Origami Witch

It’s been a while since we shared an origami fold, so here is a video of Helen T making an origami witch.

You will need:

Lightweight coloured papers
Black felt tip pen
Scissors
Glue stick

How to make your witch:

Witches hat and face:

Take your first square of paper for your hat. Fold it in half diagonally and unfold.
Fold each side inwards to form a kite shape, aligning the outer edges with the diagonal fold. Unfold again.
Next fold in the out corners to match the new diagonal folds. See the video for more clarity.
Now fold the side in again to make the kite shape once more.
Fold the sharp point down to meet its opposite corner.
Then fold the sharp point back up with a little less than a cm difference. Then fold this over again. This forms the brim of your witches hat.
Turn your work over, fold the bottom point up to meet the fold on the reverse.
Fold in either side to form the shape of your witches face.
Trace around the shape of your witches face on a scrap of paper. It should be a trapezium.
Tuck this into the folds of the witches face / hair and draw on a face.

Witches body and broom:

Take your second square of paper. Fold it in half diagonally each way, unfold, then fold in half edge to edge one way.
With the paper in half, fold down the folded edge toward the centre, creating a triangle.
Next take the folded flaps and turn the the edge in the centre up to the edge of the triangle. Do this on both sides.
Turn your work over. Fold down the the outer top edges to form a square, turn your work over again.
To form your witches feet, turn the bottom two points up and out over.
Next make your broom, cut a small square of brown paper and cut multiple slits into it to form bristles. Cut a strip of paper and using a glue stick, wrap the bristles around one end.

Assemble your witch!

Using your glue stick, stick your witches head to the body.
To complete, stick the broom to one of your witches arms.

And you’re done! Make multiple to create origami bunting or change the size of your paper to create a witch / warlock family.

https://fb.watch/gc2Kmv0Rkp/

Origami Pigeons

We love to break a stereotype here at Heathlands, and today we thought we look at the common and much unloved pigeon.

Commonly thought of as a pest and carriers of disease, nothing could be further from the truth. The pigeon is an intelligent animal, with excellent recognition skills, as well as superb navigation abilities.

There are 5 regognised pigeon / dove species in the UK with the “feral” pigeon being a decendant of the now rare Rock Dove. You can find out more here:

https://www.countryfile.com/wildlife/birds/guide-to-pigeons-and-doves-of-the-uk/

Today’s craft activity is how to make origami pigeons and doves.

What you will need:

Pale blue / grey / cream origami paper
A black felt tip pen

Instructions:

Finger Puppet Penguin

Today is world Penguin Day!

World Penguin Day is celebrated on the 25th April each year, as this is roughly the date of this amazing creatures annual, northward migration. The day is a celebratory and educative initiative, that encourages people to learn more about penguins and their environment, how important they are to our ecosystems and the threats they face.

World Penguin Day is the perfect chance to learn more about these fantastic and fascinating creatures. Read up on the different species of penguin around the world and dig out some fun facts to share with your friends and family.

Did you know that there are 18 species of penguin and of these 11 are considered to be globally threatened?

For fun, we thought for World Penguin day we would make a cute finger puppet!

What you will need:

Felt in black, white and yellow
Black embroidery thread
PVA or Copydex
Needle
Scissors
Pencils
Googly eyes

How to make your penguin:

Please refer to the photos below.

On the black felt using a white pencil, draw around your index finger with a cm space all round.
Fold the felt over and cut out two shapes at the same time.
On the white felt using any pencil, draw around you index finger again up to you middle knuckle.
Cut one shape out.
Cut a small triangle for a beak out of the yellow felt.
Choose two googly eyes.
Glue white felt, beak and eyes to one of you black felt pieces.
Using black mercies cotton or embroidery thread, sew the two black pieces of felt together around the edges. Leave to bottom open.
You can use blanket stitch or whip stitch.
Your puppet is complete! Happy World Penguin Day!

Fire Breathing Dragons!

It’s been a while since a blog post. So I thought I would share this fun craft with you all, how to make fire breathing dragons!

You will need:

A toilet roll inner
Tissue paper in fiery colours
PVA
Paint, palette & brushes
Pompoms – x2 white and x2 mini ones to match your dragon
Scissors

How to make your dragon:

Begin by painting your toilet roll inner in whatever colour you would like it to be. We chose greens and reds for ours.
You can add texture for its scales by doting a different colour of paint on or, waiting for it to dry and drawing texture on with pens.
Cut your tissue paper into 10-15cm long strips with tapers at one end.
Paint a 2cm strip of PVA inside one end of your dragon tube and start sticking your fiery tissue paper in. Add more glue as you add layers.
Glue your two white pompoms at the other end of the tube for eyes and your mini pompoms above the fire for his nostrils.
Paint dots onto your dragon for pupils.
Allow to dry and blow through the tube to animate your fire!

