Saturday 9 May 2020

Crafting with your Kids - List of 10 Things to have in Stock



Crafting With Kids - 10 Things you should have in Stock

Download this shopping list for your convenience












Salam all! Planning on crafting regularly with your kids? Here is a list of things you should have in stock. Given the current situation with COVID-19, you probably won’t be making regular trips to the dollar store (which is the best place to get all these supplies). It’ll be much more convenient to get everything in one trip. Once you’re well stocked it would be nice to have a crafting box/bin so that you can have all your items conveniently placed.

I have created a list of items that I consider staples to have at home if you want to craft with kids. Crafting is always a great way to engage with children. It also offers something fun to do on rainy/snowy days. So, here we go!

Paper: This item is always in demand in my house. I keep regular printer paper for colouring, printing worksheets etc. I’ve also learned that it's important to have construction paper in stock as well. This gives them a range of colours to work with without breaking the bank. Something that I’ve just recently started to keep in stock is card stock paper. This is a thick, heavy duty paper used for a multitude of crafts. It comes in a range of colours and textures. I always try to have white card stock in storage at my house because it gives structure and strength to a lot of the crafts I want to make with the kids.
These are some of the brands of card stock I've used so far and have loved them!
Stickers: There is always such a huge range of stickers and adhesive decorations at the dollar store, it can often be overwhelming. Steer clear from branded, trademarked characters. Lean more towards generic stickers that can be used to decorate your child's crafts. Examples include, adhesive glitter paper, rhinestone and gem stickers, flower and butterfly stickers, shape sand letter stickers. If you can find adhesive googly eyes - that's a bonus!
These type of stickers are super useful for decorating crafts!

Painting Tools: Painting is such an easy activity to do with our kids - and there is such a range of types of painting! The possibilities are endless. Once you're at the dollar store, be sure to get paintbrushes, paint (poster paint, tempra paint or acrylic paint are all great options). If you're painting with younger children 18 months to 3 years old, be sure to get non-toxic paint that is safe for their fingers. Don't forget to grab a painting palette so that they can freely mix colours. I also found it useful to get smocks for them to protect their clothes while painting. Also, paintbrushes can be used in a range of different crafts that aren't related to painting!
Watercolour paints are also super useful!

Colouring Utensils: This is an important one! Be sure to stock up on markers, crayons and pencil crayons. Kids get excited about colouring when they have a large range of colours to use. I have had bad experiences with getting the dollar store brand of colours. I tend to stick to name brand colours so that they will last longer and will provide bright and vivid colours. My favourites are Crayola and Prismacolor. I also find it useful to have Sharpie markers so that we can write on all different surfaces.
Popsicle Sticks/Craft Sticks: These are also great to have in stock - there's a huge range of crafts you can make with them. There are two sizes that are most useful, as you can see in the picture. It would also be nice to get them in a pack with different colours so that your crafts can be more colourful and vivid.
Such great value when you get them from the dollar store!

Streamers or Wrapping Tissue: It's great to have tissue and streamers in your craft bin. They come in handy with all sorts of crafts, including mosaic crafts! The best part is that they are multi-functional and can also be used to wrap gifts, or for party decor!
These add so much colour and texture to your crafts!

Pipe Cleaners/ Chenille Stems: Pipe cleaners are great to have around in case you want to make a quick craft with your children. These are especially useful if your child likes making animal-themed crafts. Sugar crystals are a huge hit with them as well!
You'll never run out of things to do with these!

School Glue/Glue Sticks and all types of Tape: Don't forget to stock up on these! I definitely undermined the importance of school glue - I have used it so much over the past two weeks. It's also way stronger than I thought - I was able to stick cotton, pompoms, tissue, etc easily to paper. Tape is also a staple - I found packing tape, clear office tape and masking tape to be the most useful.
My personal favourite: School Glue!

Beads: Be sure to stock up on different types of beads! I only have lettered beads in my craft bin but I'm planning on getting a different range of beads as well. Kids enjoy lacing them through string and they can provide excellent sensory experiences for children as well.
My stock is running low, so I will stock up soon!

Yarn or String: Having these items in stock really increases the range of activities you can do with your children. If they are a bit older you can introduce knitting or crochet. If not, you can do beading, weaving and simple sewing as well!
These will add a different dimension to your crafting!
I hope this was helpful to you! If you would like me to add anything please leave a comment below!


Friday 8 May 2020

Celebration Moon and Star Treats - 30 Day Craft Challenge


Celebration Moon and Star Treats - 30 Day Craft Challenge




Salam all! Today was Day 14 of our challenge and it was a nice and relaxing one. We discussed that in the evening we will celebrate the birth of the first grandson of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Imam Hassan (peace be upon him). We discussed his importance in our faith and how, as his followers, we should rejoice on the occasion of his birth. 

