Crafts with Kids: Giant spring picture
Having already made a giant snow scene / snowman picture I’m trying to make a regular thing of it. Our daughter enjoys making the picture and it also helps teach the different seasons.
This time we made a Spring picture with rabbits and butterflies. Although butterflies are usually associated with summer there are a number of spring species many of which have been sighted already this year [1]. An alternative (eg. to differentiate the Spring picture from a summer garden picture) would be using silhouette birds in the sky, which I may try another time. For this year I chose the butterfly using a paper punch.
I used rolls of coloured paper for the sky and ground. These cost £4 each, but I already had blue from my earlier Winter picture. An alternative is to buy large sheets of paper.
The rabbits were bought as pre-cut foam shapes which is easier than cutting them out individually. The eyes and nose were coloured in using black felt-tip pens. For the tails we first tried small craft cotton balls, but found cotton wool worked better.
The butterflies were made using a paper craft punch. These cost about £8 each for the size we used, but will last for many years to come. Then glitter was glued on before putting them onto the picture. Ideally the glitter should be done the day before, but we did stick them up as soon as we created them.
The flower were made using a Sizzix machine. This is a very expensive (some basic ones start from about £20 + dies / cutters, but our one originally cost around £100 with some cutters).The dies / cutters can cost between £3 and £10 each or more. The Sizzix machine is very versatile and can be used for embossing and cutting, but is obviously a significant investment. A paper craft punch or ready made flower shapes can be used instead.
Most of the materials came from Hobbycraft as we have one locally. There is an independent craft store in Coundon, Coventry where we used to live, but we’ve not found a suitable one which sells such a good range near Redditch yet.