Craft of the Month!

Scroll down for more crafts...

Here's a pretty fun biplane to make out of simple materials!
All the instructions here at The Sapling

Easter Craft!

Sweet Nests

Here’s a way of making a few little Easter eggs go further and create a special little yummy gift at the same time!

You will need:

A packet of biscuits: I used Girl Guide ones

Royal Icing: use the Edmonds Cookery Book recipe, or buy tubes of readymade icing

Icing bag and a fine nozzle

Small chocolate Easter Eggs

  

• Make up your icing into different colours
• Fill up your icing bag and create a wiggly nest like border around the outside edge of a biscuit. Use a selection of colours to make them pretty!
• Leave to set
• Pop a couple of foil covered eggs into the middles.

Make a whole tray full and share them out for Easter.

If you like making cupcakes ice a thicker nest on top and decorate with an Easter egg. 

Happy Easter!

                          *******************

Make a tiny tortoise!

All the instructions and template in full here at The Sapling

Celebrating our latest release!

Movember it is!
Here are some templates to get you started on a Movember celebration of the hirsute and campaign for Prostate Awareness. Make a card, pin 'em on your wall, stick 'em on your face!

Little Monsters

I've been making things again! Grab two coffee cup trays, a couple of straws, a craft knife, glue and paint and you have all the makings of little monster puppet- just in time for Halloween :)

At The Beach

Here's what I've been doing for the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards art workshops. Using Gillian Candler and Ned Barraud's shortlisted  'At The Beach' for inspiration, we made these rockpools full of creatures :)

3 D Fireworks Pictures

3D Fireworks Art!

 Capture technicolor fireworks in the night sky with a fun painting technique that really stands out! Great for all ages.

You will need:

• White card
• Bright coloured oil pastels
• Black paint- I used washable tempera poster paint
• A thick paintbrush
• A small sharp tool like a vegetable knife, nail file, craft knife or skewer
• Scissors
• Small pieces of foam board or thick corrugated card
• Double sided tape or glue

1)    Colour a sheet of card with oil pastel. Use lots of colours in bold patches. Don’t layer the colours though as they tend to get muddy looking.

2)    Paint the whole sheet with thick black paint. Make sure all the pastel is covered. Let it dry thoroughly. You may have to do two coats.

3)    Take a sharp tool and scratch back through the black paint to reveal the colours underneath.

4)    Scratch the paint back into the shapes of fireworks exploding; big starbursts and cascades. Brush off the little bits of black paint you have scraped away.

5)    Make two of these sheets- one will be the base.

6)    Cut the out the fireworks from the second sheet- make them into circles of colour. Paint the backs of them black. Let them dry thoroughly

7)    Stick small pieces of foam board to the backs- layering the foam to make different heights.

8)    Stick them onto the base picture. You can slightly overlap them for a great effect.

9)    Get really pictorial and make a cityscape, or dark hills in the foreground using the same technique.

Gross Out!

here's a little one for Halloween...cut out a few circles from bubble wrap. Stick double sided tape to the back of them. Stick 'em to your hands and face. Use a bit of face paint or makeup to make them pus coloured and finally a little red lipstick blended around the edges to create inflamed skin. Nice!!!

Corker!

Whilst you were drinking...

Steampunk

I've been making Steampunk outfits for a party on Saturday and because I don't want to spend anything but a bit of time squeezed in between projects, I googled how to make goggles, but they all required too much in the way of materials so I came up with my own version using my favourite ingredients; coffee and biscuits!