I love doing crafts with Little Face all the time. Sometimes it is hard to find a craft to work on and not throw away right away. I love when I find something where we can make a toy he can actually play with. This fish flying kite is perfect. I think it would be great a craft for any child.

A kindergarten teacher once told me about tear art. This improves motor development and children do not get so frustrated trying to cut paper. Tear art also allows for great vibrant colors crayons usually can’t provide. And I am not crazy, I am not giving Little face markers. He just pounds them until the tips break.  He really doesn’t like to color much anyway. So I decided to cut out the scales for this project. We used crepe paper. I just love the bright colors available. This is a really light material and perfect for a kite!

Materials for fish flying kite:

Crepe paper (in at least two colors)
Paper fish – 2 copies.
Scissors
Glue
String or yarn
Small wooden dowel or straight stick
Hole punch
Duct tape

Directions for fish flying kite:

1. I used this fish printable as the basis of the flying kite. Make two copies. Cut out both fish shapes.

2. Cut out around 16 crepe paper scales in each color. I cut about 2 inches of crepe paper and just made a half round cut at the end. Trying to keep this simple.

3. Next only glue the edges of the two blank sides of the fish together. Make sure the middle is not glued to allow air to go through the fishes mouth. One fish will be upside down. Don’t worry you child will not even notice. I found it helpful to put a pencil in between the two sides while it dried. I just didn’t want it to accidentally stick together.

4. Once the sides are dry glue the colored crepe paper scales on the side of the fish in alternating colors to create an awesome looking fish.

5. Little face wanted to color the face, so I let him. As you can see from the photo at the top, he didn’t color much, but he loved it. I try to encourage his writing as much as possible.

6. Then cut streamers for the tail various lengths around 2 feet long. It looks so much better in the wind with different lengths rather than the same.

7. Punch a hole in the fishes mouth as far down as you can. For extra strength I put a little glue around the hole and let it dry. I knew he was going to be running with this and I didn’t want it to tear.

8. Get 2 pieces of string or yarn about 6 in. and tie them through the holes. Next use duct tape and tape the strings to the wooden dowel. For extra decoration I  added a few more pieces of duct tape down the dowel in his favorite color to finish off this fabulous flying kite.

I love that he can fly this kite all by himself and he doesn’t need any wind just his little feet. As you can see, he has enjoyed running all around the neighborhood with his flying kite. He even said it looked like he caught a fish. The hardest part of this project is waiting for the glue to dry with a three year old around. Go ahead and PinIt, so you can make one of these with your little one. If you made this kite what colors would you use?

Little Face and I made this awesome little St. Patrick’s Day Irish Leprechaun Hat the other day. He was so excited to wear this. I copied the mustache, beard and ears from a book for the entire Leprechaun outfit. We had a great time making this craft. Little face is enjoying making crafts and asks almost ever day if we can make something. So I think I will be bringing you more crafts in the future. We have a great time spending time together making these fun crafts.

Irish Leprechaun Hat Craft

Materials for Irish Leprechaun Hat:

2 sheets black construction paper
Stapler
Square piece of white paper
pom pom balls
Glue

How to make an Irish Leprechaun Hat:

1. Take one sheet of black construction paper and fold it in half. Simply cut along the fold to cut in two. This is the top part of the hat.

2. Overlap the paper about 1/2 in. to 1 in. and staple together with 4 to 5 staples. Wrap around your child’s head to measure and then staple the other side to make a complete circle with the paper.

3. Now the fun part to make the brim of the Irish Leprechaun hat. Lay down the second sheet of the construction paper. Place the large paper circle you just made on top of the flat paper. Lightly trace around the circle with a pencil. Then draw a circle about 1 inch on the outside of the paper circle. I had a little plate I traced that was just the right size for this, so check your cabinets to see if you have one too!  On the inside about 1 in. of the black cylinder draw a smaller circle.

4. Now cut this out on the outside circle. Fold the circle in half and cut out the small inside circle. There should still be a circle in the middle where the you traced the hat. On the inside circle cut small little slits to the middle circle and fold up.

5. Now you should have the little slits all sticking up, put the top part of the hat over the tabs. Glue the little strips to the top part of the hat. This is a little tricky, but you can do it.

6. Once the brim is glued on, no Irish leprechaun hat would be complete without a buckle in the center. Little face has been begging to use the pom pom balls I bought for crafts the other day, so we used yellow pom pom balls. If you don’t have pom pom balls you can just color or let them rip yellow paper and glue on, then cut it out. 

