This is an activity for older kids or for little kids with a great deal of help from an adult with a bit of sewing machine experience. Perhaps you are looking for something homemade to give your child for a gift. Making a sock monkey is a really easy first step into the world of soft-toy making.

You will need:
A pair of medium length socks in any colour or pattern
Thread
Black or brown felt
Red or pink felt
A sewing machine
Print out of sock monkey instructions

While the pattern looks complicated it is actually a very quick way of making a simple stuffed toy.

Follow the instructions for deconstructing the pair of socks into the bits for the monkey and then sew together and stuff according to the directions.

Cut out round circles for eyes from the brown or black felt and a wide red mouth.

Little kids can help by stuffing the monkey and by gluing on the eyes and the mouth.

This will make a toy which is not suitable for children under three due to the potential choking hazard of the glued on features. If you want to give this toy to a really little child, sew the eyes on or embroider them instead.

Have a look at this sock monkey gallery on Flickr for oodles of inspiration.

Kiddley reader Stacey suggested a fun halloween activity which I remember doing as a kid - Shrunken apple heads, which are incredibly simple and fun to do. The photo above is of some apples I carved this morning. It will take a couple of weeks before they dry out and shrink and reach their seriously spooky potential when they will be the perfect halloween decoration.

You will need:
A large apple
Lemon juice
Salt
2 cloves
Other decorative bits such as cotton wool or yarn for hair or a few grains of rice for teeth.
Apple peeler
Small knife

Mix a teaspoon or two of salt into half a cup of lemon juice. Peel the apple and wipe or brush on a layer of the lemon juice and salt mixture which will stop the apple from going brown.

Carve a face into the apple using the small knife. Carve out big features such as the eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears and so on. Push the cloves into the eye sockets, and place some rice grains in the mouth as teeth.

Leave the head to dry in a place where it’s warm and dry for a week or two. You can mould the heads a little by pushing them around as they dry.

Once they are dry you might want to glue on some cotton wool or yarn as hair. I think I might try to turn mine into a pirate with an eye patch, bandana around it’s head and a gold earring.

When you have your finished shrunken apple head it will look fabulously spooky displayed on a halloween party table, or perhaps you could display a group of them along a mantel amongst candles and other spooky paraphernalia.

I will post photos of my shrunken heads in a week or two. I’m not sure if I put enough salt in my solution. Let’s hope they don’t go mouldy in the meantime!

October 7th is 24 Hour Comic Day for 2006.

“What is 24 Hour Comics Day?
It’s an international celebration of comics creation. Cartoonists all over take the challenge of trying to create a 24 page comic story in 24 straight hours. Many gather at special events in comic book shops, schools, and other locations.No sketches, designs, plot summaries or any other kind of direct preparation can precede the 24 hour period. Indirect preparation such as assembling tools, reference materials, food, music etc. is fine.

Your pages can be any size, any material. Carve ‘em in stone; print ‘em with rubber stamps; draw ‘em on your kitchen walls with a magic marker. Anything.”

Making a 24 page comic book in 24 hours is a challenge for even the most seasoned of comic book artists, but even so, I can imagine there might be some keen kids out there ready to rise to the challenge. If your household does manage to produce a comic on 24 Hour Comic Day we would love to see them so please post any scans or photos to the Kiddley Flickr group!

Making a simple board game is one of the easiest and fun things you can do on a rainy afternoon.

You will need:
4 pieces of different coloured A4 (or Letter) sized paper
A large game board sized piece of heavy card
Felt tip pens
Glue stick
Glue
Dice

First, cut a strip off the length of each piece of paper about five centimeters (one inch) wide. Cut each of these strips into small squares.

They don’t have to be particularly uniform, in fact it’s better if there are a few smaller pieces as well as a bunch of bigger squares.

Draw a line around the piece of cardboard which will be the track of your game play. Stick a start and finish square at each end:

Then glue all of the little squares side by side along the line…

…until the entire line is covered. It’s best if you mix up the colours so that not too many of the same colour are sitting next to one another - but it doesn’t really matter if they do.

Make a couple of “short cut” places to give the game a bit of interest:

Decorate elaborately or minimally or not at all. You could number the squares if this takes your child’s fancy.

