finger puppets

After looking at library books about making finger puppets, I decided to come up with my own, kid-friendly way to make them.  The books I found involved sewing and/or using a sewing machine.  I wanted it to be simple and easy, so here goes:

materials needed:
felt pieces- any color- I used brown, black, pink, orange
scissors
glue gun
feathers, fur, tiny pom poms or any other items to decorate the finger puppets

The first step was cutting out the body.  The top pictures is a simple template.  I folded the bottom straight edge over and used the glue gun to glue it down.  Then I glued the sides together, forming the body of the finger puppet.

On this puppet, I left the top open and put some white fur felt in the top.  I meant to make a bunny, but it really turned out to be more like a monster.  If you wanted you could put feathers or pipe cleaners in the top too.  After putting in the fur, I glued the top together.

Then I used other felt colors to make the eyes, nose, bow tie, ears, etc. 

mosaic using air-dry clay

We have been thinking of different ways we can use up our air dry clay.  Since we have a bunch of beads we thought we would try a mosaic.

The first step was to use a rolling pin to roll out a piece of air-dry clay.  My daughter used the ruler to make straight edges.

Then she used her beads and pressed them into the clay.  FYI-- I thought we rolled our air-dry clay a little thin.  If it were thicker, my daughter could press the beads into the clay a little deeper, therefore preventing the beads from falling off after the clay dries.

This is her very own creation (before the clay dried), a little kitty with a lot of stars in the sky.  :)