happen.

We sorted the crayons in to colour groups : yellow with orange, blue with purple, and green with brown. We’ve put every group in to a different silicone cup, and off to the oven set up for 300F for around 15 minutes.

When I took the melted crayons out of the oven, my daughter was very surprised, but she still didn’t understand why are we doing this.

When the melted crayons finally cooled down, and I popped new and funny shaped crayon cups out of the baking sheets, finally she understood: we made something new out of something old! Yes. Instead of creating waste we reused what we already had.And that is recycling and reusing.

She’s still a bit young for learning about the climate change, the polluted oceans and Arctic ice melting. I spread her all the explanations about the dangers of not reusing what we have. I think that simply seeing the utility of this craft made her see why it’s better to reuse then to throw away things.

And then she started drawing with her new crayons, and later in the afternoon she used them as cupcakes for her dolls. And so I think that she understood what it actually means to recycle. And how fun it is, when we can make something new out of something old!

And hers what you’ll need to make your new crayons:

Broken crayons
Cupcake moulds (I suggest silicone)
Oven

Take the papers off your crayons, place them in a cupcake moulds, and put in the oven heated to 300F for around 15 minutes so they’ll melt completely. Take them out to cool down. Add some glitter. Pop out once they’re cooled down, and have fun!

Valentine’s day card, that your child can make on its own!

January 22, 2016 / Kids crafts / 0 comment

Valentine’s day is approaching, and I know you’re hungry for new ideas! Remember how I was writing about paying attention to not overstimulate our kids? And guided crafting was one of the things to look at? So, I’m happy to say, that this craft is equally a fruit of unguided creativity, and of a guided crafting with mom. So kids get to express themself, and then they can make something really nice too, a win-win!

My girls love crafting, and this card here is their collaborative work, with just a tiny bit of help from my side. But if your kids are confident with scissors, then they can make this card entirely on their own!

What you’ll need :

A big sheet of white paper
Red and pink paint

2 pink cardboards
scissors
Glue

First step is unguided painting. Let kids ( even an older baby or a toddler ) paint whatever they want with pink and red paint. You could even give them pompoms to paint with (especially toddlers love painting with unusual materials!) Then let it dry.

Take two, equal in size pink cardboards. Set one aside. Fold another one in half, and cut a half-heart. Set it aside.

And now cut the painted sheet of paper in to long stripes. Take the other pink cardboard, and glue on it the pink and red stripes. Make sure there’s no space in-between stripes left.

Now place the cardboard with a heart on top ( add glue to the edges so it stays).
Your Valentine’s card is ready!

We’ll be making more of these, since my daughter decided that she wants to send one to each of her grandparents, and aunts and uncles. And are your kids making cards for friends and family?

Little girls jewelry box & CHARM IT! first bracelet

November 25, 2014 / Lifestyle / 0 comment

Here is a fun little project inspired by my daughter Lili : a little girls jewelry box & CHARM IT! first bracelet, that was the reason for which we decided that we needed one in the first place. You see, in my parenting philosophy girls should have the freedom to be as girly or as tomboyish as they feel. They should be free to express themselves, their passions and interests, and free to change their mind too ;).

So when I was proposed one of these cute CHARM IT! accessories, I didn’t really think twice. I love jewelry, and Lili is always trying to play with my necklaces and earrings. Our love for jewelry is as real as our love for chocolate :). But you see, what is special about this product, is the choice of charms : from girly and sweet, to funny and geeky ! You can find a charm for every occasion, milestone or hobby. Ours came with a range if the cutest charms :

When I gave it to her, ( as a gift for a particularity good behaviour 🙂 ) she instantly fell for the little dog with pink glasses, actually insisting that it was a cat! Well, we do have two cats, so obviously she wanted it to represent one of them.

And I love the quality and the thoughtful details : it’s adjustable, the charms are super easy to attach and detach and there is so many different ones to choose from!

