Valentine’s Day: Pop Up Pivot Cards

Make your Valentine feel Special. Create your own Super Cute Valentine Card by using our New R51460 Pop Up Pivot Cards. Send a love note to all your friends and family members with this sweet Valentine’s Day card. The clever design is easy to assemble and fun to decorate. The three-dimensional message card unfolds and pivots as the card opens.

Age: 5+

Duration: 15-30 minutes

Learning Objectives: Makes a perfect take-home craft. Encourage creativity. Integrate art, literacy, and holiday activities. Exercise fine motor skills.

You’ll need:

This Craft Lesson is divided into three Parts:

  • The front card
  • The Pivot Mechanism
  • The Pop-Up Message Card

Let’s get started

There are three pieces to each card: the card, the pop-up message card and the pivot mechanism. Take all three and fold the card in half.

Now, start decorating the card. Take craft papers of different bright colors. Make some heart shapes (small and big) and cut those out. Once you get your heart shapes, glue the smaller hearts onto the bigger ones.

Glue all the heart shapes onto the front of Card. To make the cad looks attractive, glue the bigger shapes first and then the smaller ones. You will get a beautiful front.

Take the Pivot Mechanism. Fold it in half horizontally along the score line. Fold down and inside both the left and right wings.

Take the pop-up message card. Fold it in a zigzag fashion along the score line.

Now, apply glue to both the left lower and upper right flaps of the pivot mechanism. Unfold the message card and align both ends to the glued area of pivot mechanism.

Let’s decorate the message card, take a colored craft paper of your choice. Fold it in half and draw three heart shapes(just draw one sided hearts).

Cut out the heart shapes. Make two kissing emojis and one heart eyes emoji using black marker and small heart shapes. Glue the heart eyes emoji at the center of message card and kissing emojis on the left and right flaps.

Once you are done, apply glue within the indicator lines on the inside of the card and then apply glue to the top of the pivot mechanism. Fold the card shut.

It’s time to decorate the inside of card. Take a craft paper, fold it from center and draw one sided heart. Cut the heart shape out.

Then, take any couple’s picture. Start cutting the picture. Choose your spot from where to start and follow along the lines. Cut nicely around the couple and once you are done, glue it on the heart shape.

Glue the decorated heart on the upper side of card and draw any teddy or cartoon on the other side and fill it with some nice crayons or pencil colors. Your Valentines Card is ready.

Happy valentine’s Day!

Use these cards for Birthdays, Get Well Soon, Mother’s or Father’s Day.

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Product Spotlight: Holiday Color Diffusing Shapes

This month, we’re featuring two of our NEW products:

These color diffusing shapes help us get in the holiday spirit while simultaneously developing a deeper understanding of color. There are 3 easy ways to transform these shapes from A to B:

A. Plain Color Diffusing shapes–functional but still waiting for the magic to happen
B. Color Diffusing magic transformed the shapes into these beautiful works of art!

Method 1: Washable Marker & Water

This is the easiest method and the mess-free method. Simply use any washable marker to color the shape, and don’t worry about filling in all the white spaces! When you’re done, spray water on the shape and watch the colors diffuse and create secondary or even tertiary colors.

If you need a spray bottle for the water, we recommend Junior Paint Spritzers–they are perfect for small hands.

Method 2: Watercolor

Break out your trusty watercolor set and go to town! Because of the water used with the watercolor paint, the colors will diffuse throughout the paper as you paint. You can always add some extra water at the end and watch the colors diffuse even more. This is especially helpful if you’d like to make light or pastel designs.

Method 3: Liquid Watercolor & Water

This method creates the most impressive designs, IMHO. You can find liquid watercolors online or at your local craft store. Be careful because these paints can be POTENT! It takes quite a few washes to remove the paint from hands, but that is also what makes the designs so beautiful on Color Diffusing paper.

Simply use a spray bottle with the liquid watercolor to add splashes of color to your Color Diffusing shapes. Once you’re happy, spray the shapes with water and watch the colors blend!

If you need a spray bottle for the color or water, we recommend Junior Paint Spritzers–they are perfect for small hands.

