Take-home craft ideas and salt dough ideas please

skintchick

I run a mums and toddlers (and babies and preschoolers!) group and over the holidays am doing some crafts, but it's the first time I've done crafts with them and I need cheap, easy ideas.

Last week I did crowns and tiaras, made of card which the children decorated, and it was popular but only really with the girls.

I want it to be something they can take home, that is clean (no painting) and easy for ages 18 months to 4 years, supervisable by me on my own, and cheap!

I have a few supplies: feathers, foil milk bottle tops, glitter glues, glue sticks, sellotape, card, small foam shapes.

I was wondering about doing salt dough, which they could take home to dry. I thought flat decorations would be good, but how would they decorate them?

Colouring the dough seems to be both hard and messy, and painting has to be done after they've dried.

I thought about using things to create textures and patterns on them, then they could paint them at home. Or is that rubbish?

Any easy craft ideas? I've googled and looked on Pinterest but I need some tried and tested recommendations!

Thanks

PS - I charge 50p a child for crafts but the groups itself is free, so I don;t really want to buy any more supplies if I can avoid it.

embob74

Many years ago I had a salt dough craft book and from that the kids made bowls. They were bigger than a cereal bowl and looked pretty good when finished.
I think we used some food colouring to colour the dough prior to baking so as soon as it went into the oven it came out finished (and no painting needed!)
Any chance of looking in your library for a dough book? Or google it.

At my local stationers they have a lot of leaflets for Fimo - I used those ideas for salt dough projects, only difference really was not so many colours (unless I made LOADS of different colours) and I had to cook the dough rather than air drying.

skintchick

Isn't the colouring messy? A few blogs I read said once it's coloured you have to be careful what you roll it out on, etc. I use my church's hall and tables so can't have everything getting messy as I have to clear it all up afterwards.

I was thinking they could cook them at home, or let them air dry.

embob74

I don't remember it staining the table and I had a very nice light ash table so would have noticed!!
Perhaps a polythene cover (I'm sure they do them in the pound shops).
The dough was quite stiff, not sloppy so that helped to minimise any mess - we did ours in a carpeted room and that wasn't a problem.

skintchick

That could work then. I like them to have something to take home. A mum suggested playdough but then they can;t take it away and I think children like to have a 'thing' they have made to take with them.

If it were coloured then they could just decorate it by pressing shapes into the dough to make impressions and patterns.

I also saw little tea light holders made of dough which looked fun.

whitewing

Laminated pictures? Don't use glitter glue though or you'll wreck the laminator!

skintchick

whitewing wrote: »

Laminated pictures? Don't use glitter glue though or you'll wreck the laminator!

Are laminator sheets expensive? I have 50p a child to cover costs and have to guess how many children will do it. It was around ten this week.

whitewing

Tesco value A4 works for us. Can't remember what they cost but not too bad.

Owain_Moneysaver

Tesco Value 25 for £2

shortdog

Do not use salt-dough at a toddler group. Take it from one who has been there, done that, and recieved the sick-stained t-shirt to go with it. Doesn't matter that it tastes foul, there's always one.

Laminated pictures make fairly good table mats, easy to do.
Pine cones covered in glitter and glue.
Daffodils (tissue paper and card).
Plant sunflower seeds (put down some newspaper to catch the soil).
Draw round each child and let them colour themselves in.

Will have a think again in the morning as to what we've done at our toddlers group and let you know.

freyanneke_2

Hand and footprints are always a success. Handprints can be transformed into animals or little persons with the thumb and little finger as arms.
I would not do any saltdough unless you have 3 or 4 year olds. An alternative is dried white bread cut outs (cookie cutter) that can be painted. Do make a hole in it before you leave it to dry for a night and thread through with a piece of yarn or ribbon.
Buy some fabric paint pens and let them make a drawing on a piece of plain fabric. If you feel creative you can take them home, fill them with something and choose a nicely patterned fabric for the back.
Alternatively you ask them to take a plain t shirt with them and they can decorate that with the fabric pens.
My boys had fun with decorating a toilet roll with fabric and drawing a face on it.
Small pringles tubs are also easily covered in paper and decorated.
Large cut out cardboard shapes (cars, houses, flowers, animals) are also fun to decorate with scraps of fabric, paint or felt tips.
Do you have a scrap store near where you are? Here we have one that sells craft materials by binliner. One binliner costs £7. That would do you for a year. If you need any more ideas, let me know....