We made these shamrock suncatchers to hang in the window! So pretty and an easy toddler craft for St. Patrick’s Day.
Here’s how Henry and I made our shamrock craft for St. Patrick’s Day,
I laid out a piece of contact paper, sticky side up. Henry added gold glitter. And more glitter.
[We may have had a glitter mishap that went something like this: "Mom, it isn't coming out fast enough!" Then he turned the top to the big opening and just poured. We ended up starting over...]
Add lots of green. That’s easy enough, its Henry’s favorite color!
Rip of lots of green tissue paper and arrange on the contact paper. We also added crinkle green grass paper [not sure what that's called].
Oh, and add more glitter in for good measure.
When your collage is finished, cover it with another piece of contact paper and smash together as flat as possible.
Hold up in the light! Pretty!
I, then, cut out shamrocks. The plan was to cut out lots of little ones and decorate our tree, but it turns out that contact paper isn’t too easy to cut.
[I'm not sure if we covered the contact paper too much, or if my contact paper is just the cheap kind. But the edges had a hard time staying stuck, so I had to scotch tape them together in spots.]
So, I quickly changed it to window decor for St. Patrick’s Day! All the better, light shines through it this way!
[I have previously banned glitter in this house, due to cleanup: I have found a couple good solutions: play dough and lint rollers]
After our glitter mishap, I wasn’t ready to start another project with play dough and I didn’t have any lint rollers. But, I did have something sticky: the contact paper! I folded it sticky side out onto itself
and folded down one end and made a mitten!
Henry enjoyed the cleanup! [It worked great for the table cleanup - the floor cleanup was another story.]
If you haven’t noticed yet – from the 11 Preschool Clean Ups… I always try to involve Henry in the cleanup after a project. To me, that just makes sense.
Henry was 2.5 years old.
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About Jamie Reimer
Aaaah wow! It looks truly LOVELY!!!! Keep meaning to have a go at contact paper art! Such a great idea!
Thank you so much for linking up to Kids Get Crafty! Love seeing your craft and blog!
Maggy
what a neato project! * *
Oh my gosh, how cool is that?!! I love it! Thanks for linking up with For the Kids Fridays at SunScholars.blogspot.com. I can't wait to see what else you will be sharing!
Cutecutecute!
Very sweet.
oh the many uses of contact paper! haha. i added your project to my blog list today. http://wifemomwoman.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/st-patricks-day-crafts-for-kids/
These are so pretty! We've made contact paper sun catchers before but just with tissue paper…I love how you added so many materials beyond the tissue paper!
Really Beautiful!
These are beautiful! I absolutely love your clean up idea. I'll have to try that sometime.
Thanks for sharing at the For the Kids Friday Link Party! I look forward to having you back this Friday!
Those are great! I love the way they came out! I am a new follower and I am having my first ever linky party for kids activities and I would LOVE if you would come link up this project! Hope to see you soon!
Michelle
http://delicateconstruction.blogspot.com/2011/03/very-first-made-by-little-hands-linky.html
We haven't done a single green project yet! I featured this today at Fun For Kids Finds. http://smilemonsters.blogspot.com/2011/03/fun-for-kids-finds_14.html
The boys and I will be making some of these this week!
Jo @ SmileMonsters
Thanks so much for linking up to Made by Little Hands Mondays! I am still in awe over how great this turned out! (also love the whole first round glitter incident, sounds like a regular day in my house lol)
This is such a great idea – I'm linking to it on my site, Preschool Universe, and looking forward to doing this with my son as well. Thanks for the inspiration!
Hey luv, just thought I’d let you know that one of the links appears to be broken for one of the pics. It’s not displaying. Love you cool pin it button that appears on the pictures. Very cool. This activity looks great by the way!
Hi there, I stumbled upon your blog recently from another blog/Facebook page – and love your toddler ideas! We’re running a Toddler Special on our recently-started Facebook parenting page and have already recommended your ideas to our fans – I’ve personally used quite a few of them over the past 2 days already!!
Keep up the good work and we’d LOVE it f you would pass by and say hello to us at http://www.facebook.com/ConsciousParentingApproach – thank you!
I love that “crinkle green grass.” It gives a nice textured look to the craft.
We use a plastic bin for our glitter applications. Then we can pour it back out.
I love this idea and will definitely be having a go at shamrocks. We did similar for valentines using pink and red but I used laminate sheets which we filled and passed through the laminator. i then hole punched and added ribbon. But I am definitely going to try shamrocks!
Where do you find contact paper? I feel like I’ve scoured my town and can’t find it anywhere.
Kalea – you can usually find it with shelving liners. Walmart has it for sure.
Cute Idea! I did this with my 2 year old daughter today and she loved it! Once we were done I put the sheet on a towel, put newsprint over it and ironed it on medium. That seemed to “seal” it and it was very easy to cut and my edges stayed together.
Thanks for the fun idea!