New Year is a special time when everyone, both adults and children, is looking forward to magic, miracles, fulfillment of hopes and desires with equal impatience. In anticipation of the holiday, you can, together with your children, make original Christmas tree decorations, such as will definitely not be on any other tree.
Christmas toys made of salt dough.
It is very easy to make Christmas decorations from salt dough. Even the smallest creators, children 1, 5 - 2 years old, will cope with this task, of course, with the support and help of adults. Sculpting is known to develop fine motor skills, which is very beneficial for young children. You can use store-bought salty dough (sculpting mass) or make your own according to any recipe you like. In addition to the test, you will need:
- cookie cutters,
- paper twine,
- acrylic paints or gouache,
- brushes,
- rolling pin.
Roll out the dough into a layer about 0.5 centimeters thick. Cut out the figures with cookie cutters. We make holes for the rope in each. We spread the workpieces on a hard, even heat-resistant surface. We dry in the air or, to speed up the process, in the oven, at a minimum temperature. We paint the dried blanks as fantasy tells, insert and fix the strings.
Christmas decorations made of papier-mâché.
Christmas decorations can also be made using the papier-mâché technique. Older children, younger students will cope with this. To make such toys, we need:
- newsprint and white paper,
- PVA glue,
- acrylic paints,
- gauze or bandage,
- narrow ribbon of bright color,
- paper twine or jute thread,
- thin wire,
- round nose pliers,
- paint and glue brushes,
- medium-sized sandpaper,
- acrylic varnish.
We will form a ball from a sheet of newspaper, you can slightly moisten your hands with water to make the ball more dense. This ball must be pasted over with newsprint, torn into pieces about 1 x 1 or 2 x 2 cm in size. Paste it in several layers, let it dry. Again we make several layers of paper and again dry our workpiece. The advantage of PVA glue over the traditional papier-mâché paste is that the glue dries faster, so the toy can be completed much faster than if pasted over using a paste of flour and water.
When the layers are dry enough, the workpiece must be sanded with sandpaper. You do not need to take coarse-grained or very small paper, an average size will be enough. We sand thoroughly, achieving the most uniform pale color as possible. Insert a piece of wire into the upper part of the toy, bending it with round-nose pliers into a ring. Fasten with paper and glue.
Now you can paste over the blank with white paper, torn into pieces measuring 1 x 1 cm. The paper should be torn exactly, which will avoid the formation of sharp corners and ugly seams during the pasting process. We glue it with 2-3 layers of PVA glue. If office paper for printing is available for pasting the workpiece, then the pieces can be pre-soaked in a plate with water to make the material softer and more pliable. After drying, we again process the workpiece with sandpaper. There is no need to grind too hard, since the next step will be pasting with a bandage or gauze.
Lubricate the future Christmas tree toy with glue, apply pieces of bandage or gauze in random order. You can paste over the entire surface of the workpiece or leave smooth areas. Dry the layer and you can start painting. We paint in 2-3 layers, drying the paint after each application. On the surface, you can depict any patterns or small drawings at will.
The final coat will be acrylic varnish. This varnish is good because it is non-toxic, does not have a pungent odor and dries quickly, that is, it is an excellent option for children's creativity. When the varnish is dry, we will thread a jute rope or paper twine into a wire ring, fix the ends of the rope, decorate with a ribbon.
Christmas toys made of jute rope.
This lesson is for older children, babies will not be able to perform such toys yet. To make Christmas tree decorations from jute rope you will need:
- newspaper,
- PVA glue,
- jute rope,
- any decorations for decorating a finished toy.
We start by forming a thick ball of newsprint. Then it is necessary to grease this ball with a thin layer of glue and gently glue it over with a jute rope in a spiral, at the end of the work form a loop. Dry the toy and decorate as desired.
