Rebecca Doyle Photography: craft with Tara

I have commented on here before about how much I am absolutely loving that my daughter is at an age where we can dabble in all sorts of different craft activities.

The lead up to Easter this week provided some wonderful craft opportunities for us, and the chance for Tara to participate in one of her favourite activities at present - glueing. Give this child glue and she will squeeze and squeeze until her heart is content, emptying half a bottle in one sitting. (Mental note, must buy glue stick that doesn't require squeezing).

First up this week we pulled out the paints, and some great little polystyrene egg shapes I picked up at a local store that sold all sorts of bibs & bobs. This was a nice easy craft for Tara to manage, with quick results (excellent for someone not yet three!). She also chose to stick some star stickers on her eggs, so in only a few minutes she was done.

Tara put her aptitude for the art of glue application to work on this cute little Easter bunting I put together. Now this was a fun one to do!
Essentially, craft wise, all I did was cut flag shapes out of some coloured paper, circle shapes out of some other coloured paper, printed out letters in 'Word' (see - not really very artistic & creative at all!) - then laid them all out and went to work with the glue. I then cut out a couple of Easter bunny shapes from some other coloured paper, popped a few holes in the pieces of paper and then we thread some twine through the holes.
This was a super easy craft activity - I encourage you to give this one a go - birthdays, Christmas, whatever tickles your fancy.

There are loads of great templates and ideas around - one blog I love is 'Amanda's Parties To Go'.

Now of course, Easter craft wouldn't be complete without an Easter basket, and for this activity, I pretty much followed the format described above - I cut out shapes and Tara glued them on.

For the basket, I cut a head, ear, and feet shapes from some thick foam, then poked around in the box of craft goodies until I found some "googly eyes" (Tara thought it was hilarious her bunny had "googly eyes"!)and a white pipe cleaner for whiskers. From the bathroom cupboard I retrieved a few cotton balls and we were good to go. The 'basket' was a $2 (or there abouts) pink noodle box from a local craft store.

In amongst the craft activities of this last week, and in an attempt for me to get my little bunny to eat some food (my daily challenge) - I used cookie cutters to shape her ham & cheese sandwich into a couple of cute little Easter visitors. I cut some strips in a green lolly snake, wrapped a dried apricot around it, and there we had our bunnies' carrot snacks.....

The big day arrived, full of great excitement .... the night before l'il T carefully laid a carrot and little bowl of water out by the back door. In the morning, there was a small trail of eggs around the backyard - but I think Tara was more excited that the Easter Bunny had nibbled her carrot. She kept shouting "He's been! He's nibbled"..... oh my goodness these things are so fun :)

I hope you all had a hip, hop, hoppy Easter and enjoyed the special time spent with precious family and friends. And perhaps you too were excited to be allowed a bit of chocolate at breakfast time!

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PJs were the order of the day with a sniffly little girl at home .... and her red & white stripes seemed quite apt for creating a l'il Swashbuckler - and a sniffly one at that.

Practicing her best "Ahoy me hearties", we delved into our craft box today to create some pirate fun. I found an old post on 'Kid's Craft Weekly' with some great instructions and templates. I particularly loved that the Jolly Roger was a koala on the templates! And can I just say that I am SO excited that Tara is at an age where we can start playing and creating with fun craft activities (I subscribed to the Kid's Craft Weekly magazine before Tara could even sit on her own, let alone hold a pair of scissors, glue on sequins, or make her own Christmas cards). Please visit the Kid's Craft Weekly page if you are after some fun kid's craft ideas.

The pirate hat was tackled first, because, well really, what self-respecting pirate doesn't have a pirate hat? I also figured if her attention waned, atleast she would have a hat if we didn't make it on to creating anything else.

Tara very excitedly tried the hat on for size.....

... and then announced that she needed an eye patch! I didn't have any felt handy, so simply cut out a shape that resembled an eye-patch, hole-punched a couple of holes and tied on some black hat elastic.

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The hat and the eye-patch were all done in about 15 minutes. Little Miss then was distracted for a while, so I retrieved some cardboard from the garage and quickly fashioned a 'sword', covered with aluminium foil. Tara assisted with the necklace, as we modified the instructions and quickly wrapped some torn off bits of foil around a pink ribbon (yes, all pirates have pink necklaces). Tara then got distracted some more, pretending the wrapped up bits of foil were chocolates ...... aye aye....