I even made a colouring sheet, so other people’s children could colour in my owls, too – in case they wanted to as much mine!

(Click on the image to link to the post on my illustration blog, where you can download the free, printable colouring sheet.)

And then Merry came up with the idea to make an owl craft activity out of them. So, here you go…

Owl Cut Out Craft

Download the OwlCutOut and then print three copies, each onto different coloured card.

Then cut out all the shapes. If you can, cut just inside the lines, so you don’t have any lines showing. You could also cut along the lines and use the pieces upside down (though you’d need to use them all upside down for them to fit).

(I cut out the little owls, too – they’re there so you can see how it all fits together, but you can also use them for other things, too, if you want.)

And then stick them together, using the colour combinations you want.

You can also decorate them with extra elements. I used some of the off-cuts from the card and punched lots of holes and then used some of the circles to make a pattern on one of the owls. You could also add stickers or draw on patterns, or glue on any other crafty bits and pieces you have.

And you can even use the off-cuts to create another picture.

Adaptations

You could use your cut-out shapes as templates and sew an owl (I am going to have a go at this myself, I think). Or you could cut out different materials, like cardboard boxes, or tissue paper, or shiny foil. You could even make an owl entirely out of recycled material – cereal boxes, sweet wrappers, delivery boxes…

Merry adds: I’m totally doing these in felt…

Tasha Goddard has been drawing since she was three and hopes never to stop. She blogs about her artwork at Tasha Goddard Illustration, and also has a Facebook page. You can follow her on Google+ and Twitter, too.

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Our trusty pom pom makers (coming soon to a brand new online craft shop near here are favourites with us and the rabbit and chick are made from the 2 medium large sizes. Any dk yarn will work – Sirdar and Robin do cheap ones. Some big googly eyes glued on, with the head and body also glued together (PVA works well) and ears, feet and beak cut out of foam sheets complete the look. Maddy finished the scene off with foam grass banks and pom poms made in several green, yellow and brown shades to make bushes.

I rather liked the nest – its just the end of a ball of brown wool fluffed out underneath that Easter chick. I have to say the rabbit looks a little nervous, but that is a VERY. BIG. CHICK.

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Here it is, a pretty Easter basket (to put pretty felted Easter eggs in, coming soon).

Start with a jar, a big lump of Fimo (I did brown but you could do anything, pink, purple, lime green would look nice too) and a rolling pin (it doesn’t actually come in at any point in the instructions but it’s good for warming the Fimo up), some felt (same colour as the Fimo and some more for the flowers) a pipe cleaner, a needle and thread and some Fimo vanish. roll the Fimo into two long sausages of equal length, then press the ends together and twist them as in the picture, the longer the sausages the harder and fiddly-er this part will be but the more time and care you put into it the better it will turn out (to be very honest I rushed mine a bit but it seems to be OK!).

Now you have a long twisted sausage, wrap it around the jar starting at the bottom and ending at the top, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t reach all the way. bake it in a oven at 110 Celsius for thirty minuets, let it cool down and then varnish the Fimo, leave it to dry (this will take about an hour depending on the amount on varnish you put on).

Now cut out the felt flowers, what I did was use four different colours and out of each on make one big flower, one small flower, one big dot and one small dot (you could also make leaves), then sew all dots and flowers together (the dots go in the middle of the flowers) then make three strips of the felt the same colour as the Fimo about 15cm long and 2cm wide, then make two more strips 6cm long (doesn’t matter how wide) and sew one across the the ends of the three long ones as shown, then plat the three strips but make sure you don’t do it tightly and keep it flat, then sew the other short strip across the ends, next cut the pipe cleaner in half and push it through the plait making sure it doesn’t show up on the other side of it.

Now its time to start decorating! stick the flowers with fabric glue on the basket and plat handle. bend the handle into an arch shape and glue the ends on to the basket (don’t worry, it’s just decoration and isn’t supposed to be used as a actual handle) and leave it to dry. there you have it! a beautiful basket!

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This was a nice easy cereal packet construction underneath, a wide cylinder stuck with packing tape down the back, a circle with some tabs sticking out cut out and then the tabs stuck down to the cylinder to make the top and a wide rim, with similar tabs glued inside to hold it on. Once it was all secure, Maddy stuck layers of bright green tissue on to the hat and then PVA glue over the top to make it shiny. Actually it was smoother and glossier than it looks in the picture. The belt is just black and yellow card, taped at the back. It was pretty effective as quick fun crafts go and certainly kept her quiet for a while

As is customary, we also have a Pinterest Board for you

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At Christmas I was given mica powders to play with; these are cheap to buy on eBay, a scrapbooking material that seems to have a lot of uses and be lots of fun (if potentially rather messy!)

I cut fimo hearts out using a cookie cutter in red, pink and lilac (I lie, Maddy did this bit for me in fact ) and then experimented with different powder layers on top of each other until I had a different look for each heart.

Last year I bought some metal letter stamps from eBay too, which were £10 for the box. There is a bit of a knack to them but I managed to stencil each of my children's names on to a heart and then decorate the rest to suit. With some of them I did a layer of powder afterwards to accentuate the letters a little.

