Picture frame decorated with quilling

I decorated this simple wooden frame with quilled flowers, a dragonfly and butterfly. I think paper quilling can be a wonderful way of turning dull objects into something much more attractive.

Make a toy TV set from a cereal box

Insert a DVD and watch wildlife programmes...

Baked salt dough owl wall hanging

This time we tried a home-made modelling dough. How to make such an owl — on SolNEt.ee (in Russian, but with step-by-step pictures). You can also find lots of modelling dough recipes on the Web, for example here or here. We use the following one:

• 1 cup salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Mix flour and salt in a bowl, add oil and mix well, then add water and mix thoroughly to form a dough. The dough can be stored in a fridge in an air-tight bag for a couple of weeks.

After shaping the owl we let it dry in the sun for one day, then baked at 80 C (175 F) for two hours and at 150 C (300 F) for 30 minutes. For eyes we used allspice (Jamaica pepper/pimento/newspice).

I would recommend coating your owl with a varnish, but remember not to use water-based varnishes since they dissolve the dough. You can also paint on salt dough models.

Other things we made of the dough: aircraft, snail, hedgehog, snowman etc.

Cute snail made using a discarded CD/DVD

This happy snail is made out of a recycled CD and coloured paper. One of our ways to use old CDs. You'll need just to cut out a swirl, eyes and mouth, and then glue everything down. Even 4-year-olds can do this simple craft.

Bunch of quilled flowers

A bunch of quilled flowers. And a box with the shapes before arrangement.

Make a papier-mache airplane using a water bottle

Hurray! Finally we've finished this papier-mache aircraft made of a plastic bottle after Tatyana Dubinsky's "Goldfish" (in Russian). The process was taken pictures of for those who're interested.

Easy to make decoupage candles

Making decorative decoupage candles is an easy craft that allows the whole family to have fun. My method takes about 15 minutes, not including drying.

Make a cookie wall hanging

Actually, it's not a mobile and not made of cookies. We had a lot of fun while making this very simple hanging decoration. Now two such "mobiles" are hanging on the wall above the children's beds. Maybe some day we'll arrange the shapes into something more complex, but the main idea remains the same. We used our favourite "Keramikal", but any other modelling material will do.

Blue papier-mache bird

I found the idea of such a birdie on the wonderful Tatyana Dubinsky's blog (in Russian): "Primitive papier-mache". Used a small plastic bottle as a mould, crumpled a paper ball — the head — and attached it, made a triangle cardboard beak. Attached a paper cone at the rear to be used for tail feathers later. Covered with three layers of papier-mache (small pieces of white paper with glue), attached feathers. Finished by painting and gluing wiggly eyes.

Make a cute caterpillar picture frame

This cute caterpillar picture frame was really easy to make, and my kids enjoyed both the process and the result.

You will need cardboard, coloured paper (or paints), scissors, adhesive and photographs. There are also a lot of ways to decorate your frame: glitter, beads, collage or whatever you want. We just glued pom-poms and wiggly eyes. I hope the making itself is quite obvious. I'll mention only that we used a circle-and-leg template for caterpillar sections.