eco living for your family and home
Ten beautiful, creative projects you’ll love to do with your children A little “thank you”
which we hope you’ll enjoy
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eco living for your family and home
Welcome to our Spirit of Nature
.
“Thank You” Creative Magazine
We’ve been busy beavering away coming up with some great
ideas
to help you keep your children entertained come rain or shine. So, it is time to
get recycling, get outside foraging and get creative. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in our company. We hope that you and your children have as much fun doing our projects as we had creating them and that they bring a little fun and laughter. We’d love to hear what you think – so please send us your photos or comments by email.
Happy making! The Spirit of Nature Team 2 www.spiritofnature.co.uk
The Eco Stuff Not all of these projects are religiously eco – we have used glues and paints which some purists might disagree with. Hopefully though, these projects are in the spirit of a quieter time, one that belongs to the age of our Grandparent’s, where things were made from things, bits and bobs were recycled and given a new lease of life, and fun was to be had in the collecting and the doing. We hope you’ll agree. Where we use paper and card we have always tended to use the backs of stuff that have already had another purpose in life. Most papers now come from renewable resources – just keep and eye out for what you are buying. Many of the bits and bobs used are found or abandoned objects. We know you won’t have exactly the same but hopefully you can substitute what you have to hand. We have tended to use acrylic paints as they are non-toxic and give a nice, bright coverage on card. However, they are not suitable for very young children and should always be used under adult supervision. We have used templates which you can download and print out on several projects but these are just a guide, if you want to create your own – then that is great! We’ve tried to give a range of projects for different ages but every child’s capability is different. These projects are intended to be done by adults and children together, so that you can decide what bits they can undertake safely. Most of all, we hope you will be inspired to adapt what you can find lying around and have a little fun doing it with the ones you love!
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Fruit Cubes For Toddlers
with adult interaction
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Project 1: Fruit Cubes
Encourage colour recognition, shape sorting and a love of fruit. These ice cubes will dissolve slowly in your child’s drink, adding flavour whilst looking colourful and fun (they look great in party drinks too!) An alternative activity to cooking that works well with very young ones.
What you will need: • Ice cube tray (you can get some nice shaped ones now) • Little jug that a child can pour water from • A selection of fruit, herbs or edible flowers
Method Simply layout all the fruit and let your child fill the cubes. Top up with water and freeze. Non toxic flowers such as violas or rose petals look sweet in a glass, or try mint leaves (these look great in adult drinks!).
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Handmade Soaps Kids will love making these natural soaps – they look great and are a doddle to do!
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For any age
with adult help
Project 2: Handmade Soaps
What you will need: • Soap flakes (see here) • Porridge oats (organic if you have them) • Biscuit cutters • Rose and lavender essential oils • Dried flowers or herbs
All these soaps need is a quick whizz in the microwave!
Method Measure out 7 tablespoons of soap flakes and 2 tablespoons of oats into a microwavable bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of water and a couple of drops of essential oil and stir. Microwave for 1 to 2 minutes depending on your microwave and stir the mixture. When cool enough to touch, mold into the biscuit cutters – you can either stir your dried flowers into the mixture before you mold or just press some in the top as decoration. Leave the soap to get completely cold and hard for a few hours – then it is ready!
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Junk Draw   Robots
For 5 years or older with adult help
Kids will love to recycle all your bits and bobs into these funky robots. Download our robot templates as a guide and decorate with whatever you can find.
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Project 3: Junk Draw Robots
TIP: You need to use heavy card and quality glue or double sided tape to support the weight of your junk bits. An adult will probably need to cut the card for young children.
The junk draw to make every minimalist shiver – ours included old used batteries, broken calculators and mobile phones (to our shame). robot 1: Method Download the template and printout Robot 1. Cut out the design and trace onto your card.
What you will need: • Robot templates (download here) • Thick card from an old box • Pencil or pen
If you are making a standing robot, cut out the shape (this might be easier for an adult with sharp scissors).
• Scissors (the curvy version of robot 1 would be difficult to cut with children’s scissors so we have included a simpler template version).
Decorate with whatever you have in your junk draw! We used double sided sticky tape and glue to fix our bits.
• PVA or similar strong glue
We drew around the battery shape and cut it out so that the battery could be inserted into the card for balance.
• Non toxic acrylic silver and red paint
• Double sided sticky tape • Recycled tin foil or left over gift wrap • Junk bits such as discarded batteries, raw plugs, nuts, picture hooks, old fuses, hinges, wire and washers.
