button snake

Posted on March 27, 2013 by happyhooligans

For fine motor development and button skills…

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A button snake is a a fun way to introduce “buttoning” to your child. This activity will have your little one passing a button through a “button hole”, and his or her fine motor skills will be challenged as well.

You’ll need only a few basic supplies:

coloured felt
length of ribbon
button
scissors
needle/thread (for attaching your button to the ribbon)

To make your button snake:

Cut a your felt into squares. I made mine about 2.5 inches square. Basically, your square must be a little bigger than than your button.

Because the hooligans are quite young (there were some twos trying this today), I chose a rather large button. It was about the size of a quarter. For an older child, you could use a smaller button to make this activity more challenging

With your scissors, make a slit in the center of the felt square. I simply folded my felt square in half, and cut a small notch. Make sure this “button hole” is large enough to pass your button through.

Now, with your needle and thread, sew your button onto one end of your ribbon. Voila – a button snake.

At this point I slipped one square of felt onto the button snake, and slid it all the way to the end of the ribbon, and I knotted it in place there to prevent the hooligans felt squares from falling off the end of the snake as they worked.

Just look at the concentration!

Happy buttoning!

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Simple button wreaths

Posted on November 22, 2012 by happyhooligans

We’ve made button wreaths here before, and we’ve done them a couple of different ways. Last year we made these absolutely gorgeous ones, but the simple button wreaths that I’m sharing today are a little easier to make with a younger crowd, and they’re still pretty darn cute.

We started by pulling out our beloved button collection. My love for buttons goes back to when I was a little girl. One of my earliest memories is of me playing with my Nana’s button collection. I can still hear them rattling together, cool and smooth between my fingers.

The Hooligans love playing with buttons too. It’soothing and relaxing to sift through them, examining all the different patterns, textures, colours and sizes. I often set out a muffin tin, some scoops and a few jars, and the children will sit and pour and scoop and sort for close to an hour.

For our button wreaths, you’ll need:
cardboard (cereal box weight is great)
paint (we used red and green acrylic today, but we’ve used metallic paint in the past, and that was very cool)
buttons
ribbon/bow
glue & glue gun (the glue gun is optional)

To cut my wreath, I traced a large circle onto the cardboard, and a smaller circle inside, and I cut that out.

Then we moved it all outside and the Hooligans got busy painting up their wreaths. Look at what they’re wearing. We’re a month away from Christmas, and the weather this week has been down-right balmy! I’m LOVING it!

When the paint was dry, they glued their buttons on. Now, I know that using a glue bottle is really good for muscle development and co-ordination, but the glue that I have at the moment is really hard to squeeze (it’s even frustrating for me to use), so I’ve been pouring the glue into a small jar, and the Hooligans use paint-brushes to apply it to their project.

Once the buttons have dried, you can glue a bow in place. You can make your bow from ribbon, raffia, wool, fabric scraps – whatever you have on hand.

Now just punch a hole in the top of the wreath, and thread a ribbon through so you can hang this sweet, little thing on your Christmas tree!

What do you think? Pretty cute, isn’t it?

paper cone christmas trees

Posted on December 2, 2011 by happyhooligans

It was dull and rainy this morning, so we spent some time sprawled out on the kitchen floor with our wall paper books, and scissors and glue, and crafted up these sweet little paper christmas trees.

Paper Christmas trees are very easy to put together, and they make great christmas tree ornaments or table top decorations. I was crafting with two 3 year olds and a 2 year old. Because they required assistance with tracing, cutting along the lines, and putting the trees together, these took a little while to make.

If you were working with preschoolers, this would move along at a good pace, and a school-aged child would be able to do this on their own.

I found printable templates and instructions over at Bella Dia, and I used them to make cardboard (pizza box) templates for the Hooligans to trace onto various wallpaper samples. You know how much I love my wallpaper sample books!

We made 4 tiers for our trees, but you could make more. 4 was the perfect size for a tree ornament, but more would be great if you were making table toppers.

Once we stacked the tiers, we threaded some silver string up through the tree and secured it, both inside and out, with a button.

Awww, aren’t they cute?

button wreath

Posted on November 29, 2011 by happyhooligans

I have a thing for buttons. You may have noticed. I love them. I mean I REALLY love them. Honestly. My mom and my friends know that nothing makes me happier than being presented with a little bag or jar of buttons. As a result, my collection is really growing, so today we found the perfect craft to put some of them to good use.

This button wreath is really easy to make. This is a great exercise in fine motor development and it’s a super sensory activity too; the colours and textures of the buttons are so interesting and the rattling of buttons as you sift through them always captivate us.

The Hooligans love playing with buttons as much as I do, so before making our wreaths, we sat for about an hour on the kitchen floor, just sifting through them, sorting, stacking, scooping, pouring. I had a couple of glass containers, for them to spoon the buttons into while we sorted, and one little guy said he loved the “music” the buttons made when he poured them into the jar. Sigh…I know what you mean, buddy!

To make a button wreath, you’re just going to thread your buttons onto a pipe cleaner. You might want to make a little loop at one end to prevent little ones from pushing the buttons right off the end of the pipe cleaner. When you get your wreath to the size that you’re happy with, twist the ends of the pipe cleaner together to secure, and trim off any excess.

You’re going to see a bit of the pipe cleaner where you tied it off, as it makes a bit of a gap between the first and the last buttons. Just wrap that with a bit of ribbon and tie a decorative bow.