Pro tip: Stick to primary colors! It’s easy to get carried away with color, but once they start diffusing, they have a tendency to blend into one, amorphous brown color if you get too complicated!


Try all 3 and let us know your favorite method!

If you like this, you’ll like Blots of Ornaments too! These ornaments have the added benefits of being cut out of extra thick, high-quality color diffusing paper so that they can be used as real ornaments on a tree or windowsill!

The “Helping Hands” Good Deeds Display

Image of Roylco Color Diffusing Hands artwork display on school hallway

Image of Roylco Color Diffusing Hands artwork display on school hallway

Special Post Contribution: By Amy Klossner

Here are the photos of the project our school completed using Color Diffusing Hands.  They were just perfect.  We read the book Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed, before painting the hands with liquid watercolors.  It’s a story about a little girl who does one good deed and that person does 5 good deeds then those people do five more good deeds each and so on. Like I said, the hands were perfect for displaying to the students how one good deed (represented by the hand) grows into five more, (represented by the fingers) which grows into 5 more, etc. The “helping hands” displayed that kindness is contagious.

As a spin off, students can write good deeds they are preforming in our school and community on each one of the hands, heart shapes or other inspirational design.

 

Close up boy decorating color diffusing hand

 

Close-up of a decorated hand

 

Children decorating Color Diffusing Hands with liquid water color

How to Decorate Color Diffusing Hands:

Liquid Water Color:  To get the most beautiful color blends, I recommend using liquid watercolor paint in a mister bottle. Spray the colors you like onto the Color Diffusing Hand.  Then use another mister bottle to spray clean water over your colors. Set aside to dry. Be careful where you put them, they can make a mess. To speed up the drying time, I like to hang them up for good air circulation. They should be dry enough to use in about 30 mins.

 

Washable Markers:  Color the Color Diffusing Hands with washable markers. Do not cover the whole area. Make sure to leave white space. Use a mister bottle to spray clean water over your colors. This will allow the colors to “mingle” and spread.

 

Image of sketch drawing of Kid 1

3D Craft Circle Flower

3D flower finisged craft.jpg

These beautiful flowers will flutter in the breeze!

Age: 3+

Duration: 7-10 Minutes

Learning Outcomes: Exercise fine motor skills. Explore early paper sculpting. Create beautiful take-home artwork.

You’ll Need:

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  1. Choose six of your favorite craft circles and fold them in half. The colored side should be on the outside.
  2. Arrange the half circles in a full circle on your sheet of paper.
  3. Using a glue stick, apply glue to ONE HALF of the folded circles.
  4. Glue the folded circles to the sheet of paper in a circle configuration. You want the top halves to be loose and fluttery, so make sure you don’t overlap the circles.
  5. Add a stem and leaves with a washable marker.

The results are beautiful artwork that is perfectly fridge-worthy!

Ideas

  • Tape our tissue circles to the inside of your folded circles to add a pop of color!
  • Add an emotional component to the activity. Challenge students to draw six different emotions on the white side of the craft circles before you fold and glue them. Your flower will show a range of different feelings!

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Beautiful Birch Bark Baskets

Birch bark Basket Style 1.jpgThis quick and easy cultural craft is also useful both inside and outside the classroom!

This kid-friendly take on a traditional craft is a beautiful take-home piece, but if they stay in the classroom, they’re great for holding pens, pencils, manipulatives and other small personal items.

Age: 4+

Duration: 5 minutes (including printing time)

Learning Outcomes: Explore the tensile strength of paper and it’s similarities to birch bark. Learn about using natural materials to create art that is both beautiful and practical. Exercise fine motor skills by cutting and taping.

You’ll Need:

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Birch trees are found all over North America and Eurasia and before the widespread use of pottery and ceramic containers, birch bark and wood were the most flexible materials available. The wood and bark of this tree were used by a variety of cultures. Native American and First Nations birch bark baskets might be one of the better-known uses for birch bark, but native peoples in North America also use birch bark for canoes, wigwams and tinder.

