Birthday Cards

We have quite a few family birthdays in August so Jessica has been busy creating some beautiful cards this month. I am responsible for the cutting out but I do as I'm told and Jessica takes over once she has all the shapes she needs. Here are four of her most recent makes...

Crafting with Daddy - Galt Foil Art

This is a rare but fabulous sight - Jessica roped her Daddy into doing some craft with her! I bought this kit to bulk up an order from Amazon earlier in the year and have kept it by me until this evening. This Galt Fab Foil Art kit is brilliant. So simple, so effective and so satisfying! With 8 pictures to create it will keep Jessica busy for quite a while too. You peel off sections of image to reveal a sticky surface that you cover and rub with foil. My little lady thinks it's absolutely amazing and I can understand why. Here's the first one she's completed...

Galt Beady Animals

This was a brillant buy for our summer crafting - Galt Beady Animals Kit - which I bought when it was half price on Amazon. The kit comes with three small ceramic animals, a spatula-type tool and six generous pots of beady modelling material. The modelling material is weird to touch but once you get used to it, it's fantastic to use. It claims to be mess-free but that really does depend on what you do with it! There's no chance of spillage and it is self-contained but I'd hate to see what happened if you managed to get a big lump of it in your hair or on your clothes! Anyway, you pick out small bits of the beady stuff and smooth it over the ceramic model. It's very pliable and really easy for little fingers to do. Once you're happy with your creature just let it air-dry for 24 hours and hey presto you have a unique and fabulous looking creation like Jessica's giraffe here...

I love Jessica's face on this one. She soon got used to it but the stuff really is a bit strange when you first start handling it...

This little giraffe hardly took any modelling material either so we're going to have tonnes left even when we've completed all three so we've bought a couple of other things to try it out on another time. Watch this space! Unfortunately the half price offer has finished on Amazon now but I think it's probably still worth a punt at full price if you fancy it.

Sharpie Decorated Cork Pendants

Oh, we enjoyed making these! One cork, seven pendants, what a shame corks aren't quite so abundant anymore! I will admit that Jessica is always excited when she's allowed to use my Sharpies but this little project involved Sharpies and jewellery making so we were onto a double winner from the start. 

I sliced a cork into seven pieces and painted front them on one surface with white acrylic. Once dry I added the screw in eyes and then we decorated the pendants before adding string to turn them into necklaces. Jessica told me what to do on each one as an outline and then she coloured in most of the charms. I've instructed Daddy not to throw away any corks in the future because these were too good to not be repeated...

 

Dinosaur Shrinkies

We really love Shrinkles but, my word, they can be expensive so imagine my delight when Jessica and I stumbled upon these dinosaur ones in Home Bargains for just 79p! They are not the Shrinkles branded product but they worked every bit as well and we'd definitely buy them again and again and again! We got just a single sheet to colour in but they included lots of pencils, clips, magnets, key chains etc and kept us busy for at least an hour. Aside from colouring them and enjoying watching them magically shrivel and shrink in the oven Jessica just loves playing with the characters that she's created afterwards. As I often say, what's not to love?!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the idea, you get a thick plastic sheet with images printed on it. You colour in a textured side, cut out your shapes and bake them for a minute or so in the oven to shrink them. The shapes become about 7 times smaller and thicker and the colour intensifies too. They are just marvellous. Below is an image of the shapes on a baking sheet before and after going into the oven. I have not moved any of the dinosaurs so you can get a sense of how much they shrink. Pretty cool huh!