This year, we are making another version of paper lantern which is slightly round with hard paper as bottom tassel. It is simple, elegant and easy to make. 

Materials Required:
1. A4 size yellow card board (about 160gm).
2. Printed strips on A4 size red paper (about 80gm).
3. Golden strip x 2 (about 30-cm length x 2-cm width each).
​4. Red strip x 1 (about 30-cm length x 2-cm width).
5. White glue
6. Scissors

Contact us to purchase the materials above to try out for yourself. 

​Happy Trying : )

Instructions:
1. Cut off the internal round shape so you will get a shape of hollow circle.
2. Fold in the side of the circle plate to make a pop-up shape of a wreath base. 
3. Place a few green paper strips together (to shorten cutting time), and cut vertical strips at about 0.5cm width, leaving about 2cm width at the top (for gluing). Refer to second image below.
4. Put glue on the top of the 2cm space and roll it on the paper plate to cover the plate.
5. Continue step 4 until the entire paper plate is being covered with green strips.
6. Set aside the wreath and move on to the yellow circle to make a bell cover.
7. Insert the bells into pipe cleaner, 1 on each side and bend the end of the pipe cleaner to prevent the bells from falling off. 
8. Place the pipe cleaner with bells secured on the yellow round circle and wrap it with the yellow circle with glue. Refer to 6th image from left below. 
9.  To stick it on the wreath, turn the wreath around to the back, place a tack-it on the top of  the wreath, then stick the bell on it. 
10. Lastly, turn the wreath back to the front and decorate it with mini red polystyrene balls.  Use tweezers for easy grasp. Stick using white glue. 

Materials Required:
1. 22-cm paper plate. 
2. Green paper strip (1 A4 size green paper can be cut into 3 equal sized strips). You will need 2 A4 size green paper to complete the wreath.
3. Yellow circle (approximately 10.5cm diameter).
4. 2 bells.
5. 1 pipe cleaner.
6. Mini red polystyrene balls.
7. Tack-it.
8. Scissors.
9. White glue
​10. Tweezers (optional)

Happy trying! You can purchase the required materials above by contacting us here. 

Christmas is approaching! It's happiest and also busiest time of the year : ) 

This will be the first Christmas craft for the year and many more coming up very soon. So stay tuned and be sure to subscribe to our mailing list to be informed when new activity is being uploaded. 

Instructions:
1. Cut strips of corrugated cardboard (approx 1.5cm width x 30cm length) of multiple colors of your choice.
2. Roll each individual strips and start gluing when reaching the end of the strip. 
3. Repeat step 2 for all the strips except for the top strip that needs to hold the string. 
4. Each green strip makes one part of the Christmas tree, except for the bottom base which requires 2 strips to make a bigger circle in order to hold the tree in place (refer to orange base in the image below). 
5. For the strip that needs to hold the string at the top, it's recommended that the size be (approx 0.5cm width x 30cm length) . Put the string on the strip, put some glue and start rolling till reaching the end of the strip, put more glue to secure the shape.
6. Once all quills are done, arrange them into the size of Christmas tree and start gluing all the circles together. Hold all circle tightly and let it dry to stay in the shape. 
7. Lastly, decorate each circle with colorful polystyrene balls (stick individual ball with glue).

Materials Required:
1. Corrugated cardboard strips (approx 1.5cm width x 30cm length). You will need 10 Green strips to make up the tree, 2 Orange (or any preferred colors) to make up the base bottom, 1 Red (or any preferred colors) for the top. 
2. 1 Pink (or any preferred colors) corrugated cardboard strip (approx 0.5cm width x 30cm length) to hold the string on the top.
3. Colored paper string.
4. Mini colored polystyrene balls.
5. Scissors
6. White Glue (white glue is preferred over clear glue due to its bonding strength)
7. Tweezers (optional)

Want to try this? Contact us to purchase the materials. 

