Get Crafty

Painting Pasta
the perfect rainy day craft

There are a number of ways of colouring pasta for threading or play jewellry making. Older children will enjoy painting the pasta with poster paints and decorating the painted pasta with bright coloured spots or little flowers.  The   decorated pasta to make dressing up box jewellry or the finished pasta beads could be gifted to a younger child. Painted pasta can also be used in the creation of collages.

                    
 
Younger children will enjoy the threading bit!

Younger children love threading, and for this pasta can easily be coloured with food colouring. All you need is suitable pasta shapes, a little vinegar a ziplock bag and food colouring. 
  


Make yourself a Magical Wand

Use twigs or rolled up paper to make the wand
handle and cut stars from gold card. Maybe put 
a little magic into your wand by threading
pretty beads and stars onto thin wire and 
winding the wire into place on a decorated 
wand handle.  Most importantly, have fun! 



and.....
 

 
Eyeball and Spoon
Race
It's Halloween, and I guess you've heard of an egg and spoon race, well we thought an eyeball and spoon race would be a lot of fun. First you need to make some eyeballs!  
 We made eyeballs from air-dry white clay which you can make at home. Before you begin you will need permission and assistance from an adult. The clay needs to be cooked on the stove.

Air-dry White Clay
you will need: 
1 cup of cornflour  1 cup of water
2 cups of bicarbonate of soda
Your local supermarket should stock both cornflour and bicarbonate of soda, you will find it in the baking section.

Measure the ingredients into a saucepan and place the saucepan over a medium heat. Use a wooden spoon to stir as the mixture heats, don't stop stirring or your clay will be lumpy. The mixture should thicken as it cooks until it resembles mashed potato and comes away from the sides of the saucepan to form a ball. 


When this happens remove from the heat and tip the clay onto a clean plate. Remember that the clay will be very hot so take care and don't touch it. Cover with a damp tea towel and set aside until the clay is cool enough to work. 

Decorating for Halloween
 This is the sort of thing you would hang in a doorway at the entrance to a room. The bats and bones are made of thin card and paper (or newspaper) and threaded onto long strings before being tied onto a bit of garden cane or dowel which is attached to the door frame.