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robot 2: Method Download the templates, print and cut out Robot 2. Trace onto thick card and cut out. Glue your decorations in place. We used a large metal washer but you could either paint the shape with silver acrylic paint or cover with recycled kitchen foil (as shown above). robot 3: Method Download the template, trace and cut as above. We painted this robot card silver. The body is the inside of a broken mobile phone and the antennae is a safety pin taped to the back. Trim the legs to fit inside heavy bolts so the little guy will stand.
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Project 3: Junk Draw Robots
easier op tion
make collage pictures
Variation robot 3: picture Method Download the templates and print out Robot 3. Cut out the body, trace onto silver paper or tin foil. Cut out and stick onto a card background. Cutout template shapes 1, 2 and 3. Trace onto silver paper and stick onto scraps of thick card, allow to dry and cutout. (We have used a metal eyehole punch to create the rivets on the shoulders). Stick pieces 1, 2 and 3 onto the body shape. Cutout template shape 4 and trace onto a scrap of card. Paint in red acrylic paint and allow to dry. Glue whatever pieces you are using to decorate the control panel and stick onto the body when dry. Finish your robot by gluing buttons for eyes, the inside of a peg for antennae, springs for arms, bolts for hands and nuts for legs. Or use whatever you can find!
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eco living for your family and home
Kitchen roll tubes are the staple of many a craft project. Recycle yours into these fun bracelets decorated with apple pips, pulses or pasta.
Recycled   Bracelets 12  www.spiritofnature.co.uk
For 5 years or older with adult help
Project 4: Recycled Bracelets
Younger children can use larger seeds such as melons or you can just paint your own colourful pattern
What you will need:
Method
• Kitchen roll tube
Cut your kitchen roll straight down so it is easier to slice into strips. Mark the size of your bracelet with a pencil and cut it as straight as you can.
• Apple pips and / or other seeds and pulses • Ribbon off cuts
Paint the bracelet with non toxic acrylic paint and allow to dry on some greaseproof paper.
• Acrylic paint • PVA or similar glue
Choose your seeds, pasta, or pulses to paint. We used apple pips for the flower petals and a mustard seed for the centre. Paint and allow to dry on greaseproof paper (you will get this on your fingers!!)
• Scissors
Glue your seed decorations in place and leave to dry. Then punch 2 holes at the back of the bracelet and thread with off cuts of Christmas ribbon.
• Hole punch
• Paintbrushes • Water pot • Mixing palette • Greaseproof paper or similar
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Project 5: Teatime Faces This is a great one to get young children both eating and learning about food whilst encouraging their creativity and having fun. We managed to get a 2 year to eat a pickled gherkin because it was a nose – now most adults won’t do that!
For Toddlers
with adult interaction
What you will need: • Food – lots of it! If you cut things up into strips and chunks they are easier to make faces with.
Teatime Faces
• Lots of little bowls so you can divide the food up into colours • White plate (paper plates are good too for little fingers)
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Method There really is nothing to this other than a lot of fun and imagination. Little children will love being able to make their own food and will enjoy eating the eyes and so forth. We used things such as small prawns, ham, cheese, grapes and carrots but just pick what suits you and your family best. If you cut everything into suitable sized pieces before you start it saves messing with knifes when building your “faces” with your toddlers. You can always extend the activity into a learning game such as: “can you find me something red” or “where is the cucumber” etc.
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TIP Use small crackers and food cut into little shapes to encourage the tiniest children
Project 5: Teatime Faces
Variation Different Materials:
• Gingerbread man biscuit cutter
Method Use the biscuit cutter to cut your bread, then “dress” your person with whatever you want. TIP We used the same biscuit cutter to cut T-shirts from flat foods like cheese and ham.
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eco living for your family and home
Sweet Gifts
For Older Children with adult help
Turn ordinary sweets, chocolates or raisins into special gifts by changing their wrappers and adding cute gift tags and ribbons. This project is a little wasteful of the old sweet wrappers but you can always reuse any foil or snippets in other projects (such as Junk Draw Robots – see page 6). By using old jam jars, beads and recycled card, hopefully we are redressing the balance.
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Project 6: Sweet Gifts These repackaged sweets make beautiful and thoughtful gifts for Mother’s Day or for your child to give to a Grandparent.
What you will need: • Old clean jam jars • Charity shop finds such as beads, buttons and scraps of ribbon • Scraps of fabric • Unwanted cardboard • Double-sided tape • Tag templates (download here) • Scissors • Eyelet or hole punch • Blue gel pen
jam jar Method 1 Fill your jar with whatever sweets you wish. Cut a circle of fabric about 2cm larger than your lid with pinking sheers to get a ragged effect. Download the tag template and trace onto cardboard taken from an old box. Cut out the tag and punch with a hole or eyelet punch and decorate with mock stitches and hearts with a pen. Using a 40cm piece of ribbon, make a loop and push through your tag hole then thread back through the loop. Tie the ribbon and tag around your jar lid, in a bow, encasing your fabric.