Take the remaining coloured paper and cut each sheet into uniformly sized rectangles:

On the backs of these write your game playing instructions such as “Miss a turn”, “Move forward three spaces”. Obviously it’s more fun to elaborate a little so that they say things like “Win Australian Idol! Move forward two spaces” or “Slip on a banana peel, go back one space” etc. AJ and I came up with the card ideas together - so they were all familiar concepts to a preschooler - “Mummy has a nap, miss a turn”, “Pancakes for dinner! Move ahead three spaces,” but of course they also got faintly ridiculous such as “Meet a monkey who eats your teeth! Go back five spaces”. Because a card will be picked up on every square, I also included a lot of “Stay where you are” cards just so that the game play doesn’t go too quickly.

Our game was vaguely family themed, with pictures of relatives hastily drawn on the squares and on the board. You could come up with all kinds of different themes and looks. I remember when I was a kid we did a similar thing but we made it look like a haunted house and all the instructions were spoooooky. Take you child’s topic du jour (pirates, Wiggles, Thomas, bugs, etc) and make the game board and card instructions fit in.

Make a couple of counters out of rolled up scraps of paper and you are ready to play! Our rules (and they seemed to change with every minute) were simple. The youngest player starts. She (or he, but it was she for us) rolls the dice and moves the number of spaces shown. She picks up a card of the corresponding colour to the place she has landed on and follows the instructions. If she is told to move ahead or back she does so, and her turn ends without picking up another card. Move to the next player.

The older the child the more complicated you might like to make the rules. If you land on a square occupied by another counter, you have to do 20 star jumps or maybe if you land on a square marked with a star get a special star card which you can use to avoid squares marked with aliens (and alien marked squares might mean you have to change counters with another player or something) — really, there is no limit to how wild it could get.

AJ has been keeping a journal for the last five weeks, specifically to share with my parents when they return from their overseas trip tomorrow. Every evening before dinner she has sat at the kitchen table and recalled the most important event (or two or three) of the day as she remembered it and has drawn it in her pink covered sketchbook.

Some days she manages a mere five minute scribble before dashing off to some other exciting activity, while other days she has taken great care to include tiny details and lots of feeling, as well stickers and the odd leaf or flower stuck in with vast amounts of sticky tape. Major events have been noted, such as the first hot day of the season accompanied by the joyful illustration of being able to wear shorts (above left) but also little things like choosing apples at the greengrocers, a cuddle on the couch and Daddy cooking risotto. I write in the date and a dictated description to finish the entry.

I can’t imagine AJ wanting to continue keeping a journal so regularly at this age, but because this had a point to it that she could grasp and because it was a nice way for her to think of her grandparents other than just missing them, it was a great short term project… and what we have is a wonderful snapshot in time of a month just before her fourth birthday.

Sometime soon I am going to scan in some of the pages and email them to AJ’s other grandparents who live overseas.

You could easily adapt this kind of activity for older kids - they might want to keep a photo journal, a highly decorated scrapbook or a more traditional written journal.

Related links:

Useful tips about journalling for kids on the Hallmark site including “Don’t criticize, edit, instruct or imply that there is need for improvement.” which is sometimes tough when they are taking their entry off in a seemingly bizarre direction. Try and go with the flow!

Tips from the DIY Network on scrapbooking for kids.

The simplest of ideas are often the best. Stephanie from Little Birds put together this gas station and car wash with her kids, inspired by a project from Martha Stewart Kids (Spring/Winter 2003) over their Summer vacation.

“A trip to the dollar store for some baby bottle brushes, toothpicks, and matchboxes, along with a quick rummage through the recycling bin and we were good to go with this project.” - Stephanie, Little Birds

* Images reproduced with Stephanie’s permission.

The Martha Stewart Kids article has quite an elaborate set up…

with a nice line diagram to show you how to put it all together:

Even very little kids enjoy threading beads on to a string. AJ and I sat down together to make this beaded curtain for her door way and it held her attention span briefly, then she was off doing her own free-form beading experiments (her stuffed dog got a new collar, bracelet and watch) leaving me to finish the curtain - but it was a peaceful way to spend an hour or so. Older children might stick to it until the end and would probably need very little assistance.

