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Peta’s fun things to do at home

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Hello again! As you know, since lockdown, I’ve been posting fun activities to do at home every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (excluding holidays, I’m not a madwoman.) This is my 20th post, and I think this round number is a good point at which to take a break – hopefully I have built up a helpful bank of activities that you can dip into as and when you feel the urge!

For my last ‘fun thing to do’, I want to revisit the idea of creating pictures from nature that I shared as the third activity (for a reminder, click here), based on my book, Jacob Starke Loves the Dark. This time, the focus is on making rubbings from nature – using crayons, charcoal, chalk, whatever you have to hand – and using these rubbing to make a picture.

20: Making a picture from nature rubbings

During lockdown you have to make do with what you’ve got in the house. I would have loved to have done this with coloured chalks, pastels and charcoal, but what I had was wax crayons, so this is what I used.

To make up for this lack of variety, I used different types of paper, as you can see in the three step guide below.

  • Step 1: create a background rubbing , in this case I used the bark of a tree
  • Step 2: do rubbings of smaller items, like leaves, shells, feathers etc and cut them out
  • Step 3: arrange your cut-outs on your background to create an image; in this case, a flower

Top tips:

  • if you’re taking your rubbing from an object that can be moved (eg a leaf, rather than a tree trunk), put it on a hard, flat surface first
  • use a variety of different mark-makers (chalk, charcoal, pastels, crayons) if you have them
  • use the side of your crayon etc for rubbing, not the tip
  • use a variety of different papers you have around the house – newspaper and brown paper work particularly well, but also baking paper, silver foil
  • you could always draw in some details, if you feel that way inclined

Have fun, and don’t forget: I’d love to see what you create – you can email a photo to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford

Peta’s fun things to do at home

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Hello, and welcome to another week of lockdown! Undoubtedly, the most popular activities I do at festivals and other events, are those that allow children to transform themselves – whether this be into a superhero, clown, witch or badger. To put it another way, and to state the bleeding obvious: kids love dressing up!

19: Make an owl mask!

One of the activities I do around my book about the importance of dark skies, Jacob Starke Loves the Dark, is to make nocturnal animal masks out of paper plates. I’m sharing my template with you today, and you can see a printable version here. To be honest, you probably don’t need a template for this – I’m sure you can work it out for yourself.

Here’s my prototype, and two lovely versions made at the IW Story Festival (plus badger sister)

All you need to make the mask is:

  • a paper plate
  • string or similar to tie it on
  • felt-tips or crayons
  • optional embellishments like feathers, sequins etc
Here is my template with printable version here

Have fun, and don’t forget: I’d love to see what you make – you can email a photo to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford

Peta’s fun things to do at home

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Good morning, and welcome to another week! Today, I thought I would share the very first activity I ever did on a school visit: my Hairy Fairy bookmark. I have done various versions of it – this one is nice and straightforward. Why not have a go?

Have fun! And don’t forget: I’d love to see anything you do – you can email a photo to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford

14: Hairy Fairy bookmark

You will need:

  • Scissors
  • Glue
  • Wool or string
  • Felt tips or crayons
  • Print-out of the template which you will find here. It works best if you can print out on to thin card, though it works ok with just paper. Or you can print out on paper and stick onto card before cutting out, if you want something more robust.

And this is what you do:

  • 1. Colour in template
  • 2. Cut out fairy and the strip for the back of the bookmark
  • 3. Glue on hair
  • 4. Fold strip and put glue on short end
  • 5. Stick fairy’s head to gluey strip
  • 6. Ta dah!

Peta’s fun things to do at home

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Welcome to another week! I’ve got a really fun activity for you today, inspired by my book, Milly’s Marvellous Mistakes, which has the message that it’s ok to make mistakes. The activity is about turning scribbles into something beautiful. Warning: this can become a bit addictive!

Why not have a go? I’d love to see anything you do – you can email it to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford

11. Do the scribble challenge!

There’s nothing to it: get yourself a large piece of paper and draw a number of scribbles on it – leave a bit of space between each scribble.

There are lots of things you can do with a scribble:

  • Colour it in…
  • Turn it into a Scribble Monster! You can use some googly eyes, if you’ve got them, and cut out and stick on a scary mouth…
  • See what pictures you can make out of the scribbles you have drawn… I thought one of my scribbles looked like a dinosaur. I also used scribbles to draw a tree, someone with crazy hair and a sheep

It’s really good fun. Why not have a go!

