Share your craft ideas for young kids to win £100 worth of Elmer books and goodies!

[UrsulaMumsnet]

Explore the touch-and-feel world of Elmer and his colourful friends in this bright, fun first concepts playbook. Perfect for parents and babies to enjoy together, this book is jam-packed with stimulating colours and touch-and-feel areas to really engage little ones. Elmer's Touch and Feel World is a great introduction to learning through play and, of course, to everyone's favourite patchwork elephant.

Join in the celebrations on Saturday 28th May and attend one of over 1000 Elmer Day events happening at bookshops and libraries across the country! For more information visit the website

Elmer's Touch and Feel World publishes in May priced £8.99

Share your craft ideas for young kids to be in with a chance of winning a selection of fabulous Elmer books and goodies worth £100, including Elmer plush toy, lunchbox, tabard, tote bag, sound book and more!

Elmer the patchwork elephant is a popular picture book character created by David McKee. Andersen Press has published 23 original Elmer picture books since the first Elmer story in 1989, as part of a character brand publishing programme that now includes a range of novelty and board books. Elmer’s iconic look and playful character have made him a firm international favourite in millions of households

This discussion is sponsored by Andersen Press and will end 20 May

Potato prints and pasta necklaces worked well here. We use a cheap all in one waterproof suit for painting in, so there's no worry about paint getting on clothes.

Hand painting is one of our favourites, we have done some fab pictures that way and its so fun. Just a seed tray full of paint and dip your hands in and off you go. Another favourite is making pictures from things collected from outside, so either a trip to the garden or park etc. we look for bright coloured leaves or acorns, anything we can use to make a picture telling a story of the seasons.

Its the ideal time to get the kids outside - give them a dish - an enamel camping one is great and get them scavenging to make mini gardens. Moss makes a great lawn, jam jar lids can be ponds. Its amazing how imaginative they can be and they will find lots of interesting grubs and beasties down there too

We love making collages out of newspaper and magazine clippings! Lots of fun!

I have a 3 year old & a 1 year old and they just love the (cheap) simple things at the moment (thank goodness!).
Stickers are a massive hit! They spend ages just sticking stickers onto a piece of paper in no particular order, making no particular pattern / picture!
Colouring is another big hit - we use various 'tools' (felt tips, crayons, pens, pencils, pencil crayons, markers...) and they just scribble away!
They have a chalk board too which they also love.
Luckily, they don't seem to be in to the messier stuff - though am sure this won't last!

My three kids all loved crafts and my youngest is very into chalk on the patio outside, playdough and any type of scribbling. Our favourite thing to do is buy huge rolls of wallpaper plain lining paper which is really thick, cheap and seems endless. We roll it out to cover the floor wall to wall on our dining room (it has wood floors!) and i let them all go wild with whatever medium they choose. We've cut out particularly nice or interesting bits to frame and hang in the past. Attached a recent 'bit' from my youngest when she was just over 1.

Forget buying expensive stuff... we reuse cardboard toilet rolls paper to make stuff, plastic containers (from soups, yoghurts) to make into vases, flower pots, pencil holders, etc. And you can make your own play dough from scratch.

You can also get lots of inexpensive stuff from Poundshops.

Paint and glitter keeps my two amused. No need for any glue as the glitter sets as the paint dries. We decorate fronts of cheap paper notebooks to make 'sparkly special books' for our use and to give to friends and make fabulous fairy masks and wands.

We laminated pictures of the family and the kids colour them in and add funny hair/glasses/facial hair.

We also make scented, glittery play doh and use the biscuit cutters and rolling pin to make a picnic or afternoon tea.

Keep it simple, toddlers love hand and feet prints, stickers, colouring, paints etc.

Use things around the house for imagination crafts, toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, cardboard boxes etc.

We keep hold of pretty trimmings from packaging, gift boxes etc and like to make cards or small gifts like bookmarks. Lots of glitter glue and sticky gems always brighten up a handmade gift.

We love collecting nature things- leaves, feathers, bark etc and then making a collage. Double sided sticky tape is great for sticking the stuff down and the adult can put the tape in a shape (like a tree) so their picture looks like something too!

We have a 'make and do' box where we collect pieces of material, coloured foil sweetie wrappers, cotton wool, googlie eyes, glitter, paints, glue, old magazines etc. I cover my table with a sheet and put them in an apron and let their imagination run riot. They love to make junk models with boxes etc saved for the recycling.

Making things where glue is involved is a lot of fun but absolutely everything gets sticky! So this morning, instead of just getting all the craft things out to make the birds that we were going to make, we stopped to decide just which buttons/feathers/glitter/tissue paper we would use, I put those things on a tray and moved the rest away and then we had a lovely time creating. Sometimes I find I have to throw away things that haven't even been used because they've got glue on them from sticky fingers.

My little ones love collage. If you have lots of nice coloured bits ready cut and choose the right colour paper for the background they can make a nice picture. For winter scenes I use chalk to add a bit of snow.

Make your own pom poms and then make funny creatures out of them

We love making Christmas tree and Easter decorations with coloured modelling clay - some come with glitter

Outside chalking in the garden they both love. I also let them paint shells, big pebbles, twigs, etc outside in the garden when weather nice, they then pop various bits to decorate it, it cheers the garden up!! My eldest loves baking and she decorates biscuit jars to give as presents

Crepe paper pictures.

Get some normal paper then create a pattern or picture on it with crepe paper. Wet it all down, leave to dry overnight, then peel the crepe paper off to reveal the picture underneath. We make our own tartan.

The crepe paper has to be cheapo stuff for the dye to come out of it

Put a canvas or large piece of cardboard outside. Put out some paints and tools such as paint brushes and potato shapes. Let them go wild!

We have used acrylic paint. The colours don't smush with each other, so we get some good results, compared with other paints which end up as a brown mess when all colours mix.

for a good craft idea, i get lots of old cds and we decorate them with glitter, ribbons, coloured tissue paper etc, then we get a photo of them and put it in the mddle, then we get a long piece of ribbon and hang them from the ceiling, they look amazing,all glittering and sparkly.

Favourites for us are still sponge shapes and potatos for painting (and hands and feet) with pastas and lots of glitter and glue!

My mum passed down a brilliant playdough recipe so the kids and i enjoy making that on holidays. It smells delicious and keeps way better than shop brought ones and the kids love making stuff.

I love using straws with the kids and blowing through them to spread the paint - but probably the kids need to be old enough to understand not to suck!

More of a practical suggestion! Buy a large cantilever tool box to store all the smaller crafting bits - it keeps every thing in order and easy to find. I find friends and family love having the option of buying crafting bits as presents when they are struggling for inspiration - it means you get lots of variety and all those stickers and sequins can get expensive if your child enjoys gluing as much as mine does!

Our little one loves a blown up water balloon (more manageable for little hands) and some paint and he rolls the balloon in the paint and makes some beautiful painting, use finger paint and old clothes and let their creative side flow :)