Puzzle Heart Valentine's Day Craft

Here's a fun craft I will be doing with my evening Storytime kid's in a couple weeks.  It's great for Valentine's Day and it uses some old puzzle pieces I saved years ago.  

With a little prep work this craft can be done in a short amount of time.

What you will need:

• Popsicle sticks (12 each)
• Puzzle pieces
• Cardstock cut into hearts (about 3" big)
• Ribbon
• Paint
• Hot glue gun
• School glue
• Ribbon
• Permanent marker

I made the popsicle frame ahead of time using hot glue.  This is also a good time to add a piece of ribbon to the back of the frame for hanging.  

Hint:  Glue the puzzle pieces onto the heart and paint them before gluing to the frame.  My first attempt above was glued to the frame before I painted it.  It was a disaster.  

Use school glue to attach the puzzle pieces on the heart and then paint them.  Once the painted heart is dry (I will be reading a story during this time) use the glue to attach it to the front of the frame.  With a permanent marker write: "Love You To Pieces".  I'm going to let the kids write it out on their own-it will look so much better than mine!

Enjoy!

Winter Craft Round Up

Here is a round up of some of my favorite winter crafts from the past couple of years:

Click on the pictures below to learn how to make each craft.   

Glittered Diamond Ornament

Here's a fun craft I recently did with my Teen Art Club.  We made diamond ornaments using cardstock and the template below. I used this template here.  After some trial and error I decided it was easier to print the template directly on some thicker cardstock.  

The teens thought it would be fun to add glitter to the diamonds-I agreed.  We used Elmer's glue and applied thin layers to small sections at a time adding glitter as we went.  The paper warped slightly, but the dried stiff.  It's very important to use a SMALL amount of glue.  Mod Podge would work to, but I only have a matte finish and didn't want to lose the sparkle of the glitter.

Here's what the glued together diamond looks like before glitter.

And here's the glittered out diamond!  If you want to make this into an ornament poke a small whole into the top of the diamond and slip thread or thin fish line into it and tape secure on the underside.  Glue your diamond shut with the string hanging out of the top.

Enjoy!

Foam Penguin Magnet

This foam penguin makes a great storytime craft or winter program craft.  

I cut all these pieces out prior to the program and put them in little bags for the kids to help keep all their pieces contained as they assemble their penguin.

Here's what you need:

• Foam-black, white, and orange
• Scissors
• Wiggly eyes
• Glue
• Magnets
• Foam markers

Cut out all your foam pieces.  You will need one large black circle, one medium white circle, and one small black circle.  These make the body and head.  You can make your stencils easily in a word document and print them out on cardstock.  I drew the circles using the shapes and found a clip art hat that I liked..  The wings and feet I drew by hand.  You can keep all the shapes very simple.

First, glue your medium circle to the large black circle.  Layer the medium black circle onto the large black circle to make the head of the body.  Glue the wings, feet, hat, eyes, and beak to your penguin.  Color your hat, add a magnet to the back and you're done. 

Enjoy!

Felt Christmas Tree

I thought it would be fun to have a large felt tree in the children's section of the library with felt ornaments to trim the it with.  The tree on the book shelf is about 2 1/2 feet tall.  I made a slightly larger one to hang in my Storytime room as well.  The kids will have fun decorating a tree over and over!

 

What you will need:

• Large piece of green felt
• lots of colorful felt for the ornaments (scrap pieces work great for this)
• Permanent markers
• Tape (to adhere felt tree to shelf)
• Scissors
• Pictures of ornaments to trace(optional)

 

Here's the tree all decorated and attached to the side of the shelf. 

The tree is just waiting for little ones to decorate it. 

I made a basket of ornaments for the kids to use.  I will be making a few extra sets incase ornaments get ruined or disappear.  :-) 

Enjoy! 

 

3-D Paper Tree

I found this little guy on Pinterest.  There's an awesome photo tutorial here.  I plan to make this with my teen art club and use them to decorate our gingerbread house display next month.  These are quick and easy to make and you can use all sorts of paper.  My first attempt is below and I made that using regular copier paper.  All you need to do is make sure you start off with a square, fold the paper according to the directions and snip the sides with a pair of scissors. 

Enjoy!

Five Little Turkeys Felt Board Story and Printout

FIVE LITTLE TURKEYS 

Five little turkeys standing by the barn door,
One waddled away, and then there were four.
Four little turkeys out under the tree,
One waddled away, and then there were three.
Three little turkeys with nothing to do,
One waddled away, and then there were two.
Two little turkeys in the noonday sun,
One waddled away, and then there was one.
One little turkey better run away,
Soon will come Thanksgiving day.

