Craft Tent | cranbrookgnim

Welcome to our online craft tent

When making these projects children must always be supervised by an adult.

CranbrookGNIM@gmail.com

This year the ideas for ‘Cranbrook Goes Nuts in May’ Children’s Craft Tent will be coming from a local back garden. We'll be adding bee-themed ideas to reflect our festival's theme and garden-based projects too.

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Project One: Clothes Peg Bee

Materials:

wooden clothes peg, rectangle of thin fabric, piece of black chenille stem (pipecleaner), wiggle eyes, small ‘jewels’

Start by drawing the yellow stripes on your peg. Let them dry, and then draw the black stripes.
Gather the fabric together in the middle, by pushing it with your fingers, and give it a half twist. Hold onto the twist while you open the peg, and trap the fabric in the peg’s jaws.
Fold the chenille stem in half, and bend the ends round to make antennae. Take care that you don’t prick your fingers on the wire inside. Trap the middle of the antennae in the jaws of the peg, in the same place as the fabric.
Stick on the eyes and draw a mouth.
Finish your bee by decorating it with jewels.

Ideas for adapting this project

Perhaps you could use different types of pegs, plastic bag ties, buttons, coloured advertising cards (from inside newspapers and magazines), plain white paper (pleated like a fan). Make a different insect, such as a butterfly.

Project Two: Pebble Worker Bee

At the moment lots of children are decorating pebbles for other children to find. If you make this pebble bee, keep it safely to display for Cranbrook Goes Nuts in May.

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Materials:

2 pebbles, a plastic milk bottle (the size depends on the size of your pebbles), 3 black chenille stems (pipecleaners)

Cut open your milk bottle, just keeping the 3 sides without the handle.
Place your pebbles on top of the plastic to decide how big your wings should be, and draw the shape that you will cut out. The antennae can be part of this plastic. It helps to practise with a piece of paper.
Paint the pebbles to look like the different parts of the bee. Try to find a picture that you can copy.
Cut the chenille stems to 3 different lengths, and then bend each into a v-shape to make the legs.
Stick the wings to your pebbles, with the legs sandwiched between the pebbles and the wings.

Ideas for adapting this project

Perhaps you could use one pebble, the plastic from a food tray, cardboard food packaging, rubber bands or sticky tape. You can even use scrunched up newspaper. If you have some plain paper to wrap round your newspaper, keep scrunching it up, and then carefully flattening it out again. This will make it much easier to wrap around to make a curved shape.

Ideas for adapting this project

Project Three: Pot of Flowers

If you are making bees, this is a way of making flowers for them to visit. Keep your pot of flowers safely to display for Cranbrook Goes Nuts in May.

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Materials:

An A4 sheet of green paper (or draw stalks, stems and leaves on to a white piece), some scrap pieces of coloured paper or thin card, a plastic milk bottle lid.

Fold the A4 sheet in half, making a long thin strip, and glue inside the open edges to hold them together.
Draw a line, about 3cm away from the open edge, and then cut straight lines from the folded edge down to that line. Make your cuts about 1.5cm apart
Roll your green paper into an open tube, a bit like a toilet roll. It helps to put some glue along the uncut part, to hold it together.
Cut some flower shapes from your scrap pieces. If you find this hard to do, draw a circle using the bottle lid, and cut it out. Then cut little triangular notches out of the edge of the circle. You can draw, or stick on decorations, for the centre of each flower.
Bend some of the green strips down a bit, and stick flowers on to them.

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Ideas for adapting this project

Perhaps you could use pieces of cardboard tube from a kitchen roll, or a wrapping paper tube, and cut some flower shapes out of coloured paper from a magazine.

Project Four: Button Bees

The Button Bees have settled on a honeycomb made of slices of kitchen roll tube. Send your work into our Busy Bee competition - there's a £20 prize to be won!

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Materials:

Medium or large buttons (black, yellow, orange or gold), wool for stripes, wiggle eyes, black wire or kitchen ties.

Choose the smoothest side of the button to be the top.
Thread a piece of wire, or kitchen tie, through the holes in the button to make antennae. (Bend the ends of the wire over when they are through, for safety.)
Use glue to stick short pieces of wool to the button for the stripes. It is easier to use pieces that are too long, and trim them after the glue has dried.
Stick on the wiggle eyes

Ideas for adapting this project

If you haven’t got strong glue, make your bees with circles of paper or card.