Little face doesn’t like to color yet, so instead of just coloring the beard I just let him tear some crepe paper and glue it on. Same thing for the mustache. I got this idea from a Kindergarten teacher. Young children can’t cut well, so just let them tear paper and glue it on. He had a great time being able to get to tear something with permission and do a craft at the same time. What fun. Please share any St. Patrick’s day crafts on my frugal living Facebook page or send Pounds4Pennies a tweet with your post. I would love to share or retweet your ideas!

I have been searching for Valentine crafts for kids, especially boys,  for me an little face to make. Then it hit me. What do little boys, especially Little Face, like? BUGS so we made some easy felt Valentine crafts any one can create for boys or girls. These cute little bugs are so much fun to make and to play with. I think we will be making Valentines for Little Face’s class this year.

Valentine Crafts for Kids

Materials for Valentine crafts for kids:

Felt (Get some Valentine colors)
googley eyes, or sequins (we only had sequins)
pipe cleaners
Glue (Hot glue, I did this part)
Heart punches or cookie cutters in different sizes
1 inch round punch

Directions how to make Valentine crafts for kids:

I’ll WORM my way into your heart

1. This little wormy guy is simple to create. Cut five or six little hearts out of felt in different colors of pink, red and white.

2. Glue the tip of the hearts onto the bumpy part of the other hearts to look like worm.

3. Glue a small circle on the top.

4. Using a pencil to make really nice curly antenna, curl a pipe cleaner around a pencil. Then bend in the middle and make a second curl then cut. Doesn’t this look like a little heart? Too cute!

5. Glue right behind the little guys head.

6. This Worm needs some personality. Give him a couple of eyes and a little mouth out of a pipe cleaner or what ever else you may have on hand.

Valentine Bugs

1. Cut large hearts. I used my cookie cutters at templates. For the butterfly glue two same colored hearts together. Only one is needed for the lady bug.

2. Glue a little round head on top. Following step 4 above make antenna with a pipe cleaner.

3. Glue on dots and let your child create designs by sticking sequins all over their little love bugs.

Aren’t these so Valentine crafts for kids cute. Little face really liked making them for his class. I picked up some pencils from the dollar store and we may glue them on the back to give as an easy and simple Valentine gift for his class. I love using felt, since it is so cheap. I am just frugal like that. I think I picked these three colors for about a $1 at Joann’s. I had the sequins so this is what I used. Take a look at my Valentine gift ideas, if you are looking for Valentines Gifts. For more inspiration follow me on Pinterest or follow me on Twitter.

I have been inspired this holiday with wonderful handmade Christmas ornaments from around the blog sphere. Today I am going to share with you my favorites I have found. Most of these you can make with items in your craft stash or just purchase a few items to make most of these wonderful handmade Christmas ornaments. There is still time to craft and make items until Christmas arrives. I have to admit I have not been crafting a lot this Christmas. But I will be baking a lot this weekend. To keep up with me follow me on Twitter or “LIKE” me on Facebook. If you want to keep up with what I find Pinteresting, follow me on Pinterest!

TOP 10 Handmade Christmas Ornaments

1. Cute little Cupcake Ornaments from Snips and Spice are almost cute enough to eat. 

2. This little Gingerbread Ornament from Audrey Pettit Weblog is so cute and simple to create from cardboard.

3. How cute are these Santa’s Ribbon Ornaments from Meet. Make. Laugh? This is a great gift idea or quick ornament to put together. 

4. A little Felt Gingerbread House from Imagine Our Life looks good enough to eat. This takes a little more time, but so worth the effort! She has a tone more little felt handmade Christmas ornaments to make too. Stop by to visit.

5. Nothing says Chrismtas like cookies. Make these easy Cookie Cutter Ornaments from A Spoonful of Sugar for a fun handmade Christmas ornament craft .

6. Here are some Eggshell Christmas Ornaments from Adrianne at Happy Hour Projects. She has a great site with tons of other eggshell projects if you fall in love with this craft.

7. What a great way to recycle into something so pretty with these CD Mosaic Ball Ornaments by Creme de la Craft. 

8. These little Snow Ski Ornaments from Kids Creative Chaos are just adorable and so easy to make. There are many other homemade Christmas ornaments ideas here too!

9. I just love these easy Felt Ornaments from Ruth at Living Well Spending Less

10. Staching Through the Snow by Jennifer at Busy Being Jennifer fits my tween kids lately. Everything is something to do with mustaches. This is such a great idea. I just love it! 