Peta’s fun things to do at home

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So, that’s the fourth week of lockdown almost done. As a gentle wind-down into the weekend, I thought it would be nice to get back to some straightforward drawing. My book, Milly’s Marvellous Mistakes is all about painting and drawing, and and why the process of drawing – practising, making mistakes and learning – is more important than the end result.

So why not get your little ‘uns to have a go at my drawing challenge? Why not have a go yourself? I’d love to see anything you do – you can email it to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford

10: Draw a picture in a frame!

I’ve got some frames for you to create your drawing in, because every picture looks better in a frame!

There’s a printable version here. Have fun and have a good weekend!

Peta’s fun things to do at home

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Welcome back! This activity has absolute nothing to do with any of my books, but just a bit of fun for Easter.

7: Make a woolly Easter/Spring card!

So, I had some yellow wool and fancied making something for Easter, but didn’t really want to make the standard pom-pom chick, when I had the idea of using wool as a medium for colouring in, instead of crayon or paint (as you do!)

My first idea was to do this ‘freehand’; painting with glue direct onto the blank card, but this does take a fair amount of manual dexterity and may be a bit tricky for little finger (I’ll show you how I did this at the end), so I produced a couple of templates for you to ‘colour in’ with wool (or crayons if you prefer). or, of course, you can draw your own…

The printable version of the bunny card is here. The printable version of the chick card is here.

You will need:

  • A print-out of the card or your own drawing
  • coloured wool or string
  • PVA or similar liquid glue
  • Scissors
  • Felt tips for details (optional)
  • 1. Print off or draw your image
  • 2. Colour in details like the bunny’s nose
  • 3. Stick the wool on the bunny…
  • 4. …and on details like flowers
  • 5. Ta-dah!

And here is the chick version:

Top tip: if little fingers get gluey and find this all a bit tricky, try cutting the wool up into lots of little pieces (for a ‘shaggy’ effect!) – it’s a lot easier to handle than one long bit!

And for those who want an extra challenge, here’s how I made the ‘freehand’ version:

Rather than drawing or colouring, I added detail by cutting shapes out of coloured paper

Peta’s fun things to do at home

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Over the years, I have done a wide range of art and craft activities in schools and at other events. Sometimes I give the children a range of activities to choose from, and when I do, it’s always interesting to see how many children like nothing more than a spot of colouring in…

6: Have some fun with colouring in!

So today, I’m sharing a colouring sheet based on my most recent book, Milly’s Marvellous Mistakes.

Why not have a go? Don’t forget to help Milly finish her picture! What is she painting? A boat? A bat? A balloon? There is a printable version of the colouring sheet here

Don’t forget, I’d love to see the work you produce! You can email it to petarainford@gmail.com, post it on my Peta Rainford’s Facebook page @dogpigeon, or Tweet me @PetaRainford

You might also like to try this extra challenge:

  1. Have a think about where Milly is doing her painting, and include some details to show this. For example, if she’s in her bedroom, there might be toys on the floor; if she’s at school, how would you show this? But perhaps she’s doing her painting somewhere much more exciting: in Buckingham Palace, or on a space ship! You decide!

Peta’s fun stuff to do at home

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3. Make a picture with nature

Hello! I have used my book, Jacob Starke Loves the Dark, as the starting-point for lots of different art activities – particularly the bit when The Dark declares:

‘… Don’t you see,
All living things depend on me.’

If you are having a walk today, or can go out into your garden, how about gathering up some natural objects – sticks, leaves, flowers, feathers, earth, sand, whatever else you can find – and making a picture. You can make a small one by gluing the things you find on paper like these – maybe including some drawing, bark rubbings and other types of mark-making:

These examples are pretty abstract, but you could make a more figurative picture – a face, maybe, or a fish, or a frog…

Or you could make some ‘land art’ in your garden (or indoors, if you can stand the mess!). Here is one we made earlier:

Here is our stick yacht, sailing on a pebble sea. We added detail – seagulls, jellyfish and fish – by drawing on pebbles and some slate we found in the garden

You might also like to try these extra challenges:

  • Once you’ve made your ‘land art’ picture, take a photo (if you like) and then rearrange all the elements to make another image. How many different pictures can you make out of the same objects?
  • If you can’t get outside, or just want a different challenge, you could make your ‘land art’ inside, out of household objects!
Our yacht has been turned into flowers and butterflies and bees drawn on stones by Tilly