My kids and I had so much fun creating these sock animals to slip over their water bottles. We had lots of laughs as our creations morphed into what we were hoping they would become. What little boy doesn’t want a Ninja Turtle to hold onto while taking a sip of water during T-ball. Can you believe how the blue dog turned out?

This is also a great sewing craft for kids who can handle a needle and thread. Look at how my daughter’s bunny turned out. So cute.

Instead of buying new socks, you might have a few mismatched socks you can use!

Supplies:

• Socks (ours are from Dollar Tree)
• Stuffing or Cotton Balls
• Embroidery Floss
• Sewing Needle
• Buttons
• Felt
• Ribbon
• Scissors

How To:

1. 

   Select your socks, floss and buttons.

2. 

   To create the nose or muzzle area, turn the sock inside out and place stuffing in the heel of the sock. If you want the nose area to be oblong, pinch the top of the heel to the bottom of the heel and sew together (i.e. turtle). For round nose area see below.

3. 

   If you want the nose area to be round, cut a circle of felt and sew it over the heel full of stuffing.

4. 

   After the nose area is complete, slide the sock onto your water bottle. Use embroidery floss to sew on the nose, eyes and other details you want on the face.

5. 

   To create the ears, cut a slit in the top of the sock. Ears can then flop down or you can tie a piece of embroidery floss around the bottom of each ear to make them stand up as we did with blue dog. For the bunny we used a second sock and cut it in half and sewed it onto the polka dot sock to make long floppy ears.

6. 

   Finish up your animal sock cozy by adding any extra details. Then slide it over your favorite water bottle and fill with an icy cold drink!

    

    

My Summer Day Camp series will be starting soon! Don’t forget to come back to visit and see what fun summer crafts your kids can do!

This post originally appeared on Skip To My Lou.

The post How To | Water Bottle Sock Animal Cozy appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.

Look at these cute animals made from such simple supplies! What started as making a bunny using a toilet paper tube, sparked creativity in all the kids and they came up with their own animals to create.On the left we have a bunny, then a polar bear, a monster and a penguin. I was so excited to see each child put their own spin on their creation.

Supplies:

• Pony Beads for Eyes and Noses
• Yarn in Assorted Colors
• Felt for Belly, Ears, Beaks and Teeth
• Cotton Ball for Tails
• Stapler
• Scissors
• Glue (optional)

How To:

1. Staple the starting end of your yarn to the bottom edge of the toilet paper tube. Start to wrap string around toilet paper tube and continue wrapping so tube is completely covered.
2. As you get toward the middle of the tube slide a pony bead on the yarn for a nose if wanted. As you near the top, slide pony beads on the yarn for the eyes.
3. Staple the end of the yarn when you are finished wrapping.
4. Cut felt pieces for ears, feet, teeth etc. Staple or glue these pieces to your yarn wrapped toilet paper tube.

The post How To | TP Tube Yarn Animals appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.

The end of summer sort of got away from me and here we are in Fall already! During one of our camping trips this summer I made this keepsake ornament craft with all the kids. We were up in the Northern part of Michigan where fossil rocks are abundant, so I decided to help them make a keepsake ornament with their favorite rock, a cork and some wire.

Supplies:

• Cork
• 2 Screw Eyes
• 2 Finish Washers
• Floral Wire
• Bakers Twine

How To:

1. Screw a Screw Eye through a Finish Washer on each side of the cork.
2. Use the wire to wrap around your favorite rock or treasure and attach wire to the screw eye on the bottom of the cork.
3. Create a hanger by tying baker’s twine through the top screw eye.
4. Hang on your tree at Christmas to remember your family vacation.

The post How To | Cork Ornament Keepsake appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.

Summer is flying by here at the George household! We are keeping busy camping, swimming and swinging on the tree swing. We have another summer day camp project this week from Kara from The Joys of Boys. Kara is a mom of 4 boys, which also makes her a nurse, referee, taxi driver, teacher, baker, ATM, maid, personal shopper, jungle gym, coach, puppeteer, motivator and negotiator. On her blog she shares fun activities, crafts, recipes and ideas designed just for boys.

Today for our Summer Day Camp Instructor Kara is showing you how to make boats using juice boxes. The full instructions can be found at her website by clicking this link: The Joys of Boys.

Visit us next Tuesday the 16th of July for another day camp project. And if you missed last weeks project, click here to see what you missed!

The post Summer Day Camp | Juice Box Boats appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.

This week I am hosting the summer day camp project here on The Craft Nest! When summer time hits our neck of the woods it often means parade time. No parade is complete (at least not where we live) without candy to catch. Usually we grab a plastic grocery bag and head out, but this summer my kids and I crafted candy catchers to take along to the parade sidelines. One of the best features is that we used containers out of the recycle bin!