If you haven’t got yellow or black wool, you can use felt pens or paint to colour string.

Use different coloured buttons, or milk bottle tops to make different creatures, such as ladybirds and beetles. Use a hole punch to cut neat circles of paper for eyes or spots.

Project Five: Bee Pencil Topper

Make them for lots of your pencils, and stand them in a pot. Send your work into our Busy Bee competition by Friday May 22nd - there's a £20 prize to be won!

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Materials:

A piece of yellow craft foam or thin card, piece of black chenille stem (pipecleaner), wiggle eyes, two different sized jar lids to draw round, black marker pen, or pieces of black paper of card.

Put your lids onto the foam or card, and draw around them. Cut them out.
On the larger piece, draw stripes (or stick on strips of black paper or card) to make the body.
On the smaller piece, stick on, or draw, the eyes and a big smile.
To make antennae, bend the piece of chenille stem into a v-shape, and glue or tape it to the back of the head.
Fold the body in half, and make two short parallel cuts in from the folded edge. Try fitting your pencil through them. Make the cuts a bit longer, if needed.
Stick the head to the body.

Ideas for adapting this project

If you haven’t got foam or coloured craft card, cut some coloured paper or card from a magazine or food box. If it is too floppy, glue it to some thin card, such as a cereal box. If you haven’t got chenille stems, use plastic bag ties or garden ties for antennae. Make different insects, such as a butterflies and ladybirds.

Project Six: Lolly Stick Bee

A very good excuse to eat ice lollies. Send your work into our Busy Bee competition by Friday May 22nd - there's a £20 prize to be won!

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Materials:

3 lolly sticks, a rubber band

Draw a bee face, with some antennae, at the top of one lolly stick.
On the same stick, draw yellow stripes. Let them dry, and then draw the black stripes in between.
Cross the other two sticks over each other, quite near to the top, to make the wings.
Put the rubber band around them, starting from top to bottom. Then continue putting the rubber band around them from side to side.
Slip your striped bee stick through the rubber band, underneath the wings.

Ideas for adapting this project

Make different insects. To make a butterfly or dragonfly, cross the sticks over more equally, or you could colour paper wings to stick on instead. Add some curly antennae with a chenille stem or plastic bag tie. Maybe you could add some glitter and/or gems.

Project Seven: Handprint Bee

This is lots of fun. Just be careful that you don’t put your painted hand on precious things!

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Materials:

Sheets of white paper, yellow and black child-safe paint, a paint brush or flat tray (such as a baking tray), marker pen.

a. Squeeze blobs of paint on to your tray. Paint yellow stripes across the inside of your hand. Then carefully paint black stripes in between. You have to work quite quickly, so that the paint doesn’t dry. Or
b. (Easier for very young children) Squeeze alternate black and yellow lines of paint across the tray to make a patch of paint bigger than your hand. Very carefully press your hand onto the paint, and lift it up again, without wiggling it around.
Carefully place your painted hand onto the paper, with your little finger quite close to a long edge. Use your other hand to press firmly all over the back of your hand, fingers, and thumb.
Lift your hand straight up from the paper, or if it seems stuck, carefully peel the paper away. Leave to dry. (Cut out your handprint if your paper is a bit messy.)
On another piece of paper, paint a yellow circle to be your bee’s head. Leave it to dry, and then cut it out.
Stick the yellow circle onto the handprint body, and draw a face on it.
Draw some wings, legs and antennae.

Ideas for adapting this project

Use different colours for different creatures. You can use both hands to make prints to use for wings.

Project Eight: Spiral Snail

Although we get very cross when snails eat our favourite plants, they have beautiful spiral shells.

CHILDREN MUST ALWAYS BE SUPERVISED BY AN ADULT

Materials:

Yellow paper (I started with an A4 sheet), green paper.

Start by measuring and cutting 3 strips. Mine were 3cm wide.
Cut one strip in half, and put a half to one side, ready to make the head and tail later.
Join the two whole strips and the half strip together, to make one long strip.
Pinch the end of the strip between your thumb and finger, and wind the strip round to make a spiral. Keep holding it while you staple it (it’s easier if you put the base of the stapler inside the spiral), or put a strip of sticky tape through the centre and round underneath.
Fold the head and tail strip in half, and mark it to cut a point at one end, and eye stalks at the other. Open it up and draw eyes.
Stick the spiral onto the head/tail piece.
Draw a leaf shape on the green paper, and cut it out.
Stick your snail onto the leaf.