Asian countries (including Siberia, Ancient China and Ancient Assyria), Scandinavia and Finland used birch bark to make storage containers, roof coverings and waterproof coverings for bows. In Russia and India, birch bark was used to record manuscripts before the availability of parchment, vellum or paper. Some of the oldest known Buddhist texts were written on Birch Bark.

Our paper version of this ancient craft is quick and simple. Start by downloading the Birch Bark Basket template. The template contains two different style of basket. Print out the templates on a sheet of craft paper. It may take some experimenting to see which way you need to put the craft paper into the printer so the lines print on the white side. We used the birch bark design for our basket, but you can choose your favorite paper! These templates would also work well with our R15294 Terrific Tree Craft Paper.

Once you have printed out the templates, cut along the solid lines. To construct your basket, simply overlap the edges of the template and tape closed. We have created a video to demonstrate the construction:

Once your basket is ready, you can add embellishments. We used the leather design paper to create a fringe for our basket, but you can leave it plain too.

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Let’s Make a Mother’s Day Bouquet!

Roylco Mothers Day Bouquet 

Age: 6+

Duration: 1 hour, plus drying time.

Learning Outcomes:

We’re learning how to complete a project made of several different components, and how each of those unique parts is needed to create the final craft.

Here’s what you need:

Color Diffusing Paper 9”x12” (R15213)

Fancy Stringing Rings (R2183)

Botanical Cuts (R15333)

Chenille Stems

Straws

Glue

Water

Paints (liquid watercolors & acrylics recommended)

Fine Mist Spray Bottles

Brush (foam or bristle)

Cotton Balls

Small Rock (optional)

Mother’s Day is just around the corner, so now is a good time to get crafty. We’re going to make a bouquet of flowers to show Mom that we appreciate all that she does for us everyday. A garden bouquet looks best when you mix a few different things together, so we’ll do that one step at a time, following the instructions below.

 

Roylco Mothers Day Bouquet Craft Parts Display

   Roylco Sketch Art of Flower

Here’s how you do it:

Step 1:

Prepare your work surface. If you don’t want to mess up your table, cover with some newsprint or butcher paper.

 

Step 2:

To begin, we need to paint our 9”x12” Color Diffusing Paper (R15213). This is what we’ll use to cut our flower shapes from. You’ll need 2–4 sheets. To get the most beautiful color blends, I recommend using liquid watercolor paint in a mister bottle. Spray the colors you like onto the sheet of diffusion paper. Then use another mister bottle to spray clean water over your colors.

 

Set aside to dry. Be careful where you put them, they can make a mess. To speed up the drying time, I like to hang them up for good air circulation. They should be dry enough to use in about 30 mins.

 

Step 3:

Okay, let’s find a cardboard tube. A toilet paper roll works great. Yeah, that’s right — we use those things! If you don’t have one handy (might want to take care of that), try a paper towel roll. For our bouquet, it will need to be about 3.75” long.

 

Now, we want to paint the tube. What’s your Mom’s favorite color?

 

Sounds like a good color to me. Go ahead and paint the tube. Acrylic paint is probably going to work best and dry fastest. Set the tube aside to dry.

 Roylco Mothers Day Bouquet Painting Tube

 

Consider this:

I thought it would be cool to paint the inside of the tube. I used a different color than the outside. You can use the same color, or not paint the inside. It’s up to you.

 

You’ll only need to paint one side. The bottom of the tube will be covered.

 

Step 4:

We’re going to need 3 straws to make our flower stems. I cut mine to lengths of 6.5”, 7” and 8”.

 

Paint the straws. The bottoms of our stems will not be visible from inside the tube, so you can hold one side and paint the other.

 

I painted mine green, but if you like red or purple flower stems, go for it. Set the straws aside to dry.

 Roylco Mother's Day Bouquet Painting Straws

Step 5:

I’m using some really neat Botanical Cuts (R15333) to add some garden flair to my bouquet. There are plenty of patterns to choose from in the pack. I chose 3 of them. If you’d like to add these in, now is a good time to decide on your patterns.

 

Step 6:

Now, let’s go back to our color diffusing paper. What we want to do is cut 4” round flower shapes from our beautifully painted paper. I like to look for the best patterns within the color and use them for outlining my flower shapes.