A special thanks to American Crafts for sending me these beautiful patriotic supplies to use for our project!

Supplies:

• Empty Plastic Container (we used vinegar jugs)
• Patriotic Paper Supplies by American Crafts
• Zazz Glitter Glue by American Crafts
• Glitter Tape by American Crafts
• This to That tape by American Crafts or Double-sided Tape or Craft Glue
• Thickers (letter stickers) by American Crafts
• Scissors or Paper Cutter

How To:

1. Find an empty container. Wash and dry the container. Cut an opening in the side of the container.
2. Use a scissors or paper trimmer and cut your paper to size and adhere it to the container using This to That tape by American Crafts.
3. Add other embellishments and stickers to your candy catcher.
4. Use glitter glue to add more sparkle to your container. Let dry.

The post Summer Day Camp | Patriotic Candy Catcher appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.

You can’t beat a toilet paper tube craft, am I right? Somehow we have a multitude of toilet paper tubes, hmmm someone is using way to much toilet paper. Do you have some of those kids at your house?

This craft is self-explanatory. Give your kids some tubes and markers and let them draw characters on the tubes. Have a Superman or Spider-man lover, let them create them on some tp tubes! Afterward my kids played bowling with the tubes. Silly kids!

I was hoping to make some more characters and add some bling or mini super hero capes. If you make some character tubes I would love to see a pic of your project!

The post How To | Toilet Paper Tube Characters appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and I am sure you are searching for a perfect handmade gift for mom. Am I right? What about a small gift for Grandma? These tiny little windowsill planters made using recycled lids or a domed vending machine container are just the perfect project for Mother’s Day. You may already have the plants you need in your yard.

I recently attended SNAP! (a blogging conference) and my roommate Cynthia taught a class on making a DIY terrarium necklace with succulent plants. She has an amazing tutorial you can find here, you will want to look at her tutorial before making this little windowsill planter. Her class and knowledge inspired me to make these windowsill planters to give as gifts for Mother’s Day.

Supplies:

• Floral Adhesive (I bought it from my local flower shop)
• Assorted Succulents (You may have enough in your own yard or visit Lowe’s)
• Dried Moss (Michaels)
• Toothpick or Bamboo Skewer
• Paper Plate
• Assorted Sizes Lids from Recycling Bin (Baby food lids are the perfect size)
• Scissors

How To:

1. Gather succulents you want to use. I purchased mine from Lowe’s. You may already have some in your yard, succulents like Hen and Chicks work perfectly for this project.

2. Using a scissors, clip off a small piece from each of the succulents you want to use.

3. Squirt a small spot of floral adhesive onto a paper plate.

4. Use a toothpick or bamboo skewer to pick up some adhesive and spread it around the inside of your lid. Floral adhesive does not harm the plant tissue.

5. Adhere moss to the adhesive. The moss will provide a place for your succulents to grow new roots.

6. Use your toothpick to pick up adhesive and dab the adhesive on the ends of the succulent cuttings. Glue the succulents into the moss. Above I layered two different size lids to make a unique mini-planter.

7. Be sure to read Cynthia’s maintenance tips for caring for your succulents in her post here. The basics are that you will need to mist your plants with water about once a week and be careful not to over water.

The post How To | Mother’s Day Recycled Windowsill Mini-Planter appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.

The Summer Day Camp craft for week five is Recycled Robots. We made these robots while we were camping and they were a huge hit with all the kids. After the robots were finished, (we even had round #2 of robot making on a different afternoon) the kids had a robot show where everyone got up and showed their robot and told its name and other things it could do. Each presenter was given a unique medal for their robot. Some examples are: coolest robot, best in show, most unique, and funniest robot. Making robots is a lot of creative fun and full of laughs as you see what everyone comes up with!

Supplies:

• Recycled containers, caps, twist ties, etc. of all sizes
• Hot glue gun
• Pipe cleaners
• Large googly eyes
• Platinum or silver spray paint

How To:

1. Lay out all your cleaned recycled containers for everyone to see.
2. Grab interesting pieces to put together.
3. Use hot glue to attach pieces to each other. (Adult help is needed!)
4. Spray paint robot.
5. Add googly eyes using hot glue.
6. Let dry.

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By now you have heard that on Tuesday, June 5th 2012 there is an amazing event taking place in the sky called the Transit of Venus. My son has become very interested in the planets recently and is super excited to see Venus crossing between the Earth and the Sun. Since I was a little girl I have always loved the stars and the planets, so I love that he has become interested in this subject and that we can learn about the Transit of Venus together.

