Collage: Bouquet of flowers made of pencil shavings

Don’t throw away pencil shavings! You can use them to make lots of interesting things, a bouquet like this one, for example.

How to make toy insects from pompoms

There's a simple technique for creating cute toy insects from pompoms. For example, for such a honeybee you will need pompoms, colored paper, and a wooden toothpick or cocktail stick.

Make a ladybug and dragonfly collage using craft sticks

Very special crafts can be made using wooden craft sticks (a.k.a. popsicle sticks or lolly sticks), like this ladybug and dragonfly collage. Find a simple picture for your design and color the sticks according to it. Then let your kids arrange and glue the colored sticks on a piece of construction paper. Using other supplies along with craft sticks and combining different techniques can be a good idea. For example, I used also black round stickers, a pipe cleaner and wiggly eyes for this simple project. Wiggly eyes can be easily made out of discarded tablet blister packs, or just purchased at a crafts store.

Papercraft: Crab and octopus

It’s a cute and very simple craft. I used this idea. Cut out a paper rectangle along the short edge of an A4 sheet, one third of the sheet’s length. Draw crab’s eyes (or octopus’ head) in the middle, and symmetrically two claws and 6 legs (or 8 tentacles for octopus). Cut out and glue the edges to make a cylinder. Put on a sheet of paper with legs up, bend them down and glue the edges. Draw or glue eyes and mouth. Here you are!

Template: click and print out

Nature craft: Owl made of river sheoak fruit

Every child brings home pebbles, twigs, rocks, pine cones and other objects from his or her outdoor walk. Once, after looking into my children’s pockets, I’ve decided to make this cute owl. Materials used: river sheoak fruit (casuarina cunninghamiana) and araucaria stems.

Miniature desk made of matchboxes

Here's an easy to make tiny matchbox desk. The drawers can be pulled out just like the real thing.

You will need:

• glue
• 6 matchboxes for drawers
• matches for tiny pencils (match heads can be used also for knobs)
• a piece of thick cardboard: glue it underneath the cabinet of drawers on the right side of the picture, this will make both sides of the desk of the same height
• coloured paper, wallpaper, scissors, paint etc. for decorating