We’ll need to cut 4 shapes.

I’ve included a PDF template in case you would like to use it. Otherwise, create any flower shape you can imagine. Just remember, it will need to be about 4” round to work with all our other bouquet components.

 Mothers Day Bouquet-Flower Petal Template

 

Step 7:

We’re going to use one of our flower shapes for covering the bottom of the tube. Add some glue to one side in each of the petals. Then, place the tube in the center of the flower shape and fold the petals up. They should attach to the sides of the tube, closing up the bottom. I added 3 cotton balls to the bottom of my tube to keep the straws from poking through the bottom.

 

Step 8:

Speaking of the straws, let’s go ahead and add those in. Just add some glue to one side and place them in the tube. Press the straw against the tube to help the glue hold. Attach all 3 straws in this way.

 

Step 9:

Let’s make our 3 flowers next. Using a sharpened pencil, poke a hole through the center of your flower petals. Don’t make the hole too big. The pencil point should be enough.

 

Next, we need to use our 3 chenille stems. I cut mine to the same length — about 6”. On one side of the chenille stem, starting about an inch from the end, bend a right angle. Then make a “U” shape in the center of that bend (see the image).

Put one of the flower shapes onto a stem, moving it down to the bottom of the “U” shape.

 

To give my bouquet a jewel-like quality, I added a Fancy Stringing Ring (R2183) in front of the flower. Place it into the “U” shape as well, and then curl the end of the chenille stem around the ring to hold it in place.

 

Finish all 3 flowers.

 

Consider this:

These little flowers are so simple and beautiful, they kind of work on their own. If you want to do a quick craft, try just making the flowers, with the beads and the chenille stems. Tie them together with some ribbon, or a Fabric Strip (15655), and you’ll have a simple and sweet bouquet for Mom.

 

Step 10:

If you decided to go with the botanical cuts, this is where you’ll attach them. Use your creativity here. I chose 3 patterns and attached them with glue to the outside of the tube, from the bottom up. Pay attention to where your flower stems are. I think it’s neat to curl them botanical cuts around the straws a little.

 

 

Step 11:

Simply place the chenille flower stems inside each straw. Push them all the way down to the bend.

 

 

That’s it. You did it!

Your garden bouquet is ready to make your Mother’s day complete!

Consider this:

If your bouquet is a little wobbly, drop a rock in it. You may even want to fill the tube with colorful beads or small stones.

 Roylco Sketch Art of Kid 1

Make Marvelous Marble Marquetry

15401 Marble Paper - OrgBlue Mosiac

Marquetry is the art of using thin pieces of veneer to craft beautiful images and patterns. Now you can create your own beautiful marble marquetry! 

Age: 5+

Duration: 15-30 minutes

Learning Outcomes: Practice fine motor skills while you cut and fold. Encourage early geometry by talking about different shapes, patterns, and types of symmetry.

You’ll Need:

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This craft looks like marquetry, but it actually combines a marquetry effect with a technique we call Shapegami. Start by downloading and printing the Shapegami Folding Instructions. This set of instructions includes step-by-step folding instructions for ten different shapes, basic geometric vocabulary, and design ideas. Start by taking the time to discuss different shapes and their attributes! Each of these shapes can be folded with an 8 1/2 x 11″ sheet of paper AND with the special sized rectangles in the marquetry template.

Once students are familiar with the different shapes, they can practice folding them with white printer paper and start thinking about the design they want to make with their shapes. Students can design their own marquetry designs, or choose from the Shapegami idea list. I decided to create a flower design using folded kite shapes.

Once students feel confident, break out your Marble Paper and download the Marble Paper Marquetry Template. It may take some experimenting to see which way you need to put the craft paper into the printer so the lines print on the white side. I used the orange and blue sheets to create a strong color contrast, but you can choose any sheets you like!

marquetry 1

Start by carefully cutting out the variously sized rectangles. To make each size easier to find, I sorted my rectangles by size as I cut them. Once your rectangles are all cut out, it’s time to start folding! I folded all my rectangles into kite shapes, keeping them arranged by size. This makes it easier to compose your marquetry design.

