Art and Craft

Creative activities to keep the kids busy this festive season.

Creative activities

Creative activities

Creative activities are awesome! Nothing beats bonding with the kids through crafts-related projects. Or having them occupied while you enjoy either a chardonnay on the porch or tea while watching festive season TV. There are many fun creative activities for them to do – so if you’re looking for ideas for the little ones, you’ve stopped off at the right place.

After all, you don’t want them staring at their screens or playing video games the entire holiday. Sometimes the old school fun is the best one. Many of these activities encourage the creative centres in the brain, so they’re healthy and stimulating too. So here’s a list of creative activities to keep them busy.

(For the toddlers, see our blog post here for some ideas.)

Creative activities

Paper Mache.

Now this really is old school. There are limitless possibilities for creation when you play with paper mache. Making paper mache is easy too. Check out this video tutorial on creating this artistic material. Once you’ve created it, it’s time to get to work! Mold, sculpt, and form into various shapes whatever your mind imagines. From elephants to eagles, clowns to kung fu masters, ballerinas to Batman, your children will be able to make anything they can think of. It’s best to let the new creation dry in the sun for about a day, then using crafts paints for kids (which you can find at any PNA store), the children can add colour to their creations. This is just one of many great creative activities.

Creative activities

Modelling clay.

Many of our stores have modelling clay for kids. Much like paper mache, this can be used to make little art creations. It’s like 3D Printing, except your kids are the printer! This is a lot like pottery for kids (just that the finished product needs more care than with glazed pottery). Again, leave these little statues in the sun to dry out and harden. Then with crafts paints, the kids use colour to bring these statues to life – if they’re doing these creative activities wiith plain coloured modelling clay. We may also have coloured modelling clay, as seen in the picture. Now you have some original pieces for the fridge or the entrance hall or the dining room cabinet!

Creative activities

Works of art.

You could encourage your children to paint as the artists do. We have a range of brushes, palettes, canvasses, paints, and easels of all sizes (so there are some perfect for young Picassos). A smaller canvas is recommended, so your child is not overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task. We also recommend water colours – we typically have a wide range of these paints and they’re easier for the younger kids. Oils are not recommended for the smaller ones, but only for the older teenagers.

Here are some thoughts of what to paint: still life paintings. Like, for instance, you can take a fruit bowl and arrange a few fruits, such as apples, oranges, a bunch of bananas, and perhaps even grapes, and then place the bowl on a nice wooden table. Have the kids paint that! Or they can do their best impressions of you. If so, sit in the lounge with a nice book in your lap (you’ll find some riveting reading at most of our stores) and be composed. It will only be for an hour or two!

Finally, they can go outside and paint the landscape. For the less… gifted… little artists, there is a neat trick to making lovely landscapes. Simply do the painting in layers. Do the sky first. Using a pencil and a coffee mug, a circle can be traced. That’s the sun! Suggest to them that they paint that, and then move onto the rest of the sky.

Isn’t this fun!

Once finished, on the lower half of the canvas, they paint entirely in a light brown. Making it hilly – doing the shape on top in a rolling hills kind-of-way. Next, about an inch down (canvas size depending), they add a layer on top of this coat of paint, this time in an umber colour or perhaps in a dark red. Again, they can make it hilly (so we have created perspective… a sense of distance between the two layers). Finally, again about an inch down, they add a final layer, this time in a light red or perhaps dark green, and again they make it hilly.

Voila! They have created their first landscape!

For added fun, the more adventurous can use unexpected colours – such as a blue sun, green sky, and purple colour variants for the hills. Why, it’s the landscape of an alien world orbiting a blue star! Now here’s the final one of our creative activities:

Colouring in books.

Most of our stores have various creative activities for the kids. These include colouring in books for the younger kids (and older ones to – and even adult colouring in books, which are intricate but dazzling as a finished product). It’s fun colouring in and bringing a scene to life! And they get a sense of achievement in “sharing credit” with the original artists who outlined the picture in the first place. Also, like mentioned in the section above, they don’t have to stick to typical or expected colours either. If they want to make The Smurfs red rather than blue, why not!

Then when their little colourful scene is finished, you can have it framed (look in-store for our photo frames – some will work nicely with A4 size pages) and have it adorn a table. As with any other creative piece they’ve made, by displaying it out in the open, they will be instilled with a sense of pride and it will help build a healthy self-esteem.

Now, while they’re enjoying their creative activities, go on, enjoy your tea or chardonnay!

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