Tell Flora about keeping your LOs entertained during half term with arts & crafts - £200 JL prize draw NOW CLOSED

[KatieBMumsnet]

The folks at Flora want to know if Mumsnetters use arts and craft activities to keep their LOs entertained during school hols like half term.

Here's what Flora have to say, "Arts and crafts are a great way to keep the kids entertained during half term, but what do you do with the mini masterpieces your LOs have spent so long creating? Instead of covering the fridge, Flora are turning scribbly shapes into scrummy Sandwich Cutters. We'd love to hear about your favourite piece of artwork from your LO and how you use arts and crafts to keep your kids entertained."

With half term approaching, is arts and crafts something you and your DCs will be doing? If so, what art and craft activities do your DCs enjoy the most? Do they love finger painting? Or perhaps they prefer getting creative with beads?

If you could choose one piece of your DCs' art to hang on your fridge hall of fame, what would it be?

If you do have a fave piece of artwork from your LO, why not enter it into Flora’s Facebook competition for a chance to win a sandwich cutter in the shape of your DC's best piece of art!

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will receive a £200 John Lewis voucher.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

Dd's 13 and has always been quite crafty. She's into card making and has all the gear, stamps, dies, etc. loves it and keeps her busy for ages.

I buy her loads of stuff and then she sells the cards to me for £1 when I need a birthday card, etc. something not quite right I reckon.

We have a 'making' box which is full of material scraps, glitter, bits n bobs etc. kids love getting this out and use lollipop sticks to make puppets with wool for hair! Always keep old birthday and Christmas cards so they can cut bits out or take off 3D things off the front etc so they can make their own cards for friends/relatives :-)

My LO isn't school aged but all our baby groups are always off when shools are (drives me mad). Are favourite arts and crafts are messy play type things- big sheet of plastic on the floor, strip kid down, poor out paint...

We love painting and making prints with different things.

We've just been doing autumn leaf prints and we made marble effect leaves in autumn colours by cutting out leaf shapes, putting them in a salad spinner, dribbling red, yellow and orange paint onto them and then spinning them really quickly to swirl the paint out and make a marble effect.

Last week we made boats out of different recyclable materials and in different styles. We made one from cardboard, one from folded newspaper, one from a cork with a cocktail stick mast and one from a Flora tub. It started as a school project but we got a bit carried away.

At half term we will be making halloween stained glass cut-outs from black paper plates and orange and yellow tissue paper. We will cut out shapes like pumpkins and bats, stick overlapping strips of different coloured tissue paper across the cut out part at the back of the plate and then hang in the window to see the light through them.

And if we get time, we might start the Christmas crafts.

We will be making lollipop stick nativity people, Father Christmas's, reindeer and snowmen with lollipop sticks, coloured card or felt and goggly eyes. We will use them as puppets and gift tags.

And we have a big canvas to paint a big Christmas tree on, which we are planning to put on the wall above the dining table for Christmas dinner.

And if we are feeling especially crafty, we are going to make a nativity set with air drying clay.

I don't have DCs but my cousins are artistic and my aunt has always shared their drawings with the family via Christmas cards and calendars - seems like a good thing to focus on in the October half term

My tip is to buy a cheap disposable kitchen tablecloth and get the kids to decorate with crayons / stickers. They can draw an ocean and add any sea creatures they may have to create their very own underwater adventure. They could draw a town and add any toy figurines they have. It's an inexpensive and fun way to pass an hour or two, and once they have finished, just save the tablecloth and use the other side on a different day to create more wonderful imaginative stories! Their friends can get stuck in too, so it's a very sociable, very cheap and fab way to fuel their imagination! You can always serve up some warm scones with a spread of Flora!! Magic x

DD's favourite thing is making fans - the house is full of her drawings that have been concertina-ed up into fans.

She always makes birthday cards and Christmas cards with lots f glitter and glue, but it's a bit early to start thatjust now - something for a snowy or sleety nNovember afternoon.

Buy some of those extra sturdy giant balloons, about £1 each, and some small ones,

blow them up(not all the way) hand from a hook, and add layers of ripped newspaper, soaked in water and pva glue(always buy from the builder's merchants massive container for the same price as a small tub from the craft shop)

Add layers (leave to dry between layers) until it's really thick and hard, the ballon will give up eventually, just bend a couple of coat hangers in the gap and carry on, do the last few layers in the coloured paper of choice, or white for painting, final coat of pva.

we make pinata, animals, dragons, fancy dress costumes, furniture, cost hardly anything, needs just a little imagination, and you can have more less anything,

If you finish a giant ballon in orange, you can cut out a scary pumpkin face, and wear a head torch, to guarantee winning any Halloween costume competition, as when the light shines out it makes a scary face on everything.

We love making things in this house, our blue tits have had the indignity of having to go up the nostrils of a troll/gargoyles type face bird box, which my daughter made a few years ago out of paper mache , we are about to make a few more as they need renewing, they last a surprisingly long time in the elements if you finish with PVA and varnish.

I've never grown out of making stuff,grew up to just make bigger things (I build), I'ld be terribly sad if my children ever lost the love of creating things.

DD loves art and is happy with her colouring pencils and felt tips and lots of paper. DD has also got interested in sewing so I pick up off cuts / scraps of fabric when I find them when shopping. I think I might teach DD how to patchwork as I remember doing it when I was about her age.

We get paints out, glue and the recycling box and just go for it... Dd is just 2 so still needs lots of supervision etc!

Her best bits go in scrapbooks or the inside of cupboards/ on the fridge.

