Items Needed:

Popsicle sticks, paint brushes, ceramic paint colors, twine, glue gun (if using this, please do so with supervision with little hands!) or liquid glue.

Instructions:

With two popsicle sticks underneath, glue 11 popsicle sticks close together to make the base of the feeder.

Then layer all four sides with popsicle sticks. Two on the sides, then two on the top and bottom until you have four or five sticks on each side.

With your paint brushes and paint, paint the base and the top popsicle sticks.  This adds such a fun pop of color. Let paint dry.

After dry, tie on four pieces of twine in each of the four corners.  Make sure these are long enough that they will hang nicely below a branch.

Lastly, fill with your bird seed.

Our Easy Bird Craft Feeder is now ready to hang!

Which bird seed attracts the most birds? 

While you can purchase bags of bird seed at most stores, black oil sunflower seeds at your best bet to get the most variety of birds.  They have the thinnest hulls.  Black oil sunflower seeds also seem to be a favorite of Cardinals.

Where should I hang my bird feeder?

Bird feeders are best hung in a place where your visiting birds feel safe from predators. Most important: Avoid open and noisy areas and hang your bird feeders at eye level or a little above. Do not hang feeders too close to any place where squirrels can jump on them, or too low they are within a cat’s reach.

Info taken from www.yardenvy.com

Another easy bird feeder is our Hanging Bird Seed Feeders.

These are a great way to use up any extra bird seed.  Can you see the black oil sunflower seeds?

No matter which bird feeder that you make, your grandkids will love watching to see what birds it will attract!  Thanks to the TOTS Family for a great craft idea!

The post Easy Bird Feeder Craft appeared first on TGIF - This Grandma is Fun.

I know that they will be so proud to put these on their Christmas tree.

They would also be very cute attached to a Christmas goodie that you are giving to your neighbors.

Or attached to a wrapped present.  So many fun ways to use these!

Let’s get ready.

Glitter Christmas Tree Ornaments

Items needed:

Clear, plastic ornaments (we purchased ours from Hobby Lobby)
Beacon Glitter It or polyethylene finish (You can purchase this from Amazon HERE )
Red and Green Glitter
Funnel
Cup, for excess glue and/or glitter
Ribbon
Scissors
Glue dots or hot glue

Instructions:

Remove the tops from the ornaments. Pour a small amount of “Glitter It” into the ornament and slowly swirl around until the inside is coated.

Remove the excess Glitter It by pouring into a cup.
Using a funnel, pour glitter into the ornament and shake around until completely coated.

Tap the ornament upside down over a different cup to remove excess glitter.
If a thicker coat of glitter inside the ornament is desired, allow the ornament to dry and repeat the previous steps.

Let ornament dry completely.

Once the glue is dry, replace the cap.
Cut ribbon to the desired length and tie into a bow.
Using either a glue dot or hot glue, attach the ribbon to the ornament. If using a hot glue gun with children, please provide adult supervision.

You can make these with any color glitter to match your tree, wrapping paper etc.  I’ll ask my grandkids what color they want to use to see what they come up with. So fun!

More Ornament Fun!

Cinnamon Stick Christmas Ornaments

Craft Stick Christmas Tree Ornament

The post Glitter Christmas Tree Ornaments appeared first on TGIF - This Grandma is Fun.

This was a great reason to get out of the house and go for a nature walk.  Take your kids and grandkids out to gather leaves for their picture.  The leaves don’t have to be any certain color, they can even be green!

Then grab these craft supplies to get started:

Foam brush, acrylic paint in any fall colors that you like, paper plates and some white card stock paper.

Pour some paint onto the paper plates and with your foam brush, paint your leaves. 

Press the painted side of the leaf onto your paper.

Note: We found out after doing a few of these that painting the backs of the leaves show up a little better when they are pressed onto the paper.  The backs of the leaves have stronger “veins” and show up more on paper.

It was fun to put more than one color onto a leaf!

This Fall Leaf Craft is a good one for all ages of kids but also fun for adults too!

What?  More Fall Crafts?  Take a look!

Fall Leaf Art

Fall Leaf Bowl

The post Fall Leaf Craft appeared first on TGIF - This Grandma is Fun.

I love making any kind of craft with my grandkids with items that I already have around in my house.   These Cat and Pumpkin Halloween Masks are perfect for that. 

Using paper plates and either construction or cardstock paper, I can have these ready for my grandkids to make in a jiffy.  Here is what you will need:

Paper plates, some colorful cardstock paper, pen or pencil, scissors, a hole punch, tacky glue or gluestick, orange and black acrylic paint, and a foam brush.  Also needed is a straw, dowel or pipe cleaner to help hold up the mask. We used a dowel.  You will also need this free template compliments of Oh Happy Day!   Click HERE for template.

Start by painting the back of the paper plate with the orange and black paint.

While the paint is drying, cut out the shapes from the template.

With your pen or pencil, trace the shapes on to the back of the colored paper as desired.

Cut out the shapes that you just traced.

Trace two circles for the eyes and then cut them out.

Glue the shapes on to the front of your mask.

Using the hole punch, punch some holes for the cat’s whiskers. Then glue them on.

Because we used a dowel for our support, we glued them on with a glue gun.  A straw or pipe cleaner will also work.  If you choose to use a dowel, make sure any children who use a glue gun uses it with adult supervision.

And now it’s time to play!  These Cat and Pumpkin Halloween Masks will provide HOURS of entertainment and play for your kids and grandkids.

Happy Halloween!

We’ve got some more super fun Halloween Crafts for you.  Take a look!

Sparkle Spiders

Coffee Filter Bats

Salt Art Spider Web Craft

The post Cat and Pumpkin Halloween Masks appeared first on TGIF - This Grandma is Fun.

Today’s Halloween craft is incredibly easy but these are also so fun to decorate your home with.  We’ve made our monsters plain and easy to paint but let your kids use their imagination if they want to make them spookier.

Here are the items you will need for this project:

Blank Canvas frames.  You can use any size that you want and they are easily found at Wal-mart, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby.  You will also need foam paint brushes, black sharpie marker, and then some white, black, orange, green and purple acrylic paints.

To make the pumpkin picture, take a foam brush and cover the entire canvas with orange paint.  Let dry completely.

After this has dried, take the black sharpie marker and make a Jack-O-Lantern face. Paint in the pumpkin’s face and let dry.

Obviously the ghost is super easy. You don’t need to paint the canvas white but you can if you’d like.  Take the black sharpie marker to make a ghost face and then paint with black paint.

Next is our Halloween Frankie.  With a foam brush, paint the entire canvas with a bright green paint.  Let dry completely.

Take the black sharpie marker and draw downward spikes for his hair.

Paint them in with some black paint.

Next, using the below picture, just free hand drawing Frankie’s face.  Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect!  If your kids are old enough, let them draw this part themselves.  It will make their picture an original!

Now take the white paint and paint the eyes and tooth.

Last but not least is our one eyed monster.  On this one, you can have your kids follow our example or let them go crazy and create whatever kind of monster they want to make. 

For our one eyed monster, paint the entire canvas with a bright purple paint.

Using the sharpie marker, create a squiggly mouth and a large circle in the middle for the eye.  Use your white paint to fill in the eyes and tooth.  Let that dry then you can also add a black dot in the middle of the eye.

These are now ready to hang to make your house spooky for Halloween! 

Here are some more Halloween craft ideas to make your house even spookier!

Coffee Filter Bats

Cheesecloth Ghost Decoration

The post Monster on Canvas appeared first on TGIF - This Grandma is Fun.