In order to celebrate, we decided to make some special treats together. This was a bit of a change from the type of crafts we have been doing for the past two weeks but the kids welcomed this change. We followed an easy recipe of rice crispy treats, then we cut them in the shape of moons and stars. Scroll down to see how we made this evening extra special!

Materials:
  • Rice crispy recipe of your choice
  • Cookie cutters - we used stars and moons (we used a circle cutter for the moon)
  • Optional: Chocolate chips 
  • A serving plate
  • Tiny mouths to enjoy the treats!
Steps:
  1. Follow your favourite recipe for rice crispy treats. We didn't have marshmallows so we tried something a bit different. We used the following recipe for Vegan Rice Crispy Treats. It was a huge hit with the kids!
  2. Once the treats were nice and firm we used our cookie cutters to make the star and moon shapes
    They enjoyed hearing the crunching sound as they pushed down
  3. After we had our shapes, we set them on a separate plate and topped them with delicious chocolate chips
    This made them super excited about the treat!
  4. Now the hard part, wait for iftaar time before you can devour the treats!
Here was our simple yet satisfying activity for the day. I send all of your many prayers and well wishes on the auspicious occasion of the birth of Imam Hassan (peace be upon him). Hope you all have a lovely time celebrating with your families! See you tomorrow for our next activity!

Thursday 7 May 2020

The Cave of Hira - Paper Mache Craft - 30 Day Craft Challenge


The Cave of Hira - Paper Mache Craft - 30 Day Craft Challenge




Salam and welcome to Day 13 of of this Craft Challenge. Today's craft left the boys in complete wonder and admiration. We discussed how the Quran was revealed to our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). We talked about how he would climb the mountains in Makkah to reach the Cave of Hira. Here, he would pray to Allah and connect with him on a superior level. I shared my personal story of climbing this mountain to reach the Cave of Hira while I was on the pilgrimage of Hajj. I described how physically challenging it was and how much effort it took for just one climb and descent. Then we imagined the troubles our Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) would go through to reach that level on a daily basis. Allah surely appreciated his efforts, and in turn, he revealed the miracle of the Quran upon his heart. 

This craft brought me back to my elementary school days where we would make several different pieces of art using paper mache. It felt nostalgic to me to do this once again after so many years - but I also felt a sense of gratitude that I am now doing this with my own children. Most of you are well aware of the process of paper mache so my steps wont be too detailed. Scroll down and enjoy!

Materials:

  • Paper mache paste - here's a link with details about how to make it yourself: Paper Mache Paste
  • Paintbrush
  • Newspaper cut into strips
  • Scissors
  • Balloon, blown into the size you want your cave to be
  • Bowl sized to hold your balloon in place
  • Paint
  • Sharpie
Watch a fun YouTube video of how we did this activity: Here
Steps:
  1. Place your balloon on top of your bowl so that it is stable 
    The balloon should be snug
  2. Start pasting your newspaper strips onto the balloon
    Be generous with the paste
  3. Keep adding layers of paper mache, feel free to overlap and paste the newspaper strips in different directions to have a sturdy structure
    The newspaper strips will start to stick on nicely once they are wet with the paste
  4. Keep adding strips until you begin to cover the surface of the balloon, keep in mind the lower part of the balloon, which is in the bowl, does not need to be covered.
    Hadi making good progress!
  5. Add 2-3 layers of paper mache until you are satisfied with the coverage. Note that too many layers will take too long to dry. 
    At this point we were satisfied with our work
  6. Set aside to dry - I left ours on a table with a fan running directly at it and it dried within 2-3 hours. If you find that after 3 hours it is still wet you may consider preheating your oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit then turning it off and placing your semi-dry craft inside the oven. Be sure to pop the balloon before this and place the craft on a cookie sheet or oven safe surface.
  7. Once your craft is completely dry you can remove it from the bowl and pop the balloon (I just used our scissors to do this) - it will slide right out. 
  8. You can now place the craft on a surface and draw the entrance to the cave
    Hadi drew his version of a cave entrance
  9. Use regular craft scissors to cut this shape out
    It's starting to look a lot like a cave now
  10. Use your choice of paint to give the craft a cave look. We didn't have brown or beige so we mixed a whole bunch of colours to come up with this
    All three of my kids were in on this action!
  11. Keep going until you've covered the entire cave
    Finishing up with the painting
  12. This should take about 1-2 hours to dry. Side note: I had so much of this paint left over that I painted some cardboard with the same colour and created a matching surface (completely optional)
    Here it is drying away
  13. Once the cave is dry, we grabbed some pebbles from outside and made a little sign - this gave a neat effect. 

