Today’s craft goal is create something fabulous but only use things you already have. Nuts, bolts, a foil cake pan… all of these things can be turned into a super cool craft and wall art for a kids room. We made a robot, a cat and a dog for our examples. But you feel free to let your imagination run wild.
You will need:
- an 8×10 canvas or piece of cardboard
- nuts and bolts and odds and ends
- a foil cake dish
- metallic craft paint and paint brush
- googly eyes (optional)
- scissors
- hot glue gun (or regular glue)
- a sharpie
Warning: This project is intended for older children not toddlers who might put these things in their mouths. Keep an eye on the little parts used for this. It could be sharp or a choking hazard for babies and pets.
Be safe lovely crafters!
I’m just assuming that everyone out there has a few little miscellaneous drawers of screws from old projects and furniture that won’t be missed if we use them for a random craft project.
The canvas iwas a dollar store purchase. You can get the foil cake pan there too. Or you could just buy a cake or food in one of these pans and do the craft after you’ve licked it clean! :o)
To prepare for this craft, cut out the bottom of the cake pan.
Paint your base canvas. I used metallic paint colours. If you don’t have a canvas just cut a piece of thick carboard to size and paint it.
Cat
Draw the shape onto the foil with a sharpie. It doesn’t stay permanent on the cake pan foil right away so you can wipe it off if you make a mistake.
Lay out the pieces before you hot glue them to the canvas. To make the spiral for the cat’s whiskers I wrapped a wire around a pen. Then I stretched the wire out a bit so it looked a bit crazy. Wire is a bit hard to glue on. Find some points that will be touching the canvas and add a drop of hot glue to just those spots.
I used a bolt for the cat’s nose and then put a gem on top. For the tail I took a part of the edge of the pan and scrunched it a bit to give it extra wave. Secure it with a few dots of glue to the canvas.
The one gem on her nose looked so nice-I added one for the mouth, 2 for the ears and some big ones randomly around the cat.
I almost forgot to mention the two pop can tabs were added for feet!
Robot
Again for the Robot, lay out your materials and arrange them together for the collage.
Secure each item with glue to the pre-painted canvas.
The robot is made of 2 squares with rounded corners. A few miscellaneous items from the junk drawer and cut up scraps from the foil cake pan. The wire on the middle of the robot is the same wire from the cat project but it looks smaller because I wound around a smaller object. If you have a spring from an old pen it would be similar.
This robot turned out great! You’ll love how the metal of the foil reflects the light.
Dog
The dog is simply 4 pieces cut out of the cake pan.
I made one on a white canvas so I colored it in with black sharpie.
I also make another one on a piece of dark blue cardstock. The foil cake pan looks white in this photo but its still metallic silver. I think it looks like a sheep! Bahhhhh.
This was a super easy and fun craft to make!
Here are some previous blog posts with simple fun projects for the kids!
Easy Dog Coat from an Upcycled Sweater
Make your little dog an easy winter sweater by repurposing one of your own!
You know how you should never, ever wash a wool sweater in hot water or put it in the dryer? Well that is exactly what you need to do today to make a little dog a wool coat.
We have a little girl named Gemma who is a Yorkie/Poodle mix. This is the perfect size for her. She is 9 lbs and loves to share your toast. She gets chilled easily so she loves it when her momma makes her a new coat or sweater.
You will need:
- a wool sweater (or wool blend with at least 50% wool)
- scissors
- tape measure or ruler
Start by washing your wool sweater in hot water and machine dry it. This will shrink the wool and “felt” the stitches of the sweater so that it will not unravel when we cut it. You could wash and dry the sweater a few times to further shrink it.
Lay the sweater on a flat surface and cut the sleeve off at the shoulder seam.
Also cut off the cuff.
Lay the sleeve flat with the seam in the middle facing upwards. I cut 2 small leg holes 3 inches apart.
Cut the holes small because the sweater will stretch after a day or two of wearing it.
This photo shows a much bigger hole after Gemma wore it for 3 days. She gets cold with the weather changing so she sleeps in it at night too.
This photo shows her right after I made it. Her fur is very scruffy and adorable….but matted. So we took her to the groomer.
And here she is after grooming and smelling like cookie shampoo. She is so darling. The sweater size looks bigger because of her haircut and because of stretching. When we toss it into the washer and dryer it shrinks back to perfect size again.
That sweater had two arms, of course, so we can make a second one for her to wear on laundry day! Hurray!
Paper Plate Animals Groundhog Zebra Dog
It’s March Break this week! That means it’s time to look around the house for easy, inexpensive crafts using things we already have. My favorite go-to craft items are paper plates, lunch bags and coffee filters. There is so much you can do with these basic household items-and no trip to the craft store is required. Endless possibilities!
Today lets talk about the sturdy paper plate! For crafts, I like the thin ones that makes you nervous at a picnic that your coleslaw and hot dog are going to fall off the plate and onto your sandals. EEK! They might not be great for dinner in the park, but that is what makes them so perfect for crafting.
For these three crafts we have used a thin paper plate, paint and brush, construction paper, scissors and glue, big googly eyes and a black marker.
This brown paper plate animal was meant to be a beaver, but it could easily be a bear or groundhog if you want it to match a hibernation theme or a book you have read. Here I used 2 shades of brown for the ears, slivers of paper for the whiskers a brown nose that looks like a triangle with soft edges. After drawing on the mouth, you can slice a slit thru plate along the mouth line to slide the white teeth through and add a dab of glue on the back to keep them in place.
This is a paper plate zebra. Just add a scrap off of another plate, paint it black to be his mane and some ears. Add black stripes with a marker. The nose is sort of an oval/diamond shape. Use a white crayon or pencil crayon to make his mouth and nostrils. I love big googly eyes to add to my crafts but you could draw on eyes if you’re out of googly eyes.
This dog looks like our Gus. Gus badly needs a haircut at the moment-he is bringing in all sorts of dirt.
For this dog paper plate craft we painted him a creamy yellow and added a big, round, brown snout cut from construction paper. The nose is simple circle of black paper…but a big pink or black pom-pom would be cute too. We put a brown patch under the googly eye and had his tongue sticking out. Again you could slice a line in the paper plate to have the tongue look like its coming out of his mouth.
Have fun with your kids and crafts this March break!
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