craft for 4yr olds - at bday party - any ideas?

[mistressmiggins]

I am having a party at home for DD (4) and she has 9 friends coming for tea.

Theme is princess and I want to do a crafty activity that is easy for 4 yr olds that they can take home.

Any bright ideas?

Went to a birthday party a while ago which was crafty. We made party hats (crowns for a princess?) which everyone wore for the meal, and bags (maybe in the shape of a handbag?) to be the party bag to take home. the (very organised) mummy had made gingerbread dough, which you can keep in the fridge for a day or three, then break off a bit, roll it out, cut out a shape and decorate. You could make biscuits in the shape of diamonds or something, I'm sure there are appropriate cutters out there somewhere.
I thought it was genius - kept the children happy and avoided expenditure on plastic tat to take home.
If you google templates you'll be able to find bag and hat templates to print out.

Crowns - cut out cardboard and glue on tinfoil - lovely and shiny!! Cut out the points. Decorate with jewel-like stickers. My dd loved this at 4 and fits in with the theme.

bead bracelets

Hire (buy?) a badge maker

Baker Ross (online) have loads of things to make (snow storms, magnets, ...) as well as foam crowns to decorate etc.

Make balloon people (I think one of the supermarket has kits)

Make crowns. You can cut out cardboard templates, get the kids to stick on plastic jewels, feathers, sequins, and then staple them up. Odd bits of fabric, ribbons, tinfoil good too. You need PVA glue with spreaders rather than brushes if possible, make sure you have enough for everyone. And get some thick felt pens for drawing patterns. Avoid glitterglue at all costs -- it is the work of the devil.

We've done variations on this several times with kids that age, and it does work. It's also a good way to kick off a party while you're waiting for all the guests to arrive -- stops them racing around getting completely hysterical before things have even started.

great!
knew I would get some suggestions from you guys
I love scrapbooking & go to a local club every week but 4 is a little young!
She does try though.

My DD doesnt like play barns which is why I have decided to have party at home. I have asked everyone to dress up too.

I was thinking about a PINATA too but might be messy.

Biscuits & wands/tiaras are along the lines I was thinking of.

Was also thinking of doing a story time - me telling the story & getting them to join in/act it out.

baker ross
great crafty things, reasonable prices (I don't work for them!)
quick delivery

I was thinking about that song Lostinfrance or the 12 dancing princesses - the one where the king wants to find out why his DDs have wrecked dancing shoes every night....my DD loves that story

am a little worried the mothers may think Ive lost the plot - you should see the invites I wrote

BUT I figure that little girls love dressing up and doing crafty stuff. DD was very definite about NOT inviting boys!

At DD2's 3rd birthday (average age was probably 4) we had some monster making kits from ELC; it was great fun. The kits just consisted of wooden spoons, goggly eyes, sequins, crepe paper in various colours, bits of foamy stuff and glue (you could easily just buy some cheapo wooden spoons if you have lots of craft bits already)

I don't know where you are based, mistress miggins but I just posted a message on another thread about my niece who went to a party where they painted pictures and had them printed onto T-shirts to take home. Fab results. They are called Paint Me , website www.paintme.info. Worth a try?

When I worked at playgroup we had a pirates and princess week. The things the children enjoyed most was making a treasure chest from a teabag box (the kind with a lift up lid attached like the twinnings or pg tips boxes).

You can paint them yourself in advance with acrylic paint to give a base coat if you want them to look less t-bagbox like. The children can then paint on top or stick coloured paper on the outside and decorate with shells, stick on jewels, cut out pictures etc. I printed off some handle and lock pictures which they coloured in and stuck on too.

Once we'd made the boxes we made some shiny rings to go in them. These were made from strips of silver foil folded over several times. Make sure you double fold over and don't have the cut edge on the outside. Wrap it around a finger and then twist the ends together to make a ring and squish the ends together into a ball shape to make a big silver bobble on the end. Simple and very effective.

The children loved these, even the boys wanted lots of shiny pirate treasure!

We also made some jewels, coins and mini crowns to go in the treasure boxes out of cardboard painted with gold and pearlised effect paint, but you could just as easily use chocolate coins to top them up a little as it's a party.

crowns and wands, when dd had a similar party we planted seeds, after they had decorated plant pots.

We did the crown/hat thing at the DTs 4th and they all loved it. I cut them out in different shapes for pirates etc. If you cut the card out flat, it's easier for them to stick the stuff on. If you narrow the card down at each end & get a rubber band, fold over one end with the band inside and staple it, then when they're finished you attach the rubber band to the other end in the same way. We also did really old-fashioned party games like grandmother's footsteps and The Farmer's in his Den, which we had to do 3 times so several could end up as the dog!

Just be aware that if you use staples on anything that they are going to be putting on their head etc you should cover the back side of the staple with selotape or masking tape to prevent any unintentinal scratching should your staple catch.

Maybe for any bald dads!