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

Making cards is always a really fun activity and cheaper too! Get some card, fold it and let them go mad with stickers, felt tips etc. Brilliant fun and one of a kind!

We ended up with a whole load of paper plates and cardboard cups after DH went a bit over the top buying supplies for an office barbecue, so lots of our craft activities involve those.
Paper plate masks is a good one, and paper plate animals - you can make a good fish by cutting a triangle out of a plate to be the fishes mouth, and then sticking the triangle at the back to be the tail.

we love making things from hand and foot prints like flowers and trees and Rudolph

We like painting with our hands and feet buy a cheap paint roller tray from the pound shop filled with child friendly poster paint and off you go. It's great for the summer as you can do it outside on large pieces of paper or wallpaper. Light colours look great on black paper.

Learn some basic Origami and invest in a ream of paper. Kids are fascinated by what can be made. You might enjoy it too. Cheap hobby and helps to fill an indoors day.

Unroll wallpaper (or any roll of paper) on the floor and get your child to lie down on top. Draw round them then get them to colour in themselves! You can do the whole family and they will love drawing round mum/dad!

We love painting. Especially Butterflies, where you fold the paper in half. We also make our own play doh and half of the fun is the making of it and deciding what colours we want it. We collect egg boxes and yoghurt pots which make great bases for craft ideas

Let them get messy and paint with their fingers

I save all our children's magazines and give the kiddies scissors and glue and let them get cutting. x

We like to do seasonal crafts

we love making leaf garlands in the autumn - super easy and even the smallest can take part. we collect bright coloured leaves and then I pierce them all with a knitting needle then the kids thread them onto string and we use them to decorate our garden

in winter we make pretend snowmen out of cotton wool, pebbles from the beach and some orange felt

In spring we make giant tulips from paper plates - they are really easy to do as you just cut them in half and snip the top and then paint them . we stick them up on the fence in the garden

In summer we collect sand from the beach and shells and then we make a big beach scene on paper using glue and sprinkling on the sand, blue tissue paper for the sea and then add on the shells and bits

its not only a fun way of crafting that usually means we spend a few days getting all the items and keeps the kids entertained when we are out but it also helps them learn about the seasons too

My LO loves junk modelling. Lots of toilets rolls and cardboard boxes and of course an endless supply of tape! Mess free, keeps them amused for hours and also can be recycled afterwards (after taking a photo of the creation of course ;) )

One of my sons favourite activites at the minute is to take a large piece of A3 card (we've used different colours including black) and fold it in half and on one side he makes marks with paint and then we fold the paper closed and rub it and it makes pictures

You can beat making butterflies. Paint one side of the butterfly and then fold over so the pattern is recreated. Magic!

We love going outside and gathering leaves, rocks etc and then going crazy crafting with whatever we find. It is lots of fun and great for the imagination!

What I used to do when I was a kid was get some colour catalogues or mags, and a hole punch. I'd punch little round punches of colours and then painstakingly glue them on a card to make a picture. Very satisfying, but a bit fiddly. I went on to do an art degree!

my LO used to love doing nature collages =- collect leaves and such on a woodland walk and then glue them onto (fairly robust!) paper to make pictures.

I brought my daughter some canvas that she could paint on, and she absolutely loves it, they keep her busy and makes lovely gifts for family :)

Go for walk in park pick up leaves, sticks etc and make collage type thing but also using handprints upside down to make animals, Fun and messy and adventure getting the right items to start with

Me and my daughter made this frame yesterday. We collected twigs, flowers and leaves and used some of my knitting wool. It was great fun.

Potato printing

We buy cheap lengths of muslin from the market, step in paint, and walk up and down the fabric, I then put tabs on the top, and we turn then into curtains, the DC's love it!

I really enjoyed reading the suggestions on here, DS is 2 and just getting properly interested in arts & crafts so I need ideas!
I keep a few plastic bags full of paints, glitter, felt, etc and massive sheets of craft paper - this means I can always whip out some items and just let DS make a mess on a rainy day, but we do have specific "projects" that we do from time to time. They tend to be things we can "use", rather than e.g. 3d collages, just because we've not got the space for loads of ornamental things.

1: Draw your own designs on cheap white mugs (Tesco value/wilko/ikea) with sharpie pens then bake in ovens to set. There are various tips on the Internet, but overall a super simple thing to make and the kids will be proud to see their designs being used. An alternative for summer is to paint little terracotta plant pots, which can then be given as gifts or used for your own kids' herbs, etc.
2: Young children can scribble and draw all over an a4 sheet, you laminate it and it can be used as their placemat. When I was 6 one of my friends made me one as an Xmas gift and I remember being so impressed.
3: Recycle old tshirts/bedsheets/muslin cloths by stamping (potato stamps or shop-bought) shapes with fabric paint all over them, then sewing into basic cushion covers or tote bags. You can even use the cloth for wrapping gifts, Google 'furoshiki'.

My daughter loves to cover toilet roll tubes in peanut butter, roll them in seeds and slide them onto branches on the trees in the garden. We sit in the window counting/drawing the many birds that come to feast :)

cutting pictures/photos from magazines to make a collage; stamp tulips with paint and plastic fork

Splatter Painting Jackson Pollock style. Quite messy and best done outdoors. Using poster paint put a big blob on your brush and swing it with your Rm towards your paper to create different coloured splatters.