Before I baked them I pushed a stick/skewer into the bottom to make a hole, baked and then filled the hole with liquid fimo, added a skewer again and baked so it was solid. You could just use glue (but I couldn't find any!)

Maddy decorated a jar for me with twists of wool glued on in a random pattern and pushed plasticine into the bottom. It holds my six children just perfectly

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You will need hama beads of your choice, a heart shaped hama board (big or small depending on the size you want the box), a hexagon shaped board and some glue.

First make two heart designs as the bottom and the lid of your box. To make the ribbon effect make a line across the heart, you can make it plain or patterned. Don't worry if its not straight, you can cover any wobbly bits with the bow later. Once they are finished iron them both.

Now make more hearts but only the outside layer as shown, make sure you get the patterns right so that it goes down the side. The more you make the bigger your box will be, I suggest about 4, 5 or 6 layers, once they're done and ironed glue them together as shown (but don't glue on the lid!), if you like you can make a layer one smaller than the others and glue it to the bottom of the lid so it doesn't slide off.

Finally make the bow on the hexagon board and glue it on the lid. You can make it bigger or smaller or patterned or you can make more than one, but make sure you make it like the ribbon. Leave it to dry and then you have the perfect valentines gift box!

Blogged by Maddy.

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First each of the kids made a pom pom or two in small sizes, using links and white yarns, or whatever suited their version of romance the best

I then drew some quick heart shapes using a word processing programme (templates to follow) and they cut out two sides of each in felt of their choice. We had threads, buttons and sequins out and the decided each side of the hearts to suit themselves. Decorate each side first, then blanket stitch them together with a little stuffing if you wish.

Once completed, they threaded a bodkin with a cotton based yarn (won't stretch) and threaded it through the hears and pom poms, tied knots below each element to secure them and hung them up. Ideally they will look lovely in a window or below a light shade; we hung these on a door.

You could use ribbon to thread them; in this case place the ribbon through the pom pom before cutting and tying it and place it through the centre of the heart before you stitch it together.

Well done girls.

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You need red, yellow and blue acrylic yarn and some different coloured pipe cleaners plus something to make eyes; paper, felt or googly eyes will work.

First make 4 medium pom poms, roughly the size of the palm of an adult hand. These pom poms are work out as mostly red, with 1/6 of it wound in yellow. This makes the stripe down his back.

Next make 2 or 3 similarly coloured smaller ones to make the tail, getting smaller as they go along. You can decide how long to make his tail depending on how patient you are. Make another red/yellow medium one to be the nose and a really big one in the same colours to be the head (so, 5 medium, 1 large and 2-3 smaller ones).

Next a thinner pom pom (not too thickly wound) in blue to be the ruffle round his neck.

Now thread yarn through the centre of each pom pom (best to use a thick needle) in this order (medium, large, ruffle,, medium, medium, medium, smalls) and make a really big knot or thread a bead on each end and knot it to make the ends secure.

To make feet, fold a pipe cleaner over the central yarn  and twist it round to secure it as two legs, then make feet at each end. You could decorate the feet with felt or foam. Do one set near the head and one set near the tail.

Do similar ones with more pipe cleaners as horns and spikes wherever you fancy. Some between the nose and head look good as whiskers. Finish off with eyes.

We tied some string lengths to places along the central yarn to hold it up. If you attach that to a stick, you get a pom pom puppet!

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Maddy has a great craft lined up for tomorrow but I’m hoping I might persuade her to do another dramatic and brand new hama pattern too.

The same year we also had a go at making Hama Bead tangrams…

These sort of worked – we had another go and made each individual piece too but the bumpy edges meant they weren’t good enough to play with. Did inspire the kids to actually print off some paper ones though.

One of the younger children made Chinese people. Clearly the whole red and gold thing had hit home, even if nothing else did!

I’m a little out of the blogging habit just now, what with one thing and another (and a lovely blanket to crochet!) but hopefully putting up a recycled craft here will inspire us all to be more creative tomorrow!

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First we cut out a snowflake from white fimo. It gets covered in powder so it doesn't matter if the white isn't perfect.

This is the back of the snowflake, which I left white but used texture plates to enhance a little. You can colour both sides but it makes it a little trickier. You could paint it with acrylics after it is all baked though; metallic colours would look great.

Flip the snowflake over and put heaps of mica powder (these are ejr powders) on the front. Smooth it in well and then rub the powder in with baking paper or your finger so it is well stuck down.

Once done, press a texture plate on to the front. Spot the deliberate mistake with my green one (as opposed to the blue one at the top… I didn't think about the angle of the snowflake so the writing is slanted!)

I use a roller on top of my texture plates to get an even pressure when I press a design in. Then heap a different colour of powder on to the snowflake, on top of the base (the green in my case) and distribute it across the snowflake. It will move easily but light pressure with a finger tip will press it on enough to stay in the depressions.

Bake your first snowflake, otherwise when it is added to the back one, it will have droopy 'petals'.

Now, cut a second, larger snowflake from more white fimo. Repeat the texturing of back and front and add a colour of powder to one or both sides. Make a hole for a hanging thread in the tip of one point.

Add a blob of liquid fimo to the larger snowflake, press the baked smaller snowflake on to it and rebake the two together.

Ejr powders can be varnished but seem to stay pretty well glued on even without

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