We often send art to family and turn it into cards

Mostly chubby crayons so far - DD is 18m! Although she's trying finger paints next week. AFTER I've bought a mat to protect the kitchen floor!

My boys age 5&3 are just getting to,the stage of enjoying arts and crafts and things being able to last longer than ten seconds! I'm planning on trying son junk modelling over the half term although any creations will probably find.their way into the.recycling fair ly quickly as our house is not big enough for random extra stuff!

We are loving Autumn crafts at the minute. Gathering and sticking leaves, acorns and pinecones.

DD is 2.5 so still a bit young for huge art and craft projects, but we have a huge box full of paints, crayons, chalks, paper, pipe cleaners, useful junk and best of all glitter....

We love to make art out of hand and footprints, both to keep for us and when making cards and pictures for others. Our latest attempt was a handprint hungry caterpillar.

We like to do crafts based on the time of year. Last year we did Halloween pictures, used leaves, confers and sticks dipped in paint to make a autumnal picture. This year we have made trees out of toilet rolls using green card and red, orange & yellow paints. We made Easter bunnies out of loo rolls too with footprint ears :). Last Christmas we made snowman cards using her feet.

We love getting the giant chalks out and drawing all over the patio when the sun is shining.

The messier the better in her opinion!

DS's latest craze is painting with his cars. An A3 piece iof paper or his easel with one of those fab ikea rolls, 3 or 4 paper plates with splashes of paint and some easily washed cars and he's occupied for at least half an hour. Washing the cars is a bonus 15mins!

We have some beautiful multicoloured track creations that I must do something with.

Last year all the family got a glitter glued pine cone 'Christmas tree' decorated with pompoms and a finger painted salt dough ornament and one of those baubles filled with glittery stuff he'd chosen. They'll probably never be seen again but it was at least 3 afternoons full of pleasingly messy activity. We might start doing some of that this half term while we have time.

my lo is too young for arts and crafts but we do do crafts with our neighbours, their little girl who is 6 loves us making bags and colouring and making bookmarks but their boy who is 8 doesnt like it so much

My lil one is a bit to young to enjoy proper arts n crafts. However he loves sticking stuff on paper. He also loves play doh n makes interesting creatures. He is also very into colouring lately. I save his 'art' in a folder

We are clearly in the minority as rarely do anything crafty at home. Before I had DS I had a vision of us painting together at the kitchen table, doing potato prints, sticking, making Christmas decorations with seasonal music playing and the smell of baking in the air ...

The reality is 10 minutes to set up something... 5 minutes of actual craft... 60 minutes of clearing up whilst DS goes back to playing football.

He makes stuff at school and holiday club and that's fine!

My son currently loves plaster molds and painting them - keeps him busy. Also, drawing and cutting our collages are a hit.

Both my eldest DC love drawing, and some of my favourite things are pictures by my DS - they usually involve lego men, and I prefer the ones without so much blood in. My DD is younger, and is more into colouring and sticking, and she has decorated a box for her room. We have a wall of pictures up in the dining room and change them every so often.

I keep far too much junk in case it might be useful for something. Yoghurt pots and similar either for paint/glue or building with, boxes of all shapes and sizes (can cut up for cardboard as well), and anything else that looks interesting. We have yet to finish a junk model - I think I'm being too ambitious.

We often make cards for birthdays (pictures on the front of folded paper) and christmas, and we'll probably do some painting/drawing over the holidays when the youngest isn't around (he's 2 and likes other people's things more than his, so anything arty ends in carnage and tears). Both the older 2 need some storage boxes for their rooms, so I might get them to decorate some before we go on an organisational rampage.

My all time favourite drawing is by my eldest son. I've thought about turning it into a design for the front of a bag. Me and my DD knitted a scarf for her doll, and we're aiming for matching hat/mittens. She does tend to get bored with it (well, she is only 4!) but is very keen and I ahev hopes for sewing as well.

I'm a storyteller and children's entertainer, so my DCs get to test out all my arts and crafts activities before I unleash them on the public.
They love soaking paper in tea to make scrolls and treasure maps, or making their own puppets to star in shows they put on for Dad when he gets home.
Unfortunately, our house is so fun I usually end up playing host to half the neighbourhood DCs. I've started asking them to bring snacks, so they don't all eat me out of house and home.
They're like locusts, I don't know where they put it all.

We love arts and crafts and have made everything from shields and axes to Egyptian beaded headdresses.

My top tip would be cover the table with a large plastic table cover, then at the end scrunch up around the edges so all the unused sequins, beads etc fall into the middle. Pour into a jar or tub and keep to use again.

One of my favorites was to imagine your own fantasy world and make it out of any craft materials or in fact anything you can find in the house and garden. Try an ice-cream world or a mystical monster island. Just think of a scheme, go on a hunt for materials and let your imagination go!

We love doing crafts and sticking glitter and tissue etc.

I save cardboard, egg boxes etc and stock up on cheap craft supplies at the pound shop.

As my girls are only 2 I often cut card into the shape of an animal and then the girls go to work on the them. My favourites are fish bowls and elephants and we have both on our fridge hall of fame already

I made a big batch of salt-dough today and gave the DC a bowl each, pastry cutters, food colouring and jewels / gems. They spent all morning cutting out shapes, colouring them and decorating with jewels. Now they are in the oven. We will put paint / glue / glitter them tomorrow. They want to hang some up for Halloween - cut out bats, cats, ghosts etc.... They've had lots of fun for very little cost, great

My children are pre school age so half term doesn't really apply to us, but we have already made salt dough Christmas decorations! I'm not even a Christmassy person, just got desperate for a rainy day activity!
But salt dough is a great go-to craft activity and we are big fans in this house.