Sunday, August 07, 2016

Kid Crafts >> Little Shoe Box Houses



Livin' in a box...



There's nothing more fun on a rainy day than popping on some wellies and heading out for some puddle jumping fun. If I'm honest though, I much prefer being in the warm most the time, watching and listening to the rain in the comfort of our home and PJ's.

Rainy days for us usually do turn into craft days as it's such a good time filler, holds their attention and they both love it. Alf used to rush everything but now he will spend a long time devoted to one craft at a time and has some brilliant ideas.

Last week one of our favourite crafts was this one, making a little house out of Alf's shoe box. This is pretty open to any kind of design or shape your little people want to create, but here is ours - a terraced cottage with window boxes and puppets! Ours doubles up as a little puppet theatre for Alf and here is how we made it.




We started off by cutting holes for the windows and doors. I got him to draw where he wanted them and I poked holes through with a pen until the windows and door shapes popped out. A Stanley knife would have been a lot easier but the pen was right there and super quick too.




Alf wanted cross windows so I made him some crosses from pipe cleaners which he stuck in place with sellotape. Not the neatest in the world but hey, it's a shoe box after all...




Alf was very specific about wanting a triangle roof which I just made out of scrap card (we have lots of that for some reason) and a toilet roll chimney! Alf got to work cutting up squares to make roof tiles as he thought this would look better than painting it and I was pretty relieved to not have to bring out the paints on a chilled out relatively mess free afternoon too.




I helped wrap some matching card around the chimney to tie it in and Alf excitedly stuck his rooster sticker in place as of course his puppets would need waking!




We got to work cutting more 'tiles' out in cream for the front of the house. I put sticky dots on the back of them all for him so it was easier for his little hands and a lot less messy (can you tell I wasn't feeling the mess that day?).




A little door knob was cleverly attached by the boy using another pipe cleaner and sellotape - he's such a good little problem solver!!




After googling pictures of window boxes, Alf was pretty keen to have some 'plants' at the windows and made these clever little stick on boxes with sparkly leaves. This is where I love the fact that he can so confidently pick up a tablet and use it for something so constructive, can you imagine Googling for craft ideas when we were kids? God help me if this boy ever discovers Pinterest.




These are Alf's little puppets aren't they adorable?! Little lollipop stick people with googly eyes (of course) and feather hair. They have open mouths so that they look more like they are talking for the puppet show apparently. You have to love little imaginations.




A quick show practise and the addition of some shrubs andd stickers that look like our cats. We then sneaked off to the kitchen while Soph has her snack for a super quick paint job on the outside.




We loved making this little house and I think Alf has his heart set on making the whole street now, so I'm looking at this as a good excuse to go shoe shopping... 

Let me know if you love it as much as I do, so I can tell Alf and if you try it too please let us know!

(I get most my craft supplies from The Works and Wilkos, but also Amazon when we are a little more house bound.)