I am getting in the Christmas mood and today is the day we Christmafy our house. December 1^st just seems to mark Christmas time for me. I am glad to be putting our Christmas Tree up this year on December 1^st. With the little guy really testing his boundaries right now, I thought I would make him his own homemade Christmas tree he could touch and play with all he wanted. I can encourage him to play with his own tree, and leave mine alone. We will see how this goes after today.

Homemade Christmas Tree from Felt

I wish I could say I magically thought of this wonderful idea of a homemade Christmas tree all by myself. Well, that is not the case I got this idea from Sol and Rachel. Thanks to Pinterest I have a lot more ideas than I know what to do with this holiday. But I thought I would share how I made this awesome tree for around $3.00 and about 30 minutes of my time. You have 30 mins right?

1. I went to JoAnn’s to look for some nice dark green felt fabric. It was $4.99 a yard, but I had a coupon for 50% one item in the store on my iPhone. I only got a ½ yard.

2. Next I found some of the square pieces of felt in the kids craft area. I grabbed four sheets of Christmas colors red, maroon, green and white at $0.34 each.

3. With the fabric doubled over, I drew what I thought was a Christmas Tree shape and cut it out. Once this was cut out I realized this instantly made another Christmas Tree! The second homemade Christmas tree I gave to my neighbor for her kids.

4. Hot glue the middle seams to make the tree. Try not to touch the hot glue it will burn, and if you are doing this with a small child, it is difficult to not use inappropriate words when you have glued your finger to the darn tree! I still have a small blister on my finger. Allow to set for a second or two and open. You have a Christmas tree.

5. The ornaments were really simple to make. Just take a wide mouth glass and traced some simple circles on the small pieces of felt.

6. Cut strips and jagged pieces to make the ball ornaments and hot glued these on the ornaments. (optional: Cut pieces of Velcro and hot glue to the back of the ornaments to make them stick better. Found Velcro in the $1 bins up front.)

7. I saw where someone had made some presents to go underneath the tree. And just cut some square and rectangles out and hot glued some stripes to make them presents.

8. Last I let Little Face decorate his homemade Christmas tree, while I was still cooling off my blistered finger.

I was really amazed at how little time this took to make a homemade Christmas tree and how inexpensive this was. I found out later that, you do not need to use Velcro on the ornaments felt will stick to felt. However, if you do need Velcro, don’t pay the outrageous prices for the stuff in the back. Look for some in the $1 bins in front of the store and cut what you need. I have feeling there will be more felt crafts in the future. I seriously didn’t realize how easy and fun this was. 

Welcome all my new fans from KTXD! There are a ton of Thanksgiving art crafts to make. Today I have a wonderful Thanksgiving craft you can make with your entire family I shared on KTXD today. This family Thanksgiving art crafts is made by tracing all the hands of your family to make a colorful turkey to display in your home. Here is the video if you would like to watch how to make this craft from my TV debut on KTXD. 

How to make a paper turkey for a Thanksgiving Art Crafts:

1. Gather fall colors of card stock for the back feathers of the turkey. Try using everyone’s favorite color. Use enough different colors for the number of members in your family for a very colorful turkey.

2. Trace everyone’s hands on the card stock using a pencil. Especially if you have little ones. They tend to be a little more wiggly. Good thing they have small hands and don’t take as long.

3. Carefully cut out each person’s hands to make this and many other Thanksgiving art crafts.

4. I have made a printable for the turkey head and waddle. You can increase or decrease the size needed to make the turkey. Trace this on a complimentary color of card stock and cut out. Cut a small yellow triangle for the beak.

5. Using a 2.5″ punch you can get here. Punch a brown body for the turkey.

6. Now lay each hand out largest to smallest. Start stacking them with the largest on the bottom and stagger them to make the back feathers of the turkey. Try to do these in birth order of the children in your family.

7. Glue all the hands together and let dry with a standard white glue from the craft store.

8. Assemble your turkey by placing the circle body over the smallest hand’s palm. Glue the head of the turkey over the body. Draw a couple of eyes on the turkey using a black pen. Just free hand it. Get a little glue for the yellow beak and glue the beak on the head. Then the final touch add the waddle over the beak to make a wonderful Thanksgiving Turkey. Press the turkey between two large books to dry flat.