I made my turkey using a die cut machine and added some color with fabric markers.

(Feel free to print out the sheet below)

3-D Christmas Tree

I was cleaning out some things in my storage room and came across this craft I did a few years ago.  It's definitely one I want to revisit this year.  There's a bit of prep work involved, but it makes an adorable decoration.  

What you need:

• Foam tree cutouts, I used my Die Cut machine and cut my own.
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun & glue
• old CDs
• Sequins
• Small holiday decorations
• School glue
• Glitter or fake snow

To make the tree take two tree cutouts and using scissors cut half way through the middle of the tree from top to bottom.  On the other tree cut half way through the middle from bottom toward the top.  Fit the two pieces together by placing them snug into the slots you just cut.  

Using your hot glue gun attach the tree to the middle of the CD with the shiny side of the CD facing up.  Once the tree is dried and standing straight up, glue on the other decorations.  I used a small present and a tiny candy cane.  Now it's ready for the kids!

Have the kids use school glue to add sequins for ornaments.  Once the sequins are on, have the kids spread glue all over the CD and put the white glitter or fake snow on top of the CD.

Enjoy!

3-D Turkey Cube

Still working on changing up my fall crafts. This 3-D turkey is what I came up with.  I made a 3-D cube out of a cereal box.  Just Google search "3-D cube template"  and you will have many choices and sizes to choose from.  

What you will need:

• Thin cardboard or an empty cereal box
• Cube template
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Exacto knife
• Colored paper
• Foam (for feet or you can use paper for that too)
• Fake leaves (or paper ones)
• Googly eyes
• Craft glue

How to make this cute little turkey:

Print out a cube template and cut it out.  Trace it onto a piece of cereal box or thin cardboard. Cut out the cardboard cube.  Using the exacto knife, score the edges that will be fold by lightly pressing the knife along those lines.  Be sure not to cut all the way through.  Fold all the edges that need to be folded and with some patience, glue the box together.  Pick out about 5 leaves to use as tail feather.  Layer and glue them together.  Glue your stack of leaves to the back of the cube. NOTE: I used a hot glue gun with my leaves because I didn't have good craft glue handy at the time and regular school glue wasn't cutting it. While your leaves are drying to the box, cut out a beak and gobbler from paper and feet from a piece of foam.  Glue two googly eyes to the front of your cube along with the beak, gobbler, and feet.  Let everything dry for a few minutes and you're done!  Look how cute this square turkey is.  :-)

For the library kids I will have fun fall scrapbook paper to cover the cubes with and crayons to give each turkey a little more personality.

Enjoy!

Winter/Holiday books for Young Adults

After searching for what seemed like days I have found a nice selection of YA books that have either a winter or holiday theme for the season.  I've been working on a display in the Teen Lounge and found enough of these books in my collection to make it look alright.  :-)
Here's what I've come up with.

• Icing on the Lake by Catherine Clark
• Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater 
• Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn
• The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
• The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean
• Trapped by Michael Northrop
• Winter's End by Jean-Claude Mourlevat
• Let it Snow by John Green
• Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
• Love on the Lifts by Rachel Hawthorne
• Sun & Moon, Ice & Snow by Jessica Day George
• As Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway
• Kissing Snowflakes by Abby Sher
• Far From You by Lisa Schroeder
• Secret Santa by Sabrina James
• Winter's Kiss by Jennifer Echols
• Winter Town by Stephen Emond
• Snowed In by Rachel Hawthorne
• Mistletoe: Four Holiday Stories by Hailey Abbott

Pumpkin game for preschoolers

I saw this on Pinterest (of course) and thought it would be a fun game to play in my evening stortyimes this fall.  The dice (snatched from the blocks in the kid's section of the library) has a pumpkin  on every side.  Each pumpkin has an eye or a nose, or a mouth.  Kids take turns rolling the dice and putting the face together on their pumpkin.  There are two pumpkins on the dice that are plain pumpkins.  If a child rolls the plain pumpkin they have to put one piece of their pumpkin face back.  The game continues on until someone has a pumpkin with two eyes, a nose, and mouth.  Pumpkins and face pieces were all made out of felt.  I used clipart to print out six pumpkins and added the facial feature on the individual pumpkins.  I cut the pieces and mod podged them to the wooden block.