The Crafting Chronicles

Rain Stick Craft

keoghj — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 04:26:59 +0000

In order to celebrate the rainy month of April, and to ensure a flowery May, we made Native American-inspired rain sticks to encourage the rain. This is a great craft to make if you want to make something using recycled household items.

Materials:

Cardboard tube (either a paper towel roll or a mailing tube).
Brown paper (packaging paper or a brown paper bag cut to fit around the tube).
Small piece of cardboard ( a cereal box or something similar will do).
Two pipe cleaners.
String, yarn or twine.
Rice, beans, or small pasta.
Glue
Markers
Various embellishments such as sequins, feathers and/or beads.

Directions:

Trace the ends of the tube onto the brown paper and the cardboard. Cut out 2 circles from each. Glue the cardboard circle and then the brown paper circle onto one side of the tube. Begin coloring the brown paper and allow the circles to dry for a few minutes.
Connect the pipe cleaners in order to make one long pipe cleaner. Wind the long pipe cleaner around a broom handle to create a spiral that is about the same length as the cardboard tube. Place the pipe cleaners inside of the tube.
Next, place a handful of each of the various beans, rice and/or pasta into the tube. Glue the other circles onto the end of the tube.
Place glue on the back of the decorated brown paper and wrap around the tube.
Tie on the string and decorate!

Note: Allow the rain stick to dry before shaking.

Spring Storytime Craft

keoghj — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 01:55:39 +0000

To celebrate the start of a new spring story time session at the library, we made greenhouses with the three and four year olds.

In order to make this craft you will need:

1. One large sheet of construction paper.
2. A sandwich-sized plastic sealable bag.
3. Three or four large cotton balls.
4. Grass seed.
5. Glue (We used glue sticks and they worked perfectly!)
5. Foam shapes and/or various embellishments.

First place the construction paper on your work surface so that it is positioned vertically. Next, fold the paper from top to bottom. After, cut a square shape out of the middle of the folded side, the square should be about an inch smaller than the sandwich bag on all four sides. This is important so that the bag does not fall out of the “green house structure”. Next, place the cotton balls into the sandwich bag so that they make a single layer on the bottom. Pour water into the bags, just enough to soak the cotton balls. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of grass seed into the bags and seal them up. Glue the bags to the inside of the folded construction paper and decorate your green house. No need to water, just hang it in a sunny window and watch it grow!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

keoghj — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 03:22:09 +0000

Happy Valentine’s Day, I hope you all enjoyed it! This week at the library we celebrated Valentine’s Day by making fun crafts with both Preschool and Elementary School-aged children. The first project I did was with the preschoolers, we made Valentine owls made from a paper plate and various hearts.

The items you will need for this craft are:

One or two pieces of large, red construction paper.
One paper plate
A small piece of pink and yellow construction paper
Wiggle eyes and/or other various embellishments.

First, using the red construction paper, cut out a heart large enough to cover the paper plate. Cut that heart in half and you have your wings! Glue the wings onto the paper plate as seen in the photo. Next, also using the red construction paper, cut out a heart big enough for the head. Using the pink construction paper cut out a heart slightly smaller than the red head for the face. Glue the pink face onto the red head and attach the completed head to the paper plate. Using the yellow construction paper cut out 3 small, equally sized hearts for the feet and beak. Finally, attach the feet and beak and decorate your owl with the wiggle eyes and various embellishments.

Snowy Craft Day

keoghj — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 01:54:05 +0000

On a snowy day like today there’s nothing better to do than take out all of the art supplies and get crafting! This is a craft I made a few weeks ago to kick off the winter story time season. This paper plate snowman is a super easy craft and it requires materials that one can usually find lying around the house.

For this craft you will need:

1. One large white paper plate
2. One small white paper plate
3. Two different colors of construction paper, plus a little orange for the carrot nose
4. Wiggle eyes
5. Ribbon
6. Hole punch
7. Black marker
8. Various embellishments, such as buttons, glitter or sequins.

First, cut out a hat using one shade of construction paper, and then use the other shade of construction paper for the hat ribbon. Glue the hat to the small paper plate and decorate the snowman’s face using the marker, carrot nose and wiggle eyes. Next, punch a hole in the bottom of the small paper plate and also on the top of the large paper plate. Using the ribbon, tie the two plates together, creating the snowman’s bow tie. Decorate the snowman using the buttons and various embellishments. Finally, make a cup of cocoa and admire your creation!

Young Adult Valentine’s Day Craft

keoghj — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 23:59:28 +0000

My name is Jessica Keogh and I am the Craft Coordinator at the public library in my town. I love my job, I organize and execute various crafts for children ages 2-14 and I sometimes run up to four crafts a day. Over the course of the next few weeks I am going to share a few of my craft ideas and stories with you so you can join in on the fun!

At 2:45 during the school week, the library gets flooded with kids from the middle school across the street. In order to keep the peace I schedule various crafts to entertain them. I usually base the craft on holidays or seasons, the craft this week was Valentine’s Day themed so we made Valentine’s cards to give to friends. The kids used all sorts of supplies including: card stock, sequins, rubber stamps, ribbon, and the ever-pleasing glitter glue. After the kids made their cards I surprised them with a special craft treat!

Everyone was allowed to make two of these cute tootsie pop butterflies! They were super simple, the pattern for the wings can be found at Skip To My Lou. I just printed the patterns onto various shades of pink card stock, cut them out and decorated. I think my favorite part about this craft (besides how easy the prep was!) was the adorable wiggle eyes with eyelashes…so cute!