As part of Chinese New Year DIY craft activity, we decided to do something useful by making a basket out of recycled ang pow packets. Depending on the sizes of the ang pows you can get, the base of the basket can be designed accordingly. 

For the sample here, we used a 8 cm angle hexagon as a base. Template can be downloaded here. It's best recommended to use a thicker cardboard as the base so it is more stable to support whatever it is you plan to use the basket for. When you have the base cut out from the cardboard, you can start arranging the ang pow packets according to the shape of the base, then open up the ang pow flap and glue it one by one under the base. Once the ang pows are glued to the base, we will start sticking all ang pows together at every joining edge using transparent tape. 

For the handle, you will need another two ang pow packets, fold them horizontally into roughly 2 cm width, then glue each side to the top of the basket.

Lastly, to decorate the basket, you need another 6 ang pow packets (preferably other colors but same width as those used for the sides), roll each vertically and stick to each side of the basket like the picture below.

Since it is year of the Monkey, we are making lots of monkey related crafts. One of the kids' favorites is the wooden monkey rattle with the monkey face made from air dry clay. Why is it all-time favorite because the rattle itself is a noise maker, while the clay which feel as though they are playing with play dough!

Materials Required:

1. Plain wooden rattle
2. Air dry clay (black, brown, white, red)
3. Clay tools (optional)

​Contact us at fun4kidsmalaysia@gmail.com to purchase the materials.

Here's another variation of paper Chinese New Year lantern that is relatively low cost and easy to do. All you need is just a thicker red cardboard paper. You can print out the template on the red cardboard paper, cut and fold it according to the lines and your lantern is done! Of course, you might want to decorate it with colorful sequins of different shapes to make it more attractive. 
Then, cut out the handle from the template here and stick it to the lantern. Lastly, stick the shiny / glossy yellow strips in between the lantern curves and finally stick the yellow tassels around at the bottom of the lantern. 

P/S: You may contact fun4kidsmalaysia@gmail.com to purchase the tassels.

It's the year of Golden Monkey in 2016, so let's make some monkey crafts!

This paper bag monkey puppet is relatively simple, especially for toddlers. Just stick the monkey face, ears, arms, feet and tails, draw the eyes, nose and tongue and you are done!

Download the template here.

Materials Required:

1. Brown paper bag 
2. Pre-printed template on light yellow or beige paper
3. Glue stick
4. Scissors
5. Magic colors (black and red)

​
Contact us at fun4kidsmalaysia@gmail.com if you would like to purchase the materials for this craft.

Chinese New Year is around the corner. Looking for some Chinese New Year theme craft? How about lantern painting with blossom cherry flowers? This time we used a very special technique to paint; reason being we wanted a smaller effect of the flower petals, hence tried it using cotton bud!
Check out the following pictures for the outcome of this : )

For those who are not very creative to draw the branches freehand, we have also prepared template for the tree branches to be cut and pasted to the lantern. Recommended lantern size between 8 to 10 inches in diameter.
Click here to download the template.

​To make a hanger on top, we used chenille stick / pipe cleaner as it's easy to shape due to its flexibility.

Optional:
To make it more Chinese New Year feel, we chose to stick tassels on the bottom of the lantern. To hold the tassels, we need another layer of cupboard stuck around the lantern. Then decorate around it with shiny yellow paper. 

Materials Required:

1. One 8-inch or 10-inch round Japanese lantern (Any color of your preference. Suggest white, pink, light yellow or light purple).
2. One chenille stick for the holder.
3. Three-color pastel color (red, black, yellow).
4. Red or Yellow tassels (length depends on the size of your lantern).
5. Two yellow shiny color paper strips.
6. Two cardboard or any thicker paper for the top and bottom of the lantern.
7. Pre-printed branches (if you choose to download template from above).
8. Cotton buds or smaller paint brush.
9. Glue stick.
10. Scissors.
11. LED battery operated lantern light (optional).

Contact us at fun4kidsmalaysia@gmail.com if you would like to purchase the above materials for this craft.