TIP If you want to sew a button in the middle of your fabric circle it is easiest before your fix your ribbon around the jar.
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jam jar Method 2 Paint your jam jar lid with non toxic acrylic paint and allow to dry. Tracing a circle onto some card that is slightly smaller than your lid. Cover your card circle with doublesided sticky tape on both sides. Cut a circle of fabric that is about 14mm in diameter larger than your card. Peel back your tape on one side and stick the fabric smoothly to your card. Cut little “v”s all the way around your fabric circle and stick to the remaining double-sided tape to form a neat edge. Fix to your jam jar lid.
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Project 6: Sweet Gifts
We found our beads in a car boot sale. To make the decorative trim, thread some beads onto a piece of picture wire 50cm long (our beads were from some broken necklaces in a car boot sale). Once you have enough beads to go around the neck of the jar, twist in position to secure. You need to leave about 1.5cm wire on one end of the bead string and about 15cm on the other end. Push the short end of wire back through the nearest bead to keep it neat and safe (this may be easiest for an adult, depending on the age of your child).
For your handle, take the remaining length and thread two beads onto it. Hook your wire on the opposite side of the jar opening to form a big loop. Twist together, leaving about 1.5cm of exposed wire. Move the beads so one is on each side of your handle. Push the remaining piece of exposed wire back through the last bead to keep it safe and tidy. Fill with whatever you wish (we used yoghurt covered raisins) and give to someone special!
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eco living for your family and home
chocolate box Method Take your chocolates out of the box and discard the plastic tray (or keep for another use or project). Paint your box lid and allow to dry. Cut a piece of card the same size as your lid (we used some card from inside a new shirt). Lay onto a surface that you don’t mind painting on. Tip You may need more than one coat of paint so the old design doesn’t show through but make sure you let each coat dry first before repainting (luckily, acrylic paint doesn’t take long to dry). Always apply the paint without water so that cardboard doesn’t become soggy.
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Fix with masking tape 5mm in from the edge all the way to stop the card moving (you will cut this off later). Paint with white paint to match your box lid and allow to dry – we used a roller as it means you don’t see any brush marks and gives a slightly different effect.
Project 6: Sweet Gifts
Different Materials: • Box of chocolates • Natural twine • Unbleached tissue paper • Masking tape • Non-toxic acrylic paint • Paintbrush • Small roller if using • Tag templates
When thoroughly dry, mask off another 5mm border inside the edge of your card (this will give you a white margin). Then mask two stripes about 35mm in from both edges. Using a roller, roughly paint the whole area blue filling in the 3 blank areas. When dry, remove the masking tape and cut away your unpainted 5mm border. Cover the reverse with double-sided tape and firmly stick to your box lid. To put your chocolates back in your box, use a sheet of tissue paper as a base to create a nest. Then cut small squares of tissue paper and wrap each chocolate individually so it has it’s own little compartment.
Put your decorated lid back on, then make your tag using the method on page 15. Using a long piece of garden twine, tie your tag and create a bow – a perfect gift!
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eco living for your family and home
Sometimes it is the simple things that are the most effective.
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Project 6: Sweet Gifts
Different Materials: • Bar of chocolate • Natural twine • Unbleached greaseproof paper • Pinking shears if using • Double-sided tape • Clear tape • Recycled freezer bags (see link)
For Older Children with adult help
• Tag templates
If you haven’t got pinking shears just use normal scissors. You can always stick a button on your circle to make it look extra cute.
chocolate bar Method Unwrap your chocolate bar and place in a recycled freezer bag. Fold in the edges as if it were a parcel and fix with clear tape.
Cutout the circle – using pinking shears to get a ragged edge. Wrap your twine around the bar and knot. Stick you fabric shape to cover the knot – hey presto!
Cut a piece of greaseproof paper about 15cm wide and wrap around your bar. Seal at the back with clear tape. Make your tag by sticking doublesided tape to both sides of a small a piece of card. Cover one side with a scrap of fabric, then draw a circle using something like an egg cup as a guide.
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eco living for your family and home
Variation
An inexpensive but personal gift that finds a great use for unloved china from junk or charity shops If you don’t want to throw away excess packaging – you can always make your own sweets.
Easy peasy chocolate truffles:
These old tea cups make a lovely, scrummy and useful gift. Just pop your chocolate truffles in a small recycled freezer bag, tie with ribbon or twine and add the gift tags from page 17.
