crafts, create, FREE printables, halloween, kids, monster

Milk Carton Skull Lanterns

So with much delight, we introduce our latest invention, the Milk Carton Skull Lanterns!

Spike age 14:

We really wanted to have a go at making some skull lanterns, and thought the milk carton would be perfect for this, and it wasn’t until we started planning the graphics for it that we realised how brilliant it was that the handle itself created two brilliant indentations that were perfect for the skull’s eye sockets!!

We’ve since made LOADS of these are they are so easy to make, you can either print off the FREE printable here, or use marker pens, like these * affiliate links which work really well on plastic bottles – for full instructions watch my Mum’s incredibusy youtube video here.

For the PRINTABLE Skull’s face template click here

For more FREE printables for Halloween click here for Pumpkins
and here for brilliant Witches Hats
Some fab paper skull potato print Halloween party bags
How about Toffee Apples!
And some wonderful FREE printable, Skull Bunting

Ali also blogs over on incredibusy.com and FunCraftsKids.com and is a lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello!

create, google+ hangouts, kids

Button Crafts – Cupcake Gift Tags

Button Crafts – eek and I’m in my element!

So with Mother’s Day looming, I thought we’d make some pretty button crafts gift tags for Grandma and Granny’s parcels as we won’t be with them on the day.

It’s a life-cycle thing too, as we have LOADS of buttons in our button box which belonged to my Grandma – we LOVE buttons in our house, and have spent hours picking through the buttons in the tin, each one having a special childhood memory for me, and now for my own children too!

Combining two of my favourite things, Button Crafts, and Cakes, I took some rather fetching paper cake cases and cut them down to fit some parcel swing tags I had lurking in the gift wrapping box. These would make great Birthday cards too – I just loved the idea of making the gift wrap special too… 🙂

Instructions:

1) Cut the cake case down to size. You should be able to get four out of one cake case.

2) Position all of the buttons where you want them onto the swing ticket.

3) Ideally take a photo for reference, we did this, so that we could remove them all, and glue them all back on in place – it’s a great way of getting the buttons exactly where you want them! Button crafts can be quite fiddly, so this is a great ‘cheat’!

4) Glue the paper case into position, I put mine over the top of the buttons, to give a more 3D effect.

If you’d like to see more button crafts, check out our Christmas Rudolph Greetings Cards, and watch the Google+ hangout hosted by Maggy at RedTedArt where myself, Anthea and Maggy shared our favourite button crafts. (Check out Anthea’s cookies – you won’t believe them!!!)

Ali also blogs over on aGreenerLifeforus.com and is a new lover of Instagram too… pop over and say hello

crafts, create, gardening

Create a leaf wreath with old books

Ever the recycle queen of green, I LOVED working with the kids on this one… and a great way to use up old unloved books.

This is very easy to make, the boys’ now have quite a short attention-span for crafting, yet really rose to the challenge – creating templates using REAL Autumn leaves of different shapes which we cut up, several pages at a time for speed, from the pages of this aged book – folding a crease down the centre of the “leaves” to create a more realistic 3Dimensional effect.

We had in preparation, wrapped some lovely string around a shop-bought wreath, however, we have previously used a cereal box to good effect.

9yo thought to add the pine cones – a bit of mixed medium eh?!

We glued the leaves on with our trusty glue gun, overlapping and building as we went along….

Our front door is quite sheltered, so it should be OK for Christmas – looks nice eh?

Equally, the ‘leaf wreath’ would look lovely on an interior door during the holiday period, and we’ll be taking this one down to Granny’s care home for the door to her room this year.

Want to see me talking about this project and other leaf crafts (including our hammered leaf printing and a bubble wrap leaf lamination inspired by Lizzie’s fabulous post)… Click the link and photo left, to watch via youtube…. Maggy Woodley from Red Ted Art hosted a fabulous “Leaf Craft Ideas’ on Google+.

Maggy talked us through some lovely ideas, including leaf bowls whilst wearing a rather attractive leaf crown! More links to follow from Anthea at zingzingtree, thefairyandthefrog, some cute leaf fairies from peaklepie, missielizzie’s decorating pumpkins with leaves and herecomethegirlsblog with their reward chart.

Oh, by the way, I’m also on twitter.com/MoreKidsChaos too… Erm, and funnily enough on Google+, Facebook and Pinterest! Pop over to say hello x LIKE IT? Pin it!

KidsChaos.com

upcycle