9. Using a fun fall color printed scrapbook paper for the back ground and choose a large frame. I used an 11X14 frame for this project. Then you can use the print out here to download the printable words Thankful for Family and trace on the glass of the picture frame with a sharpie marker. If you mess up, you can erase it with some alcohol and a cloth.

There are many Thanksgiving art crafts you can make with your family. I like this one because this is a moment frozen in time you can cherish for always.

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I am so excited to have a guest blogger today for a paper origami bookmark. She is around 11 years old and looks quite a bit like me. She enjoys crafts, canoeing and reading. She wrote this wonderful article about how to make a paper origami bookmark and took all the pictures. This was a fun writing and photography assignment for her this summer. She really enjoyed helping me out. I think next summer I may have some help! Ladies if you home school and need help with assignments and on your blog, just ask your kids to help!

Hey it’s little Miss here. Do you need a bookmark? Do you not know where to get them? Well then here is a fun and easy craft you can do to make an original paper origami bookmark.

Paper Origami Monster Bookmark

Materials:
1 Square piece of paper (I used a 8X8 inch scrapbook paper)

Instructions:

1. Fold a square piece of paper in half to make a triangle

2. Fold the left corner of the paper to the center corner of the paper.

3. Do the same thing as step number 3 this time with the right corner of the paper

4. Unfold it to the triangle and fold one flap of the center corner down to the bottom piece of paper

5. Refold the left corner to the center corner and tuck it in the pocket

6. Do the same thing as step number 5 with the right corner of the paper

7. Enjoy your paper origami bookmark

This is a fun, quick and frugal craft you can do with your kids anytime. For this paper origami monster bookmark craft, once it is complete you can glue some googly eyes on top and make some silly monster teeth at the bottom. This will make it look like the monster is trying to eat the book. The sky is the limit with all the different kinds of faces you can make with the basics of just the paper origami bookmark. Leave me a comment if you make any little monsters for yourself. 

Every girl deserves to feel like Cinderella every once in a while. With these sparkling glitter shoes, every girl now has the chance to feel like a princess. I saw this idea on Martha and I said I had to try it with my daughter. She is out of the cute little girl stage right now, but what girl doesn’t like a great looking pair of shoes.

Materials for Glitter Shoes:

• Mod Podge
• Glitter
• Shoes
• Paint brush

Directions for Glitter Shoes:

1. You can find some plain, boring, white canvas shoes at Walmart for $5.00. These are perfect for this project.

2. Then go to the craft store to get some Mod Podge and Glitter. The Tulip Fashion Glitter works the best. This should be extra fine glitter so these will coat the shoe nicely.

3. With some masking tape or painters tape, tape the bottom of the sole of the shoe.

4. Mix the Mod Podge and glitter together to create a glitter glue to paint on the shoe. One part glitter to two parts Mod Podge. Surprisingly you don’t really need that much. A little goes a long way.

5. Paint the shoe generously with the new glitter glue. Don’t worry if some getting on the grommets or on the tape. If it gets on the grommets just wipe it off, when you are finished with the coat.

6. Repeat with 3 to 4 coats until the shoe is sparkling!

7. Remove the tape on the bottom. Yo may find that you have Mod Podged the tape to the shoe and it is not coming off easily. Take a craft knife and score along the edge of the tape and shoe. Then peel the tape off. You may need to use some Goo Gone to get the sticky part of the tape off.

Since, I did the Glitter Letters with little face last week, I needed a glitter project to do with little miss this week. It is really hard to get a great picture of these glitter shoes, since every time you move they shimmer and sparkle. These Glitter shoes are just so cute, Little Miss made a pair to match an orange shirt she had. Orange is her favorite color. Pink is mine! I think I am going to wear my Pink Glitter shoes all month in October to support Breast Cancer Awareness. My sister in law just finished her final round of radiation. May she be cancer FREE!

Top ten places to wear these beauties:

1. Bloggy event – Since you pinned these, everyone will know where you got the idea
2. Hallloween – perfect to go with at fairy princess dress and comfy too!
3. Mall – Every will want to know what store you got these in! Tell them you found it on
5. Girls night out – be the envy of all your friends
6. Christmas party – Think red, silver or gold.
7. Church – You need a little sparkle at church
8. Wedding – wouldn’t the bride look fabulous if she had these to wear after? How about the brides maids?
9. Dancing – Be comfortable and show them your moves!
10. Anywhere you want to look fabulous

This would work well on those fabric dress shoes you were going to throw out because they were stained. Break out the glitter baby!