giant quilling for kids

1. Cut color paper into 1/2 inch strips. (You may use outdated school notices for this, or even plain white paper for that matter. Color is fun but not required. Or you could get really gorgeous and use watercolors and even glitter on white card stock... OK I'll stop right there!)

2a. EITHER squeeze some white glue onto a plastic plate and teach your kids how to use glue. ("You just TOUCH your fingertip to the puddle of glue." Admire the smallness of everyone's fingertip glue dots.)

2b. OR hand out glue sticks for everyone. If you have enough. Even neater!

3. Apply glue to one end of a strip.

4. Close the strip into a circle. (A circle, not a leaf shape. That means you have to tuck the end under, not just fold the strip in half.) Repeat steps 3-4 on several more strips.

5. When you have seven circles and the glue on most of them is dry, start gluing the circles together into a flower. Wow! How beautiful!

6. Kids who still have some zitzfleish left may make green leaves (yes, a leaf shape this time, not a circle) and glue them on, tucked in between petals of the flower.

7. When everything is totally dry, attach a 6" piece of thread (or clear fishing line if you are really fancy) and find somewhere to hang the masterpiece.

 

My three year old made this pink flower for our succah, with intensive guidance. You cannot imagine how proud she was and still is:

 

 

Here's another view... The yellow flower was made by my four-year-old, with a little less guidance.

 

 

And this butterfly was designed and made by my eight-year-old daughter, with no help.

 

 

giant-quilled shivas haminim

Check out my succah project! (Took me a while to get the blog post ready but here it is!)

 

I think of this as large-scale quilling because as with quilling, you use strips of paper to create beautiful airy light-and-shadow pictures. The difference is that these strips are half an inch wide rather than 1/8" (or thereabouts). Everything is just bigger and looser -- thus easier to handle, particularly with junior assistants -- and you get bigger results. 

 

Thanks to Sara at www.creativejewishmom.com for the inspiration/technique. I love this so much.

 

 

I made these shivas haminim* from ordinary card stock, and used scotch tape rather than glue to stick everything together. That was a good move as the tape (at least when I used plenty) stuck to itself whereas glue (at least regular white glue) would have dissolved completely in the rain. As it is, after a couple of good hard storms all of the fruits looked a little stretched out of shape. If anybody knows of some way to waterproof cardstock, please tell me!

 

*Shivas haminim = the seven species -- that's the seven kinds of fruit (well, wheat and barley plus five fruits!) that the Torah lists as specialties of the Land of Israel. They're a common succah motif.

Fw: washer necklaces.JPG

And this one looks even simpler and (if possible) cuter. Metal washers, painted as desired, then hung on cord with a cute bead to hold it in place. Can't imagine why we haven't done this yet.

 

acreativeprincess.blogspot.com

 

butterfly bookmark idea

Here's a project I found online somewhere (in different places) that we haven't done yet but hope to try: String beads on wire, then tie on several ribbons and knot their other ends. Beautiful bookmarks! Or necklaces if desired!

 

   

 

3D Jerusalem project, complete!

This is what I made with my kids, actually started as a home-daycamp project several years ago, but finally finished this year for Succos! The girls (then age 4-6) cut out and watercolored the shapes, I cut windows and doors, then we laid out and glued it together with little cardboard springs for 3D effect! I totally need to post it to chinuch.org.