To read more about the Transit of Venus you can go here (make sure to keep scrolling past the first set of ads to see the viewing time table). This link also has a short video about making a solar eclipse viewer. You can also go here for a quick and easy diagram that explains how to easily make your own viewer. I recommend you look at this link before reading my instructions, it will make it super easy to follow along.

I also want to tell you that besides the pinhole viewer, I made a different sort of viewer with a large paper box lid. My thinking is that it might be hard for some of my littles to look into that hole and understand what we are looking at. I am hoping that by using this lid and projecting the image of the Sun onto a piece of paper, I can use a pencil to point out the black spot (Venus) on the Sun of our projected image. I did test both viewers out today during the time frame that transit will be visible in our area and I get a clear image of the Sun, so hopefully it will all work for us tomorrow. I have said a few prayers for clear skies!

How To | Pinhole Viewer

Supplies:

• Box (a shoebox will work too)
• Tinfoil
• White Paper
• Paper Punch (Small Circle) or Pin
• Tape

How To:

1. Okay, to start I have to say please don’t look at the sun. I am sure you know this, but please reiterate it with your kids too.
2. Check out this link for a picture of how I made my viewer. All you need to do is follow that picture. I made a few changes to mine that I will talk about below.
3. Instead of poking a hole in the tinfoil with a pin, I used a circular paper punch. When I first did it with the pin the image projected on the other side of the box was super small and I am sure it would be very difficult to see the tiny shadow of Venus as it crosses in front of the Sun. The hole that I now punched is about 5/8″ wide. You can see from the photo below how big the image of the sun will be tomorrow around the time of the Transit of Venus where I live.
4. I taped my tinfoil piece on using painters tape so that I can remove the tinfoil and make a new piece with a different sized hole if I need to. I didn’t want to have to deconstruct the whole box for this to happen. I am hoping to save the box for the next solar eclipse and maybe I will need a smaller hole.
5. I also thought from all the instructions I viewed on the internet that you would put your eye right up to the hole and peer in at the projected image of the Sun. Okay, that might make me sound stupid, because it only took one look with my eye right up to the hole in the box with the super bright pinpoint image on that white paper to know that wasn’t a smart idea. So keep your face a short distance from the hole on the side of the box and position the project image so you can view it without sticking your eye right up to the hole. You can see the projected Sun image in my picture below and I didn’t put the camera very close to the hole.
6. Use two layers of Duct Tape and tape over any cracks in your box to make it completely dark inside.
7. If you want to make the paper box top lid viewer read below.

How To | Box Top Lid Pinhole Viewer

1. Use a large piece of cardboard, I used a the lid to a box of paper. Cut a 5/8″ hole in the center of the lid using a craft knife. Cut the hole as perfectly circular as you can. That determines what shape your projected Sun image will be. I like mine to be as round as possible
2. Yup, you are pretty much done now. Look at my picture above for how I projected the image of the Sun onto a white piece of paper. Should be pretty easy for a small child to look at an Eclipse or the Transit of Venus with you.

If you are looking for a recently revised book with the latest information about the planets, I recently ordered this great book from Amazon. This is the most current book I could find. You might want to check it out if you have a budding astronomer like me! The book is called 13 Planets: The Latest View of the Solar System by David Aguilar.

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In honor of Mother’s Day I reached way back into the depths of my brain and thought of a craft my mom taught me to make. It is a super simple craft, but as a child I always got a kick out of creating these kazoos with a toilet paper tube. My kids were pretty amazed to realize it sounds just like a kazoo. You can get just a little creative (like my kids) or go crazy and glue on gems and add stickers if your kids are in the mood.

Next week I will feature another craft I used to make with my mom. Of course it is another craft that recycles items you already have at home. Funny, back in the day that was how crafts were made. I don’t remember my mom ever buying anything to make a craft, you just used what you had. Did the word “recycling” even exist 30 years ago? Hmm, food for thought.

Supplies:

• Toilet Paper Tube
• Wax Paper
• Rubber Band
• Markers or Crayons
• Scissors

How To:

1. Decorate your toilet paper tube using crayons or markers. Get really funky and glue on gems or use stickers.
2. Cut out a square of wax paper that measures 5″x5″. Lay the square over one end of the toilet paper tube and smooth the edges down around the tube. Add the rubber band over top of the wax paper to hold it on the toilet paper tube.
3. Make a humming sound into the open end of the tube. See your kazoo is working already!

The post How To | Toilet Paper Tube Kazoo appeared first on Alanna George | The Craft Nest.