Origami Zebra and Tiger

Here is another origami instruction from Monday Arts Live, this time a zebra and tiger!

You will need:

2 squares of paper and a surface to work on
Pritt Stick
Paint, palette & brushes if you are decorating your paper with paint, or you can use pencils, felt tips or ink.

How to make your lion:

For your zebra decorate two of your squares of paper with black wiggly stripes and the same on orange paper for your tiger.
Follow the instructions below for how to fold, or follow the link to our Facebook Art Live video for how to decorate your own paper.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=968214173923580&ref=watch_permalink

Wrapping Paper Decorations

Did you enjoy our Paper Snowflakes tutorial from a couple of weeks ago? Here’s another papercraft activity that’s perfect for using up leftover Christmas wrapping paper.

You will need:

Wrapping paper (or other lightweight paper)
Scissors
Pencil
Needle and Thread
Glue

Step 1.

Cut a rectangle of wrapping paper (ours was around 40 cm x 20 cm.)

Step 2.

Fold the paper into a concertina, with each fold being around 3 cm wide.

Step 3.

Fold the concertina in half and secure with a small stitch.

Step 4.

Draw a couple of curves onto the folds, try and make it more or less symmetrical! Remember to leave most of the fold intact.

Step 5.

Cut out the curves you drew (remembering to leave most of the fold intact otherwise you’ll end up with a pile of confetti!)

Step 6.

Put glue on one of the folds at the centre of the folded concertina and stick it to the opposite fold. Open it up and repeat on the other side to complete your decoration. Add a bit of thread to hang your decoration and admire your hard work!

Origami Christmas Tree

We love Christmas at Heathlands. It the time of year where we relax our timetable to play games, make delicious food and even sing karaoke!

This year will be a little different but everyone has still been working really hard to make Heathlands as festive as possible.

As part of our festivities we are making our own Christmas decorations. We have already shared some with you and this week we thought we’d show you how to make an origami Christmas tree that you can decorate just like a real one.

We will also add an instructional video when it is loaded on YouTube.

Origami Christmas Bird

This week for our origami I thought we would try a cute little bird! Why not make them with red paper and use them as Christmas ornaments for your tree?

Origami Hearts

This beginners origami activity is only takes a minute to make and is a lovely decoration for cards or how about putting them in a window?

Below are simple picture instructions as well as a video you can follow along with.

Happy folding!

Felt Fish Hanging Decoration

In this post we’re going to show you how to make a felt fish hanging decoration. There’s a video up on our Facebook page too which you might find useful.

You will need:

Scissors

Needle

Thread

Pins

Felt

Buttons

Ribbon (about 50 cm, depending on how long you want your hanging)

Stuffing (toy stuffing if you have it or you can use cotton wool or scrap fabric)

Fish template (make your own or use ours!)

Step 1.

Draw or print out your fish template.

Step 2.

Fold your felt in half so you have two layers and pin the fish template onto the two layers.

Step 3.

Carefully cut out your fish.

Step 4.

Sew a button onto each fish for it’s eyes. Make sure that when you put the two sides of the fish together both eyes are on the outside!

Step 5.

Lie one fish face down on your work surface, place your ribbon on top so that it runs through the fish and then place the second fish on top, face up, so that the ribbon is sandwiched. Pin it in place so it doesn’t move as you work.

Step 6.

Sew the two fish together around their edges using running stitch, make sure you sew through the ribbon as well to hold it in place. Stop when you have a gap about 4 cm left.

Step 7.

Add a bit of stuffing to your fish, carefully poke it into the gap and use a blunt pencil to push the stuffing into the tail. You don’t need much, just a little bit to give your fish a bit of shape.

Step 8.

Sew up the gap. If you want to you can add more fish.

Have fun and don’t forget to show us how you get on!

You can watch the video on YouTube by clicking here!

Super Swirly Snakes!

Here’s a fun and easy way to make some hanging decorations inspired by snakes! We used card that was sparkly on one side but plain card works just as well. Hang them somewhere they’ll catch a breeze and enjoy watching them swirl.

You will need:

Thin Card or thick paper
Scissors
A plate or something circular to use as a template
Pencil
Colouring pens or crayons
String, thread or yarn
Optional: Print out of the snake template

Step 1.

Use the pencil to draw round your plate

Step 2.

Draw a spiral inside the circle, this might be a bit tricky so take your time! Turn your spiral into a snake, using our template as a guide

Step 3.

Decorate your snake using your colouring pens or pencils, remember to decorate both sides of the snake! We used fancy sparkly card so only needed to colour one side but if you have plain card you’ll need to colour both.

Step 4.