To create your marquetry design, start with a piece of white paper. Beginning with the largest of my kite shapes, I used loops of tape to secure each shape to the paper in the design I wanted.

Simply repeat this process using progressively smaller folded shapes, and you will have created a beautiful piece of geometric marquetry art!

marquetry 8

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Create a Craft Circle Giraffe!

craft circle giraffe.jpg

This adorable critter is simple and fun to make!

Age: 5+

Duration: 10 Minutes

Learning Outcomes: Exercise fine motor skills. Practice composing figures out of geometric shapes. Create adorable animal crafts.

You’ll Need:

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  1. Decide what kind of animal you want to make. We chose to make a giraffe!
  2. Using the double color card sheets. draw an outline of the giraffe’s head and neck. Cut out the outline. Use washable markers to add eyes, a mouth and spots!
  3. Choose a craft circle to be the body of your giraffe. Fold the craft circle in half.
  4. Glue the head and neck to the back of your folded craft circle.
  5. To make the legs of your giraffe, cut four equal lengths of brown yarn.
  6. Tape one end of each piece of yarn to the INSIDE of the folded craft circle.
  7. Cut four squares out of brown card. These will be your giraffe’s hooves. Tape each square to the loose end of the yarn legs.
  8. Use a smaller length of yarn as the tail. Tape the tail to the inside of your half circle, near the crease.
  9. Using your glue stick, glue your half circle closed. This will make the giraffe look neat, and prevent flapping in the breeze if you decide to transform your giraffe into a puppet.

Ideas

  • Use Popsicle sticks to turn your animal into a puppet! Use a Popsicle stick for the body, and additional ones on any legs you want to be able to move.

Bundle Savings

Get all the Roylco items used
in this project and save 15%!

$24.63 USD
bundled price
Add Bundle
to Cart

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Natural Materials Cuff Bracelet

bracelet blog image.jpg

This wearable art is a terrific fashion statement!

Age: 5+

Duration: 10 minutes (excluding drying time)

Learning Outcomes: Learn about the textures and properties of natural materials through manipulation of paper and card board. Exercise fine motor skills.

You’ll Need:

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Before metalwork became commonplace, jewelry was made with natural materials like wood, bone, leather and porcupine quills. Bone and wood beads could be strung on leather strips, but porcupine quills have to be softened before they can be used. Additionally, rawhide can be wet down, molded and once dry will keep it’s shape. Finally, wood can be steamed to the point where you can bend it! Our version of this craft doesn’t use real rawhide, but students can experiment with paper-based versions of rawhide wet-molding and wood bending.

First cut a 2″ strip of the leather design craft paper and set it aside. You will need it later.

To start, mix a solution of 1/2 a cup of white school glue and 1/2  a cup of tap water. Warm water makes mixing easier, but cool or cold water works too. Just make sure you mix the glue in completely, so there are no gluey lumps in the solution. Once your solution is thoroughly mixed, submerge your craft stick in the mixture for up to 90 seconds. To make this process easier, we used the lid of one of Roylco’s beautiful bins!

Once the craft stick is soaked, pull it out of the solution and start to gently bend it into a circular shape. Just like traditional bending wood, your craft stick can still break if it dries out or if you bend it too quickly. Carefully place the bent craft stick inside an empty Play-doh® container so the bracelet will keep its shape. Allow to dry for at least two hours.

Once the craft stick is dry, remove it from the Play-Doh® container. Lay the 2″ strip of paper in your glue and water solution for a second or two and then gently roll the sheet over the outside of your craft stick. Fold the edges inside so the paper is smooth over top of the craft stick. This technique is similar to wet-molding, and because there is glue in your solution, the paper will be firmly glued to your craft stick once everything dries. Place the paper-covered craft stick back in the Play-Doh® container.

Once the bracelet is dry, decorate it with pencil crayon, marker, crayon or paint. Or try cutting out collage shapes from other sheets of craft paper and glue them on to your bracelet.

Bundle Savings

Get all the Roylco items used
in this project and save 15%!

$18.44 USD
bundled price
Add Bundle
to Cart

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