Make & Do

Toilet Roll Wreath

The following design is very simple, but effective. It can be adapted for any occasion. We have made these wreaths for Easter, Yule, Valentines and Halloween. The materials are easy to find around the house, and the ones that aren't are cheap enough to buy.

A printable PDF of the instructions can be viewed here.

Materials Needed

Wire Coathanger	Toilet Roll Inners	Double Sided Tape & Crepe Paper Roll, or paint

Coloured card, paper, pens and scissors	Decorations & Ribbon

What To Do

1. Bend the coat hanger into a circle shape. If you want, wrap crepe paper around the hanger to cover it and change the colour.
   
2. Arrange your toilet roll inners around your loop so you know how many you need. If you want to make a pattern like the one shown you will need to cut some toilet rolls in half.
   
3. If you want to paint the toilet rolls do so now and when they are dry jump to step 6. If not, put a strip of double sided sticky tape along the length of each toilet roll.
   
4. Wrap the crepe paper around the toilet roll (it will need to be at a slight angle), all the way so it overlaps the ends of the roll.
   
5. Tuck in the loose ends of the crepe paper. Use a bit of tape to hold the ends in the tube.
   
6. Continue doing the same to all of the toilet rolls until they are all coloured.
   
7. Cut half way across the toilet roll. It will probably squash a bit but don't worry about that!
   
8. Squeeze your toilet roll back to a tube shape and then push it onto the wire coat hanger.
   
9. Continue to do the same to all the toilet rolls until they are all arranged around the wire coat hanger.
   
10. Add strips of card to the back of all the cardboard tubes. This prevents the tubes from rotating when you add the decorations.
    
11. Turn over the wreath. This is the front and the side you will be adding the decorations to.
    
12. Cut out your shapes. We used eggs as we were making an Easter decoration. Decorate them with pens and/or stickers.
    
13. Start adding decorations to the wreath. You can add cardboard shapes, flowers, stickers, anything!
    
14. Keep going until all of the wreath is covered with decorations.
    
15. Make a shape with your seasonal greeting written on it and punch a hole in the top. Thread a length of ribbon through the hole and knot it.
    
16. Put the greeting in the centre of the wreath and tie the ribbon around the coat hanger hook.
    
17. Add a ribbon bow as a finishing touch and hang up your decorative wreath.
    

Paper Plate Birdy Bird Craft

Another simple but effective craft that allows toddlers freedom with paints. If your two year old, like mine, just wants to cover everything with paint, and doesn't really care what, then this is the craft for them. You will need one and a half plates to make one birdy bird.

1. Mix up one colour pastel paint (white with either a little red, blue or green in it).
2. Give your child a paintbrush and several paper plates on plenty of newspaper and let them get on with it
3. Leave the paper plates to dry whilst bathing your toddler.
4. During the next three days whilst you are still waiting for the paint to dry (well maybe not but my little girl goes rather overboard!) start to prepare the cut out shapes -
   You will need to cut out the following from coloured card, craft foam or construction paper.
   White circles with a black dot in the middle for the eyes, orange triangles for the beaks and black sticks for the legs
   
5. When the plates eventually dry, you will need to select a whole plate for the body and another plate to use for the tail and the wing.
6. Take the second plate and cut it in half, cut it in half again and reserve a quarter segment for the tail. Cut the other quarter segment in half again and reserve one piece for the wing. You should have similar shaped pieces to the ones shown below -
   .
7. We used double sided sticky tape (it's less messy than glue and dries quicker) to stick the tail, wing, eye, legs and beak onto the birdy bird.
    

Wow Wow Wubbzy - Eggs Over Easy

I don't know how many of you have caught the Eggs Over Easy episode of Wow! Wow! Wubbzy, it tends to be shown over Easter. Wubbzy is happily getting ready for the big Easter Egg hunt but Widget makes the EggsCellento 3000 and it takes all the fun out of decorating and hiding the eggs.

This activity is great for little ones if you want to keep them sat down for a while. It's not as messy as decorating actual eggs and you can still hunt the eggs afterwards if you want to.

This was an emergency activity that I came up with in a hurry after my little one fell down the stairs. o_O Thankfully apart from a little bruising she was okay.

Cut out 6 egg shapes from thick coloured card and sit child down with cardboard eggs and sheets of stickers! Ta Da! Eggs Very Easy!