Spring Craft Yarn Dancing sticks & dreamcatchers

Kids craft activities using yarn are always unique, giving children a different opportunity to create something individual and bright for them self or for a gift.
We had lots of fun collecting and painting sticks for these spring time dancing sticks made with spotlights colourful flinders yarn.

Using this silky smooth 100% cotton 8 ply yarn from Spotlight  in kids craft was great for developing fine motor skills, making patterns, discussing colours and the craft ideas are endless. 

With our bright spotlight yarn we made Pom-Pom dancing sticks, a twirling wand and a zig-zag dancing stick.

The kids loved dancing around with them, twirling and waving them in the wind.  after a cold miserable winter, the sun is finally shining and the air smells like Spring, these were a little celebration to inspire the kids to get outside and enjoy the outdoors again. Making them was a process that involved a bit of patience, focus and fine motor skills. Dimples did great weaving the yellow zig-zag yarn through his forked stick. Because this yarn is thick and smooth, it is great quality which made it easy for the kids to handle.

This yarn is available in the most bright and beautiful colours from spotlight stores. you can find them on Facebook.

Spotlight is a family owned and operated Australian business that has become as household name. Spotlight is a brand loved and used by many for all things crafting, fabrics and home wares. They also have an awesome party section.

With our bright yarn we had the opportunity to #getcreative and craft some spring time dream catchers and dancing sticks to have fun with.

What you need:

Flinders 8ply yarn from spotlight 

Rainbow painted sticks

Feathers

Metal ring

Glue and scissors.

 

 

Dancing sticks:

First have your children find some cool sticks and paint them in beautiful bright spring colours.

Talk about the colours, name them and point out other colours in nature. We sat by the lake on a grassy hill to paint our sticks.  If your not a fan of painting with little ones, here are some tis to make it easy.

 

 

Once dry, weave yarn around the sticks. Depending on the shape of your stick, they could thread it around, tie strings off one end like a wand or put two sticks in a cross and weave it around all four ends to make a pattern. 

Pom-pom spring time sticks.

These are awesome, they look about like mini Lorax tuffaluffa trees or big bright flowers.

First make a pom-Pom. its easy enough to do on your hand.

Next glue it to the top of your rainbow stick. Done. Isn't it cute? This was both Dimples & Cherubs favourite.

Dream catcher:

Crochet a circle pattern, like a doily, as your centre piece feature (I cant knit or crocket so had Mum do some cute little ones we could use). 

Shape wire into circle and cover it around and around with spotlights 100% cotton 8 ply yarn.  It was really easy to manage, it circled in evenly, covered all the wire smoothly and was not fluffy at all.

Then with a little help, get your child to thread through the doily and back to the sides in the pattern of a star. It's a little bit tricky and requires a lot of concentration but dimples had a good go of it and practiced tying knots at the bottom of it.
Add hanging strings and feathers from the bottom.
 

We still have plenty of yarn left and will be making some more dream catchers to give as gifts. smaller kid friendly ones. with the rest of the bright colours, the kids was some more pom-pom sticks.
Visit Spotlight and check out their online catalogue to see what type of yarn and craft activities you can #getcreative with.

This product talk is brought to you by Nuffnang and Spotlight

Tips for Messy Painting

I have always embraced Messy Play and Messy Painting, or as I like to call it "Extreme Painting". Children can benefit so much from the freedom, exploration and the creativity of messy painting.
Many parents steer clear of it though because it is just too much!

I get that. You see the perfect ideas on the Internet, picture pretty Pinterest activities and unreal creativity on blogs.
A bit like the picture above

When you attempt to loosen the reigns and let your child be free with the paint it is chaos and not at all what you've planned or expected, right?
You're left with a rainbow child, hand prints up the wall and splats over the entire room.
A bit like the pictures below.

Don't let the word "mess" or "chaos" deter you.
Life is messy, paint is messy, kids are messy so its all bound to be a little chaotic but that is a good thing. These type of activities give children freedom to express and explore their senses and creativity. To them it's great fun.