• 100g of milk chocolate
• 250g of chocolate (we used dark) • 100g of white chocolate • 20g of clear honey • 25g of unsalted butter • 200ml of double cream • Any toppings you like – we used icing sugar, coconut, cocoa powder and ground almonds. • Melon scoop if using
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Project 6: Sweet Gifts
01. Chop your 250g of chocolate and 25g of butter into little pieces and put into a mixing bowl with your honey.
02. Bring your double cream to the boil and pour over your chocolate, butter and honey mixture and stir.
03. Keep stirring or whisking your mixture until the chocolate has completely melted, then leave to cool.
04. Once it is fairly set, scoop little balls of the mixture using a melon scoop and place on some greaseproof paper and pop back in the fridge.
05. Melt your milk chocolate in a microwave (we put ours in a covered bowl for 1 minute on medium but it depends on your microwave and the quality of your chocolate).
06. Make your mixture out of the fridge and dip it in your melted milk chocolate, this is easiest with two forks.
tip If you don’t have a melon ball scoop, use a teaspoon and then roll the truffle in your hands to get a small ball (this can get a bit messy!)
07. Before the chocolate cools, roll your truffle in one of your toppings if you wish.
08. Repeat with the white chocolate until you have coated all your truffles.
tip To get the stripy effect, put some left over melted chocolate on a teaspoon and drizzle onto a set truffle.
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eco living for your family and home
Ten Pin Bowling
What you will need: This is a great game for toddlers and young children, although they will need help in making the pins. Grandparents love this one too! The game uses 10 kitchen roll tubes – so you might need to raid family, friends and neighbours recycling boxes!
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• 10 kitchen roll tubes • Ten Pin template & score cards (download here) • Double-sided tape or glue • Old newspaper • An old pair of socks • 6 elastic bands
Project 7: Ten Pin Bowling The game:
For Toddlers
Set up the pins in a triangle and put down a marker where you are going to throw from. Each player gets 2 throws to knock down as many pins as they can.
with adult help
Record the number of pins knocked down on the template score cards. The game is scored over 10 rounds.
Alternative games: Try playing the game blindfolded! Or, try throwing the ball through your legs. The thrower will need to face backwards (away from the pins).
Method Download the Ten Pin template PDF’s and printout 9 copies of the red version and 1 copy of the green version on A4 paper. Cutout the templates and stick to your kitchen roll tubes (we stuck ours with 4 lengthwise strips of double -sided tape but you could use glue if you prefer). To make the balls, scrunch up a sheet or two of old newspaper into a tight ball and push into an old sock. Wrap an elastic band around the end to hold in position, then fold the sock back over itself. Secure with another elastic band, keep folding until you have no more sock left and the ball is tight.
Or, see who can knock the green skittle over with their first ball – you could add an extra 5 points for doing this. Try bowling with your opposite hand – a great one for adults and older children. Tip You can up the stakes and make the game more fun by adding a prize for winning certain rounds or the whole game – great for little children’s parties.
Repeat with the other sock to make a second ball.
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eco living for your family and home
For Older Children with adult help
Bird Feeder There is nothing like working with wood to encourage patience and a love of natural materials. This project is definitely one for older children with adult help. How much sawing and hammering you feel comfortable with them doing is up to you but we found that some hardware stores will cut the lengths of pine stripwood to size if you take the dimensions along. The pine stripwood we are using carries the PEFC mark which means it comes from a renewable resource, ours cost 98p which is plenty to make one bird feeder.
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Project 8: Bird Feeder
Materials you will need:
Tools required:
• 2 cm square thick pine stripwood cut into: 2 x 18 cm strips and 1 x 14 cm strip
• Tenon wood saw (if using)
• 1.5 cm pine beading cut into: 4 x 17.5 cm strips
• Wood file or sandpaper (if using) • G Clamp and or Workmate • Small hammer
• 1 supermarket fruit or veg net this will determine the width of your feeder, ours was 18cm wide.
• Scissors
• 2 x 16mm galvanized wire staples (available loose in some or hardware shops or a small bag costs about £1.68)
TIP Measure your fruit or veg bag to work out the width of your feeder (ours is 18cm wide).
• Small paint brush (not shown)
• Natural garden twine • Cotton bud • Masking tape • External wood glue • Eco wood preserver (not shown) or Boiled Linseed Oil which is a naturally safe preserver
This bird feeder is a great way to use up your burnt toast or stale bread.
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eco living for your family and home
01.
Our veg net is 18cm wide, so cut two 18 cm and one 14 cm piece of pine stripwood with the tenon saw. TIP Use a G Clamp to fix the wood you are cutting to a table or workmate and keep your fingers out of the way.
