My mother-in-law gave me a wonderful book for Christmas: rainy day book of things to make and do (you can find it at http://www.rylandpeters.com). I started to flip through it, and my kids wanted to do some arty seashell decorated frames from it. I find them lovely, simple to do even with toddlers, and as I happened to have a couple of cheap frames lying around we were able to do them spontaneously.
First we painted the wooden frames with acrylic paint, then glued buttons and seashells on them, chose pattern and colours for the background paper and a picture from an album to make a silhouette of. If we would not have started this spontaneously, I would have enlarged a picture and printed just the head for a model for the silhouette. Now I just drew on baking paper the pics my kids chose from an album (I advised them to pick something with a side profile) and then used those as a model to cut the coloured paper the kids chose.
Related articles
- DIY Beach sand & seashell picture frame (meginthenavy.wordpress.com)
Free But Fun 
They turned out lovely 🙂
Thanks, I love these kind of crafts that all ages can make to look really nice!
For a spontaneous craft, they turned out awesome!
Thanks!
Definitely the right gift for you! I expect we might see a few more from that one 🙂 . Good tip on the profile shots.
She’s good at choosing gifts! Many great once in the book so I’ll surely get back to that one.
Cute silhouette!! Your mother in law has given a perfect gift! When you trace with baking paper, how do you transfer onto the background? Do you use a carbon paper too?
She did, didn’t she? I drew first on the baking paper, cut the model out and then drew around it on the coloured paper.
Oh that’s a no-brainer! I should have thought of that! Haha!
🙂
If you make these, let me know! Would be nice to link up to examples of older kids too!
Great idea! I love when I am able to do something fun with Z on a whim and have everything I need for it there. Those craft projects are always the most fun!
This was fun, and I think it is getting more fun the older the kids get as they have more patience, concentration and skill.
I think it is great when you can do something at a certain age with your kids and then do it as they get older and they still enjoy it. That kind of project is a keeper for sure.
They´re just great!!! Nice Idea
Thanks for the best comment/hint ever. Tomorrow i´ll try to spend with BabyZzz at least 15 min, without cooking, washing the dishes..it´s soooo hard 😦 the young boy is screaming all the time cause of his stomach 😦 and we´re mostly angry at the little girl bacuse she is older and she should behave apprprietly, but she is also a child 😦 and then I´m crying and crying
Oh no, that sounds really tough! Hope you can create the time for the two of you, it might help. You are right though, it is easy to expect “proper behavior” of the older one. I felt always bad about that, after all she never had a say in getting a little brother to share parents attention. But the thing is, you are human and you do your best. And at least our big sis doesn’t seem to have gotten traumatized 😉 so I think kids are pretty resilient! Sending you loads of strenght to rake you through the first tough months!