To a pre-schooler splatting paint from a distance or squishing toes through it provides much more enjoyment then precisely stroking a brush in the one direction.
Experimenting with Lego pieces, potato shapes, sponges or string in paint is much more exciting then using one boring brush.
Mixing every colour together until everything becomes a lovely shade of brown is a great learning experience compared to getting roused on for muddling up the colours.

If this sounds familiar or you've had a bad messy experience with more time doing a clean up then the time your child actually painted, this post is for you and I hope you persist, try again and enjoy.

 

Tips for messy painting

Preparation is the key, have everything ready to go in the right place and you'll be grinning.

Be age realistic- children's attention spans develop with age, don't expect a 2 year old to do an hour long master peice, therefore keep it simple and quick. Start with one or two drops of paint in a tray and finger painting or one object.

Dress them appropriately- dimples wears a old set of paint clothes and a smock, specific painting wear that usually stays with the paint suitcase. This way it doesn't matter at all if he does get covered in paint.

Take it outside- if its possible, painting is much easier outdoors, do it on a easel over the grass or lay out a large cardboard box opened, use washable paint and you can pin large paper up on a wall.
We have a large old outdoor table where we do all our messy play that is covered in paint, so it doesn't matter if more paint love covers it.

Expect a bit of mess- if you are being realistic then also expect and accept mess. Let it happen, don't sweat the small stuff. Of course this doesn't mean sit by and let your children splat paint over the newly washed clothes hanging on the line, but if your prepared and set up for messy play, then let it happen.

Use a messy mat- if your on a surface that needs protecting or inside use a plastic table cloth or a vinyl off cut as a large messy mat.

Have a wash up tub - Fill a tub or bucket with water and soup for after, so if there happens to be any foot or hand printing then its easy enough to wash off the paint before it dries.

Have a cloth rag- A lot of kids, including dimples, don't like wet squishy paint on their skin. They may like putting it there but not so much leaving it there and this is when they're most likely going to wipe it on something so a cloth specifically for this will be needed.

Use large paper- More space, More fun. Maybe even have back up paper.

Have a drying spot ready for their master piece to hang.

Have an empty bucket- If your using different tools to paint with have a empty bucket nearby so you can put them in it while your helping your child clean up, there's nothing worse then undressing them, cleaning up, hanging up their work and turning around and they've picked up the paint covered tools to try again.

Clean up before the paint dries - If your using tools, supervise their choice, smooth plastic works best, things that can be thrown in hot water (or the dish washer) to be cleaned with little to no grooves or crevasses. Plastic animals foot prints, Lego stamping, hot wheels car tracks for example.

 

Check out some of our extreme paint

Splat Painting

Paint a tree

Washable Window Painting

Salad Spinning Paint Solar System

Extreme outdoor Painting

Painting the tub

Sponge painting

Happy Adventures :)

Window painting - washable stained glass

I love to paint.
Dimples not so much, but he loves to make mess.
I'd much rather sit calm and focused while doing a painting as a means of relaxation but that is not on the cards with Mr. Dimples.
His idea of painting is all (mainly splatting or hand printing) or nothing.

To satisfy his messy play urge and my love of painting, in the past I've intertwined the two into some pretty fun activities, we've done

Splat painting

Extreme outdoor painting

Bath painting

Glowing bath paints

This time it's window painting,

I made some washable window paint by mixing together paint (kids washable) & washing liquid.
I then put masking tape over the glass sliding door, on the outside of course, to create a tape resistant stain glass look.

Using green, blue, yellow and orange dimples sponged, splatted and painted the sections of glass with the window paint. Yes, his messy play urge was satisfied.  It was lots of fun, but don't worry it will all wash right off.
Once dry you peel the tape away and have your different coloured sections, it looks nice and bright in the morning with the sun shining in through it.

Our window painting was left on for 4 hot days and admired by visitors, then Dimples had lots of fun with a watering can, a sponge, cloth and a window washer getting it off. As soon as the water covered the paint it bubbled up and was so easy to simply wipe clean. The window actually looked cleaner then before!

Happy Adventures :)