Posts Tagged ‘craft’

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Skin Diagram Collage

Monday, February 15th, 2016

skin-diagram-collage

When studying the integumentary system, why not make a skin diagram collage? This art activity will help your students to remember the different parts of the human skin.

You will need the following materials:

  • a rectangle of black felt (or any other background color)
  • pink felt, yellow felt, and brown felt
  • red, blue, yellow, and white yarn
  • black pipe cleaner
  • white school glue
  • hot glue gun

How to Assemble a Skin Diagram Collage

  1. Set the black felt rectangle on the table in front of you. This is the background of your skin diagram.
  2. Cut an onion bulb out of the brown felt. See diagram for shape. This is the hair follicle.
  3. Cut small circles from the yellow felt. This represents the fatty lipids in the hypodermis, which is not actually a part of the skin. The hypodermis lies under the dermis.
  4. Cut out the epidermis (the top layer of skin) from the pink felt, to make it look like icing on a cake. Glue it down.
  5. Glue down all your other felt figures with white school glue.
  6. Make a sweat gland by wadding up some yellow yarn into a blob of spaghetti. Glue it down, with the yarn going up to the epidermis.
  7. The red and blue yarn are veins and arteries. If you make a shape with glue, then you can shove the yarn into the glue. Distribute the veins and arteries evenly, along with the white yarn nerves. They should look like plant roots.
  8. Hot glue a black pipe cleaner to the brown hair follicle. This represents the human hair, which grows from the bottom of the follicle.

Now your skin diagram collage is complete. Enjoy your masterpiece.

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Posted in Science | 9 Comments »

Make Your Own Miniature Treehouse

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015

miniature-treehouse

Making a miniature treehouse with your kids can be super fun, especially if you are reading Swiss Family Robinson as a read-aloud! Or it can be a fun open-ended toy for your children instead of an ordinary doll house. I’ve always been fascinated by treehouses, so this was a fun experience for my sister and I to make.

Supplies for Building a Miniature Tree House

You will want to gather some materials before you begin:

  • wooden base
  • brown stain or paint
  • real or fake branch
  • silk leaves
  • string
  • bits of wood
  • a drill
  • hot glue
  • wire cutter
  • scissors
  • pebbles
  • toilet paper tube
  • orange or red feather for fire
  • necklace chain
  • fake leather
  • lace

How to Make your Own Miniature Treehouse

miniature-treehouse-2Step 1: Start with the base. Get a wooden base at a craft supply store, or cut a base from a piece of wood. Stain the wood dark brown or paint it. Drill a hole in the back center, and insert the branch into the hole. Hot glue the branch in place, and hot glue the silk leaves into place.

Step 2: Decide how many levels you want in your treehouse. Stain or paint the wood after cutting it into the shape you want. I already had wood scraps, and I used what I already had. Hot glue the levels onto the tree. If you need a pole to keep the level up, you can hot glue a pole to the top and bottom, stabilizing the level.

Step 3: I made a bench swing on one level. I hot glued red fake leather to some wood and glued two pieces of wood together. We drilled four holes on the bottom of the bench swing, and I stuffed a chain necklace through the holes. You can use a wire cutter. Attach each chain to a branch of the tree.

miniature-treehouse-3Step 4: On the top level of the treehouse, I hot glued some walls on three sides. Then I made a hammock out of lace. I sewed two pieces of lace together and ironed down the edges to make it look more authentic. I sewed the string to the lace and hot glued it to the walls of the tree house.

Step 5: My sister made a rope ladder by drilling holes in the two sides of small pieces of wood and threading a string through them. We attached the rope ladder to the upper level of the treehouse.

Step 6: Hot glue small pieces of wood to the trunk of the tree, like steps leading up to the first level. Super easy!

Step 7: Make a picnic table by hot gluing pieces of wood together until you have a structure resembling a picnic table.

miniature-treehouse-4Step 8: Make a fireplace by opening a toilet paper roll with scissors. Put hot glue onto the open toilet paper roll and quickly dump lots of small pebbles on it. Lift up the toilet paper roll and see where you need to add pebbles. Hot glue any pebbles down.

Step 9: Get some twigs to use for logs and assemble them to look like a bonfire. Hot glue an orange or red feather to it for the flames.

You have now completed your miniature treehouse. Isn’t it cute?

