Cutting

These are the scissors I use with my daughter who us 23months (about £3 from eBay) They a effectively spring loaded so much easier to manipulate. Obviously I support her when using the scissors. 

Here is a piece if art work we product together. The idea was to model cutting but also allow her to have a go too (she cut the tree trunks) 

Painting, glue, collage and stickers

There are obviously so many ways you can use painting 

Here are some ideas I've done with my 22 month old daughter:

-brushes, thick and thin (with some mixed media!)

-sponges

-natural object painting (like the old style potato printing)

-painting with cars (making tracks)

-Glitter painting

-coloured glue paint 

-hand painting 

-Painting inside the lines (some of this was me modelling the process) 

This fish art work was fun. We used the gold card fish shapes to produce a stamp. We then finished it off with tissue paper, glitter and glue. 

Bottle fun

Bottles are great toys for all ages whether it be for making rockets, sensory toys for babies, musical instruments or sand toy. Here are a couple of ideas 

1. Sensory sequin bottle 

2. Sensory floating items bottle (sequins, glitter and food colouring) 

3. Treasure bottle/ musical instruments (chocolate coin wrappers)

4. Coloured rice  

Most are quite self explanatory in terms of how to make them just by looking at them. The coloured rice one may need a little more explaining... 

-You mix food colouring, vinegar and dried rice in a sandwich bag and mix together.

-When thoroughly mixed place rice on a tray to dry. 

-When rice is dry and vinegar has evaporated off add to bottle

As you can see from the squashed rice bottle my daughter enjoys the noise of squashing the bottle.  

People craft

This idea involves just using felt to dress the dolls. You could also use Velcro if you wanted to make it more secure or if you were using card to make your 'dressing dolls' 

Can obviously be adapted for creating felt pictures for anything such as cars and animals. 

And these are peg people with magnets on the back 

Animal crafts

Kids love animals, people and vehicles it seems. I therefore have plans to do craft around these three topics. 

To start with we've done a butterfly created using hand and foot prints 

Including a clip on the back for photos or to hand pieces of art.

And a sheep mask 

Play dough

There is so much scope for play dough; Exploring colours, textures, smells, imagination

My daughter loves the brightly coloured dough most of all as she's not at a stage where she is interested in smelling things yet but I will try lavender, mint and other kinds of play dough in the future. As well as glitter. 

To make a play dough session more fun I have the normal cutters but also other items such as candles, forks, buttons, goggly eyes and candles 

(Picture to follow) 

When I was growing up I was never allowed to mix the play dough colours but at 75p a pot I have decided that I should ignore what I was taught! 

Have fun. 

 

Salt dough 

The dough recipe is very simple 

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of salt

1/2 cup of water (added gradually, add more flour if gets too sticky) 

Colouring... I just used kids paint 

You can then cook the dough to set it

Method 1 

Place in oven for 3 hours on very low hea

Method 2 (recommended) 

The microwave (be aware the dough gets very hot) 

-Cook for 20 seconds

-Open door to release steam

-Repeat till 3 minutes has been reached 

When producing your creation I strongly suggest placeing it on a piece of grease prof paper while being created (it is very hard to move a materpiece onto a pkte or baking try when still soft)  

Here is a salt dough creation (it's meant to be a rainbow) 

Here is a lovely keep sake I did when my daughter was a few months old. Fished off with some gloss paint 

 http://theimaginationtree.com/2012/04/best-ever-no-cook-play-dough-recipe.html

Painting keepsakes

Like a fair few toddler my little one didn't until recently like touching different textures like play dough or getting messy when painting. About 19months she decided it wasn't so bad and now loves play dough and paints. 

At the moment I'm in the middle of making a cute (I home) Callander keepsake with handprints. 

Here is how far I have got... 

And the finished piece...

Front page: collage of her random painting over the last month

January: mummy, daddy and Katie's hand

February: handprint in the shape of a heart. This would work better if the thumb is tucked in.

March: handprint to make tulip flower and also a bee.

April: fish

May: kite 

June: finger print caterpillars 

July: handprint butterfly. This also works well with the body made with a footprint. 

August: handprint sun

September handprint ducks 

October: autumn handprint tree

November: fireworks (with creative licence)

December: Christmas tree handprint and handprint present 

I'm sure this will be lovely to look at when she's older, very nostalgic!