ideas/resources for crafts for a 2.7 yo?

[LissyGlitter]

My DD is getting to the point where she really enjoys colouring (well, more scribbling tbh) and painting and so I was thinking of trying her with some more complex crafts - ie making christmas decorations etc.

Any ideas? And where is good to get the stuff? I'm in the NE, but obviously have internet as well. Cheap is good.

I work with children of your daughter's age and we re-use and recycle everything in our workshop area.
Old birthday cards
old halloween decorations
old christmas decorations
cardboard boxes
wrapping paper
packaging
we made collages from fallen leaves and I have just washed the pumpkin seeds from inside the pumpkin to use as collage materials
we use seeds and pasta
wool and string, ribbon too
just about anything!
Your basics are
paper
pva glue
and powder paint

I made salt dough Christmas tree decorations with DD last year when she was 2. I need to find a recipe and will try and post one in a while, but they were very simple to make. Just made the dough, rolled out, cut out with biscuit cutters in nice shapes like hearts and stars etc, put a hole near the top with a skewer, baked them and then painted them with normal poster paints, sprinkled on glitter, then when that was all dry, coated them in varnish.

DD was able to join in most elements of this (except the baking and the varnishing) and it was a lovely project that lasted a few days.

We were able to give some as Christmas gifts to family members too.

My favourite craft to do with DD (she's 3 now) at the moment is making faces out of paper plates. We buy cheap eye decorations (we get them from Wilkinsons - I'm sure loads of other places must do them too - otherwise you could make eyes by cutting out a circle of paper and putting a black dot in the middle otherwise), stick them on the back of the paper plate (which is the "head"), then will either draw on other features or use things like pom poms and stick on shapes to make noses, mouths etc. I suppose you could customise something like that into Father Christmas maybe and make a cotton wool beard? Or do a Rudolf one with pipe cleaner antlers?

Places like Wilkinsons and The Range often have cheap craft stuff. Also if you have a local market they usually have cheap bits & bobs.

Thank Servalan for the salt dough idea. That's perfect for dd - she loves baking and painting

My pleasure

I've just found the thread where I posted on here for a recpipe and advice last year - hope I'm linking it properly - here goes!!

btw - if you go with that idea, don't forget to put a hole in the top of the decoration with a skewer before baking (so you can put a thread through to hang it on the tree!)

thread with salt dough recipe

make you r own wrapping paper - roll of paper, potato print over it - 2 yo can do this, you just need to cut the potato.

you can cut a shape in potato, or use a biscuit cutter to cutthe shape - heart, star etc.

can do single print onto card to make the matching tag/Christmas card too!

Another salt dough fan here. We also cut shapes from felt and decorated them with bits of ribbon for our christmas tree. Things you can use for making cards: coloured paper, cotton wool (for snow), ribbon, glitter, confetti (simply empty your hole punch for free confetti), aluminium foil... have fun!

I've just found a load of felt that I thought I'd try using for craft Feierabend. How did you attach the ribbon to your decorations? Did you just stick on with PVA?

Just thought of another thing LissyGlitter.

What I've done a lot with DD in the past is to draw a shape on cardboard, cut it out, then let DD paint it, stick things on it, sprinkle glitter on it etc.

I have some cut-out fish shapes in our downstairs toilet that DD has beautifully decorated with paint and glitter (I'm crap at drawing, so I googled "fish shapes" on the image filter and I found some silhouette templates that way). For Christmas, I guess you could do the same thing, getting your DD to paint on Christmas tree shapes (you could also give her sparkly shapes and tinsel to stick on), bell shapes, etc.

I can't remember, I think we may have used Pritt? Sure any glue works.

Ace, thanks for the tips!