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Posted in Fun Summer Activities | 10 Comments »

How to Decorate a Heart Shaped Box

Thursday, February 13th, 2014

how-to-decorate-a-heart-shaped-box

If you’re wondering how to decorate a heart shaped box, I’m here to tell you that it’s quite easy. Buy an inexpensive cardboard heart shaped box at any craft supply store during the month of February, when heart shaped crafts abound in profusion, almost to the point of nausea.

how-to-decorate-a-heart-shaped-box-2Make sure you have pink paint, fake jewels, and heart stickers. You can also use pink feathers, tissue paper, ribbon, or any other pink craft embellishments.

Paint the box pink inside and out, and let it dry overnight. If the box is for a man, paint it red, because pink is a girl color and is awfully sissy for a man.

If you’re in a hurry to give the heart shaped box to the love of your life, and you have no time to let it dry overnight, grab a hair dryer and dry the paint. Don’t hold the hair dryer too close to the box, or you might set it on fire.

If you are a sensible person, you will let the paint dry overnight like I told you in the first place. The next day you can wake up bright and cheerful, have a nice cup of coffee, and proceed with decorating your heart shaped box.

how-to-decorate-a-heart-shaped-box-3Glue fake plastic jewels all the way around the edges of the top of the box. Use jewels that match the box. If you are using a pink box, use pink, white, and lavender jewels. Don’t use green and blue jewels on a light pink box, or it will look ugly.

Conversely, if you have a red box, use complimentary colors that don’t clash.

Glue ribbon around the rim of the lid, on the side of the lid. This will dress up the box. I didn’t think about this until after my daughter sent this box in the mail, so it was too late for us. But ribbon would really add some extra embellishment that would look awfully nice, like you went the extra mile.

My daughter filled this heart shaped box for her aunt (my sister), whom she loves very much. My daughter is constantly writing letters to her aunt, and she sometimes seals the envelope before I even know what’s in it. I know, she might be saying incriminating things, like the time I accidentally left her at the park. I had three kids in the car instead of four. Honestly, how come none of her three brothers told me she was missing? I mean, whose fault was that anyway? Ahem. Less than five minutes transpired before we realized that we were short by one child, and my husband went back to the park to get her. Sad, but true. These overworked homeschooling parents need a vacation. Go ahead and buy our products so that we can go on a much-needed vacation and avoid such mis-haps in the future.

Back to how to decorate a heart-shaped box: make sure to fill it with goodies. We baked home-made chocolate chip cookies, but you can fill it with chocolates or other fun stocking stuffers that you would put into the stocking of your loved one at Christmas time.

Then send it to your loved one, or hand it to them in person, saying, “I love you!” Hopefully they will not throw it on the ground and stomp on it. No… Hopefully they will open it and be delighted at your kindness and love, rewarding you with a big hug.

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Posted in Art | 6 Comments »

Make Your Own Clock

Wednesday, November 20th, 2013

make-your-own-clock

I never knew that you could make your own clock, until my sister sent the different parts for my kids to put together. Yes, you can make a clock to fit your home decor. This is a perfect idea for a Christmas or birthday gift, because you can take into account the hobbies and color scheme of the one who will receive the gift.

To make your own clock, you will need the following supplies, which you can easily get at most craft supply stores:

  • wood base (whatever shape you want)
  • stain or paint
  • varnish
  • quartz clock movement kit
  • extra clock hands, if you want bigger ones
  • mosaic glass gems (or numbers 1-12)
  • drill with a thick bit
  • hot glue gun

make-your-own-clock-2

First you will want to stain the wood base or paint it. Let it dry overnight, and then put a coat of varnish over the top. Let that dry a couple of days.

Drill a hole through the middle of the base. I used a ruler to find the exact center of the base. Look at how big the clock movement kit is, to see how big your drill bit should be. Insert the clock movement box to the back of the clock, inserting the hands before doing so. The kit should come with visual instructions on how to do it. It’s really self-explanatory. Make sure to insert a battery after the clock is finished.

make-your-own-clock-3

You will want to add embellishments like gems or numbers around the edges. You can also add small, flat decorations like 3-D stickers or doll accessories. For example, if you are giving the clock to a hunter, you can hot glue a small rifle to the clock. If you are giving the clock to a teacher, you can place a large 3-D apple sticker on it. We decided to leave ours simple. It matches our newly refurbished bathroom!

make-your-own-clock-4

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Posted in Fun Winter Activities | 6 Comments »

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