Chick In A Basket (Guest Post)

The Boy and I (see I can be grammatically correct when needed!) love craft activities, and I am always on the look-out for new ideas. I was recently browsing the Internet looking for some coloured sand when I came across the Baker Ross site. I already knew about it through my teacher alter-ego but hadn't thought to look there before. I was pleasantly surprised to find a whole load of craft activities for Winter and Spring, and bought a whole load of craft materials that we're currently working our way through.

In this guest post from James Christie (who writes for Baker Ross), you'll find simple instructions on how to make a very cute Easter chick.

How children can craft a chick-in-a-basket

Easter isn’t far away but there is still time for kids to make some super Easter crafts. The cheerful Easter character baskets that this article will explain how to create, are fantastic gifts and look great when displayed at home or in the classroom.

Put the items mentioned below in your Easter shopping basket and you will be ready to begin.

• 3D Easter Character Foam Kits – a pack of 4 currently (as of 8^th March 2012) costs £3.80
• Super Strong Multi-Purpose Silicone Glue – £3.98 for a pack of two and £10.50 for a pack of six
• Mini Glue Dots – £2.99 for a box of 300

All these items are available from kids arts and crafts company Baker Ross and don’t forget to have a pair of children’s spring-loaded scissors to hand. This piece of equipment will make sure that kids can happily cut away with ease – you can get a pair for under a pound.

There are two designs in the kit and this article will concentrate on hatching a plan to make the chick-in-a-basket. Reading out the following instructions to your children might help them with this task.

Firstly, take the green-fringed strip of foam and the green circle and apply silicone glue around the rim of the circle. Press the fringing around it to create the basket (as below).

You will need to trim off any excess foam so that your basket has a neat perimeter.

While your basket’s glue is drying you can pick up the yellow egg shape and glue your chick’s orange webbed feet to the base.

Once the feet are in place, give the chick wings by gluing some on top.

Your chick is now ready to fly but how will it see? It’s time to stick the adhesive wiggle eyes near the dome of the yellow egg. I love the way the eyeballs wobble whenever the chick is moved!

After a little triangular orange beak is added, the chick is only missing one vital component – its feathers. So, take a big yellow feather and put it on the chick’s spine – it’s really ready to shake a tail feather now!

You might think the task is finished now and it almost is. It’s time to return your attention to the green basket; hopefully it’s dried by now. Inside your kit you will find three sheets of foam flowers with different colours on them. Pop these out of their sheets, peel off the back and adorn your basket with them. Don’t forget to press down firmly so they don’t fall off.

Lower your chick into its comfy basket home and stand back to admire this excellent Easter piece of art. The chick might well look a little lonely sitting in its basket on its own so why not make a bunny-in-a-basket to go with it?

Have a great Easter!

You can find all the Easter Craft Essentials your kids need at the Baker Ross site.

Here's an easy video tutorial of the process

This is a guest-post