    It ended up looking pretty cool!
  14. Right before bedtime I found some string lights we had in storage and placed them into the cave. The kids were in complete awe! It was really amazing to look at! We might even use this as a night light. 

    Magical!
Many, many thanks for reading our paper mache journey to the very end! I hope you enjoyed reading about this activity. We thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. Although this was a lengthy craft - it was totally worth it in the end! Please leave a comment below about how you would improve this or if you are willing to try! I love hearing feedback. See you all tomorrow inshaAllah!

How to Make Paper Mache Paste at Home


How to Make Paper Mache Paste at Home

Hello friends! I imagine that I will be doing Paper Mache regularly with my children since they enjoyed it so much this time. I was searching online and discovered that authentic paper mache paste requires some cooking - we definitely didn't have time for that. So, I decided to make a separate page describing how to make the paper mache paste that worked so well for us today - no cooking involved!

Materials:
  • 1/2 Cup Flour
  • 1/3 Cup Icy Cold Water
  • 1/4 Cup Half School Glue Half Water Mix
  • 1 Tablespoon of Salt
  • Mixing tool
  • Container to make the paste in
Here's what you'll need - I took the pic after we had already poured in the flour!

Steps:
  1. Mix all of the above ingredients into your container 
    The boys love pouring and mixing!


  2. Mix thoroughly until you get a nice paste consistency. If it feels too thick you may need to add a bit of water - try a tablespoon at at time.

  3. Test out the consistency of the paste on your paper mache project it should be a nice, soft, spreadable paste. 
There's the magic recipe for the perfect paper mache paste! Let me know in the comments how it worked out for you.


Wednesday 6 May 2020

Pipe Cleaner "Prayer Buddies" - 30 Day Craft Challenge


Pipe Cleaner "Prayer Buddies" - 30 Day Craft Challenge





Salam and welcome to today's exciting Craft Challenge. We are now at Day 12 of this challenge and, Alhamdulillah, the energy is still up - hopefully we can keep going! Today we talked about the different positions in our daily prayer (salaat/namaaz). There are a number of different positions but we focused on three: Qiyam, Ruku, and Sajda. Hadi, my older son, showed Hani these positions and we talked about how to do them correctly. 

This craft was inspired by a Youtube video clip I saw that shows how to make "Beaded Pipe Cleaner People". The video is linked here. Please watch this short video (1 minute and 33 seconds) before you make this craft. After viewing this clip, I decided to alter the craft a little bit to teach the kids about the positions of salaat. I used the lettered beads that we already had, in place of some of the beads that are used in the video clip. Other than that, its pretty much the same! 

Please scroll below to see how Hadi and Hani made their Pipe Clean Prayer Buddies!

Materials:


  • Two pipe cleaner stems (per person)
  • Plastic straw
  • Scissors
  • Beads (in our case, lettered and regular beads)
  • Sharpie
    This is pretty much everything you'll need (I'm missing the Sharpie in the picture)
Steps
  1. Pass through four beads or the letters you need through two pipe cleaners 
    Then you can separate the stems on the top and bottom
  2. Cut the straws into four larger pieces and four small pieces 
    These are the sized of plastic straw you'll need as shown in the Youtube video
  3. Pass through two of the larger sized straw pieces on each of the bottom stems - these will be the legs 

    Here's Hadi sliding the leg straws up


  4. Pass through one regular bead on each leg - those will be the knees
    Then one regular bead for each leg
  5. After the beads, bend the bottom parts of the stem in half on each side
  6. Then, add one smaller straw piece on each leg. 
    Then bend the stems and form the feet
  7. You can now work on the upper part of the prayer buddy
    Arrange the top of your buddy to look like this
  8. Pass through one of the small pieces of the straw for each arm and bend over their hands as well (this is a little different from the Youtube video because our stems weren't as long)
  9. Pass through one of your regular beads at the top representing the neck
  10. Now pass through one of your larger beads representing the head - it will go through both stems at the top
  11. Draw on your buddy's face with your sharpie marker
  12. Fold over the excess pipe cleaner over the head - to represent hair 
    We only had two of the large beads for the heads, so we had to improvise for the third!


  13. Now your child can practice the different positions of salaat with their prayer buddies!

    Here's Qiyam
We've got Ruku

And of course, Sajda

We managed to get a group photo of all buddies! Taken by Hadi
A heartfelt thank-you for joining us on this journey! I'm amazed by the support and love that our community has given me as I share these crafts with you all. You all are the real MVPs!
We'll see you tomorrow with a new craft, inshaAllah!




The Best Day Ever - Greeting Card