You will need:
2-3 packs of brightly coloured drinking straws (we used about 100 straws altogether)
String
Medium sized plastic beads (optional)
Scissors

I started by cutting about 10 doorway lengths of string and tying a bead to the bottom of each to give them a bit of weight for when they are hanging. I then cut the straws into lengths of around 4cm although as you can see from the photo the lengths vary giving it a bit of a crazy, haphazard look, which I quite like. We then threaded the bits of straw on to the lengths of string and tied off the ends.

I threaded all of these lengths on to one long string at the top which spanned the width of the doorframe, and then crudely stuck each end of this on to the doorframe with tape. It’s a rough little project but quite cute and easy. I have seen a similar curtain that also included plastic beads and artificial flowers amongst the straw lengths.

Another great idea; Rosa sent us these beautiful photos of a bead curtain she discovered made of plastic bottle caps:

Kiddley reader Anne Margaret at Ten Ten wrote in to let us know about this terrific activity - crayon cookies! She found the recipe in the book Scribble Art: Independent Creative Art Experiences for Children, (which has just been added to my wish list!). We are starting to accumulate a large amount of broken crayon odds and ends around here and remaking them into muffin shaped composite crayons seems like a fun way of giving them a useful second life. Thanks Anne Margaret.

Images courtesy of Anne Margaret.

Kiddley reader Kathy submitted this wonderful and simple craft activity a while ago now, and the same day she did I saw it being done on Play School… we tried it this afternoon and it’s incredibly easy with great results.

“One craft idea that we have found really popular with toddlers is Stained-Glass Windows. They are easy as pie and look beautiful when made. Alia has made several and Elizabeth, my 1-year-old, can now do them too, which makes her very happy! The two girls and I sometimes make cards with stained-glass front panels and it’s a lovely family activity.”

You will need:
Heavy cardboard
Cutting knife
Scissors
Clear sticky plastic contact
Multi-coloured cellophane
Glitter
Coloured markers

Before your toddler or preschooler gets involved with this activity, you will need to cut a frame out of your heavy card. Measure a smaller rectangle within the frame and then cut it out. The easiest way to do this is to this is to use a sharp cutting knife and cut through onto another heavy piece of card or use a cutting mat to protect your table top.

Before your toddler or preschooler gets involved with this activity, you will need to cut a frame out of your heavy card. Measure a smaller rectangle within the frame and then cut it out. The easiest way to do this is to this is to use a sharp cutting knife and cut through onto another heavy piece of card or use a cutting mat to protect your table top.

Now your child can decorate the frame using markers or whatever you have on hand. AJ decorated the frame first with markers and then added buttons and sequins.

Cut a piece of clear contact paper the same size as the frame and stick it carefully across the front of the frame. This protects the front of the frame’s artwork as well as creating a sticky backing.

Next cut a bunch of shapes out of the coloured cellophane. We discovered that the toddler scissors we have a hard time cutting through cellophane so an adult may have to do this stage also, but maybe we just need some new toddler scissors.

Turn the frame over so that the sticky side is up and let your child stick on the coloured cellophane and then add glitter.

If there is a lot of sticky contact still revealed when your child has finished, you may need to place another piece of matching contact over the cellophane artwork, sticky side down, creating a smooth (or in our case very uneven and bubbly), non-sticky seal which will keep off the dust and fluff.

Stick it in a window and admire the sun shining through! As Kathy suggested, you can also use this as a front of a greeting card. The Play School website suggests using these stained glass windows in a cardboard box play house.

Natascha Rosenberg recently published photographs of her beautiful “world in a box” - a scene from Little Red Riding Hood depicted in 3d collage using fabric scraps, hand painted fabric and illustrations on card.

Cat Morley (who incidentally has an extensive collection of DIY projects on her site) has used a similar (if not the very same window box frame from IKEA) and came up with this:

She includes step-by-step photos and instructions for recreating this little scene, which is a great way of setting up a small, one room doll house.

Way back in 2004 when AJ was 18 months old, she and I made our own world in a box — which is a little different to the ones above but it took care of a rainy afternoon and we had a lot of fun.

All you need is an old cardboard box, scissors, some magazines, loads of sticky tape, glue, felt tip pens and some heavy parental guidance.