03.
File or sand all your pieces to make them smooth.
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02.
Cut four 17. 5 cm pieces of pine beading. TIP Draw the saw lightly towards you first to make a groove then keep the remaining strokes even and within the slot you have made. Don’t let the saw jump about.
04.
Paint your wood with preserver or wax. Hammer two metal staples into the top of the two long pieces of stripwood.
Project 8: Bird Feeder 05.
06.
Glue the 3 pieces together (use a cotton bud to spread the glue) and allow to dry.
Cut the top and bottom of the net bag to make a tube approximately 15 cm deep. Place over your frame.
TIP You may find masking tape helps keep the pieces in place whilst the frame is drying flat.
TIP If the bag is a little too wide, fold the sides in and glue in place.
07.
Glue your four pieces of beading to your frame, sandwiching your net bag inbetween. Glue the top of the net bag to the top beading and allow to dry.
08.
Tie garden twine through the metal staple loops for hanging.
TIP Use a G Clamp and masking tape to hold the pieces in position while they dry.
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eco living for your family and home
Variation This rustic bird feeder uses found twigs, it means your children need to do more hammering but the wire staples are easier to hit than nails so it is great learning project. Needs adult supervision. • Create the basic frame but omit the beading • Simply snip the twigs into equal lengths with secateurs • Hammer in place using metal staples
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Project 8: Bird Feeder
A great excuse to get outside and have fun foraging for the right sized twigs.
Click here
Different Materials: • 12 x 17.5 cm twigs • 12 galvanized wire staples • No beading needed in this version!
Email us your pics: Email us a picture of your bird feeder (especially if they are being used by wildlife). Give us the date and your name and location so we can see what birds are where and we’ll post the best snaps on our blog.
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eco living for your family and home
Finger Paint   Owl Freeze 36  www.spiritofnature.co.uk
Project 9: Finger Paint Owl Freeze
For Toddlers
with adult help
This funky owl freeze is great for very young children and is a quick and easy way to decorate their room whilst encouraging learning and creativity. Method
What you will need:
Download the Owls template PDF’s and printout as many owls as you need – there should be 6 designs plus instructions.
• Non-toxic fingerpaints • A4 paper • Owls Template (download here)
Use finger paints to complete each owl including eyes, beak, feet, wings, feathers, and ears.
• Sticky tack or tape
This is a nice project to help teach about colours and body parts. Once you have as many designs as you want you can stick them together with tape (apply on the back so you can’t see the tape) to make a freeze. Stick to the wall using sticky tack.
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Parachute Man
What you will need: • A4 paper • Parachute Template (download here) • Sticky tack or tape • 2p coin • String or thread • Recycled freezer bags see link
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Project 10: Parachute Man
Download and printout our parachute man template and colour in – or create your own!
For any age
with adult help
Method Download the Parachute Man template and printout. Stick onto your card. Cut your man out (don’t cut between his legs) and punch 2 holes in his pack. Make the parachute from a disused carrier bag or, we used recycled freezer bags. Cut a piece 32cm square. Thread your string through the holes and tie each end to a parachute corner.
On the back of your parachutist use a 2p as a weight by taping it to his legs. Use another piece of tape to secure his back strings across his shoulders. Then go somewhere high and launch! TIP Keep the string on the front of the card to the front corners of the parachute and visa versa. Try to keep the lengths of string as even as possible.
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eco living for your family and home
This is great fun for really little ones who will love chucking the parachutist out of their bedroom window (under supervision!) but they will need an adult to make them the toy. Older children will enjoy making the toy and it is great for exploring concepts such as how to make knots and counterbalance.
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Project 10: Parachute Man
For any age
with adult help
Variation Adapt the project by using a Lego man, or other plastic figure – even a little car or other small toy.
• Make the parachute as before but tie the thread by using a slip or cinch knot instead – see below.
• Thread each loop onto a corner of your parachute and pull it tight, sandwiching the chute.
• Once all four corners are secure make slip knots on the other end of each piece of string. Wrap over the Lego man and pull tight (we fixed 2 pieces of string over each shoulder). Then launch!
TIP To make a cinch knot create a loop but do not pull it tight. Then thread the leftover (small) piece of string back through the open knot part of the loop. A you pull the loop should tighten.
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eco living for your family and home
CREDITS No design is ever done in a vacum, and whilst we have created every project here ourselves, much inspiration has been drawn from the wonderful Gifted Magazine and affiliates blogs from the Design Sponge Site. Books including Paper, Scissor, Glue by Catherine Woram, 365 things to make and do by Fiona Watt and Creative Crafts for Kids published by Hamlyn have all helped immensely.
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