Make Your Own Lava Lamp!

Winter is here (for those of us located in the southern hemisphere), and it's chilly outside! With the kids home on the school holiday, making fun crafts is a great way to spend quality time together. Today, we decided to make a simple DIY lava lamp. Chances are, you already have all of these ingredients in your cupboard.

Materials Needed:

• Any cooking oil
• A clean jar with a lid (we used an empty coffee jar)
• Baking soda
• Two empty cups (for mixing)
• Vinegar
• Food colouring
• A tablespoon

Steps:

• Fill three tablespoons of baking soda into an empty cup.

• In a separate cup, fill it with roughly a 1/3 cup of vinegar, then place five drops of food colouring into the vinegar.

• Fill half of your large jar with oil and make sure you have a lid.

• Pour the vinegar and food colouring mixture into the large jar with oil.

• Lastly, pour in the baking soda!

Sweet Gum Tree Ball Craft

Making bumblebees from gum tree balls is a fun and easy craft to do with children!

Supplies:

• a stick
• yellow string
• black string
• sweet gum tree balls
• a rectangular piece of white fabric
• scissors

1.  Wrap the tree ball with yellow yarn twice, front to back, then back to front, starting and meeting at the stem. Tie off the string, then cut off the stem.
2.  Take a rectangular piece of white fabric, fold it in half, then cut out a semi-circle to make wings.
3.  Place the wings on top of the ball, then tie a piece of black string around it, keeping enough string to line the stick.
4.  Tie the excess string from the bumble bee's wings to the stick.

Voilà! Your children now have their very own pet bumblebees. 

DIY Paint

My children are on school break, and our youngest son loves to paint and watch Bob Ross's how-to paint videos. 

Painting can get messy, so I take extra precautions to avoid major accidents. With that said, I don't want to stifle my child's creativity, so I found a DIY paint recipe that's pigmented but also washes off easily.

My son helps me make the paints. It's a fun sensory activity and an opportunity to teach him about measurements and primary, secondary, and tertiary colours.

Three Primary Colors: Red, Yellow, Blue.

Three Secondary Colors: Orange, Green, Violet.

Six Tertiary Colors: Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, Red-Violet 

How to make the paint:

• 1/2 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of water
• 2 tbs of food colouring

Mix each colour in a bowl, then pour it into a cupcake tray.

The colours are quite pigmented and adhere nicely to the paper. The paint also dries quickly and, as stated previously, is easy to clean up :) with the added perks of being affordable and eco-friendly.

Pasta Jewlery Craft

Pasta jewellery is an easy, creative, and affordable craft that you can do with your children. You probably already have materials in your cupboard and craft kit that you could use.

Step 1: Gather your supplies

• Large penne pasta
• Sandwich baggies
• Food colouring
• 1/2 tablespoon 
• 1 cup
• Cupcake tray
• String, yarn, wire (whatever you want to use to string the pasta with)
• An embroidery needle for older kids
• Wire-cuter if using wire 

  Step 2:

• Measure half of a tablespoon of food colouring and pour it into a baggie, do this for each colour

Step 3: 

• Fill the baggie with one cup of dried pasta and shake it up, ensuring that the pasta is fully saturated with food colouring.

Step 4:

• Pour the pasta from the baggies into a cupcake tray.

Step 5:

• Have fun threading the pasta :)