8 craft activities inspired using supplies from nature

You don’t have to always spend a huge amount on craft supplies for your kids. Pick up some unique treasures from nature, and help your little one get creative. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Leafy photo frame

How about decorating a family photo frame using leaves from nature.

With your child collect items from your backyard or garden – leaves, twigs, flowers. Arrange them around the photograph. You do not need to glue them. Simply click a photograph of the new image and frame the new image.

Materials required: Photograph of your kid or family (any size), twigs and other supplies from nature, a camera and printer.

Twig nameplate

Personalised letters to spell out your child’s name, made from twigs are super creative. Shape the twigs to form the alphabets of your child’s name. Paint them in bright colours and fix them onto a board. These make lovely additions to your child’s bedroom.

Materials required: Twigs, scissors, canvas board and paint.

Nature walk bracelet

Get your toddler to collect all her outdoor treasures in a basket. You will be amazed to see the unique odds and ends that they find. Come back home, and make a bracelet of these finds. Paste the colourful leaves, dry grass, and twigs on the sticky side of the tape, with the non-sticky side inside. Cover the sticky tape with a plastic wrap to protect it. To make it wearable, punch a hole on both sides, and tie a 4-inch piece of string through each hole. Your little one will love flaunting her home-crafted jewelry.

Materials required: Wide masking tape, plastic wrap, string and hole punch or needle.

Rock animals

Bring back smooth pebbles in all shapes and sizes from your neighborhood garden. Kids will totally love painting on these smooth textured surfaces. For older kids, they can make animals faces on these stones. The younger ones can doodle or smudge paint on them. Either way its super fun, and encourages kids to hunt for treasures outdoors.

Materials required: Smooth pebbles, acrylic paint.

Fruit tree

If you are walking back from school, ask your child to pick up tree branches that have fallen outside. Help your child arrange all these branches in the shape of a tree. Glue red tissue paper that looks like apples on the tree. You can ask your kid to get creative – use pink tissues for cherry blossoms, green ones for mango etc. A beautiful decorative piece for your living room.

Materials required: Tree branches, coloured tissue paper and glue.

Nature sculpture

Bring some natural clay from a store that is safe for kids to use. Make sure it does not have any toxic ingredients. Let your kid mould this in various shapes – a great activity strengthening finger muscles. The next step is to decorate the clay with leaves of different shapes and sizes. To make it look a little more fancy, kids can apply glitter glue to the leaves. This will add that extra zing and makes a lovely piece of art for a corner table.

Materials required: Clay and leaves in different sizes.

Flower paintbrushes

If you live close to where flowers grow in abundance, bring some back home to paint with. Dandelions make great paintbrushes. Dip the flower in paint, and let those tiny hands make big strokes on paper. Choose flowers like gerberas, and sunflowers, which have smooth long stalks that kids can grip easily, and paint.

Materials required: Variety of flowers with long stalks, paint and paper.

Stick puppets

On your nature walks with your little ones, pick up some thick branch-like sticks. The ones with features like forks work better. Paint these in bright colours. You can get creative in making these stick puppets – use wool for hair, coloured paper for the face and socks for hands. Materials required: Branches in unique shapes (for example, forks), acrylic paint, socks, paper, puppet eyes.

Written by

Preeti Khicha

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