So then, I decided that it’s a great opportunity to put all of her little girls accessories in one place. I was tired of trying to find a hairband early in the morning, while she’s supposed to be dressing for daycare, but is screaming that she doesn’t want to have her hair done, or that she needs to have two perfectly braided pony tails! (One or the other, depending from her mood).

We used an empty spice box kit : a metal box and two little metal spice containers. I give Lili a choice of pretty crafting paper, and we went with a mix & match attitude :). And we didn’t even bother to use Mod Podge , just a simple glue !

And voila, a little girls jewelry box, fast to make, and easy to open by these little chubby hands :

Honestly, all it took for her, to be more patient while I do her hair in the morning, was this little box that she’s bringing to me now with a smile. And while I do her hair, she’s taking out her adorable CHARM IT! bracelet, playing with it, and inventing stories about the little cat (I know, I know, it’s a dog, but try explaining it to her!) that was wearing glasses and drinking milk..

I really think that this is the cutest little girls accessory! Since you can add any funky, funny charm that you can imagine, it truly makes for a lovely gift, and you can get them at any GAP Kids :).

Do your little girls wear jewelry ? And what are your tricks for keeping them calm while you do their hair?

Disclosure: I received this product free for review. All opinions remain my own.

Easy Halloween craft : pumpkin friends

September 29, 2014 / Kids crafts / 19 Comments

I bought some mini pumpkins and they seemd to be perfect for a Halloween craft, and since my daughter loves to play with little figurines, I decided to make with here these pumpkin friends that she can play with. With Halloween being on top of her head recently, I made her day with those little pumpkins! I think that this girl of mine is constantly thinking about desserts and sweets, so no wander that Halloween is her favourite day (mine too actually ). You see, were I grew up we didn’t had Halloween, so I’m like a kid now, decorating, dressing up, and hoping for candies! But since I’m not that much in to creepy and scary Halloween decoration, my number 1 choose for crafts and decoration are pumpkins :).

I helped her draw the pumpkin smiles, but if your kid is a bit older I’m sure they can make a pumpkin friend like this with out any help of an adult. It’s really a super easy Halloween craft!

Here is what you need :

Little pumpkins
Plastic eyes
Yellow pipe cleaner
Black marker
Glue
Scissors

Now let your kid glue the eyes on to these little pumpkins, insert the pipe cleaner hands and corns, and if they can, let them draw the missing details of their little pumpkin friend.

After we finished our pumpkin friends, Lili was pretending that it’s a pumpkin family, then she decided to wash them with a cloth, and then dry them in the garden.. So in the end they needed a new pumpkin face ! But she was taking care of these little pumpkin friends for like an hour!

So I think that this little Halloween craft was a success! Only 10 minutes of making a craft with mom, and then an hour of independent play with her pumpkin friends ! That’s what I like 🙂

Fall memory keeping toddler craft

September 10, 2014 / Kids crafts / 1 Comment

Do you sometimes feel like the time is passing by too fast? I do. Of course it’s never that way when I have to make dinner, while taking care of a whining baby, and a toddler that’s dangerously bored, aka I’ll-throw-a-tantrum-any-minute-now.. It’s when we sit down to craft with my daughter, and I look at her hands, and I see that these are not baby hands anymore.

She’s growing up. Little by little, but she is. The summer dresses that I’ve bought couple of months ago seem to be suddenly too short. Her vocabulary is growing every day. She’s dressing up on her own, and finally eating with her fork :). I fell that pretty soon she’ll be going to school. She’ll have her own friends. Her life. But for now she’s still mine. I wanted to capture this moment, her chubby hands, the feeling of this fall. So this is what we’ve made.

Since I really like the contrast of colours that you get by using black cardboard, here it is again :). Of course you can use white as well. Here is what we’ve used:

big cardboard sheet

Paper

finger paint

dry leaves

glue

We started by stamping her hand on the yellow sheet of paper.

..we glued it on to the cardboard:

And then my daughter was gluing the leaves.

And here it is, our simple and really easy, fall memory keeping toddler craft:

I think think that we might be making them every year :). I plan to add them to our photo albums. Yes, I still make them. And how do you preserve your baby/ kids souvenirs ?

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