Tennis Crafts for Kids

It's been a record breaking year already at Wimbledon and the sun's out too - what a bonus!

Now's a perfect opportunity to add a tennis spin to one of your children's craft sessions.

Our tennis crafty bugs are ideal for both kids home and group craft sessions, packed in sets from one to 100 bugs.

We also have lots of other sporty themed crafty bugs for kids in our shop, plus our sunshine crafty bugs too.

Good Work in Ghana

This week, we thought we would share with you some crafty charitable news.

Crafty Capers were approached before Christmas by Andrea Ku, who was going to Ghana for a month over Christmas to help in a children's orphanage. She wanted to take some crafty items with her for the kids to make.

We were delighted to supply crown making supplies (even if they were worn upside down!) and gingerbread men bookmark kits for the kids to make and we understand from Andrea that these were a huge success and very popular with the kids.

The orphanage is in Bawjiase, the Central Region of Ghana. It was founded by a local Pastor and his wife who live there with the children. There are, on average, 35 children at the orphanage.

They are there for various reasons, such as their families are unable to support them, parents are very ill or have passed away or the children themselves were found in villages when they were very young.

The orphanage has no running water and the children sleep in 2 very crowded rooms which is not good if one of them is ill. Currently, the lease is about to expire on the land the orphanage is based so money is being raised to continue with a new building. This is almost half way through construction and is looking good so far!

Giving up her home comforts for Christmas and sponsoring herself to get there once wasn't enough for Andrea. She is just about to return to the same orphanage for another period to help again. This time though, Andrea is chaperoning four girls from a school in Liverpool who also want to help in the orphanage. They will be teaching the kids English and mathematics as well as creating and making things on a World Cup theme - there's no getting away from it!

How could we refuse a request to help again?

This time the kids will all be making a World Cup five a side football team in our crafty bugs, all in the colours of the Ghana team strip. Andrea's hoping to source (i.e. have donated!) some portable radios, so that the kids can listen to some of the matches, hoping that Ghana will still be in the tournament then. If you know anyone that could help with this before she leaves at the beginning of July, please email her at andreaku@hotmail.com

Obviously, they can't just have one team, so they will each also be making a five a side football team in the England colours as well!


In addition to the craft goods that we are donating, Andrea would also be delighted to receive any additional craft kits and supplies as they are going to endeavour to set up a craft station in the orphanage for future use. If you would like to help you can either contact us at info@craftycapers.co.uk or Andrea at the email address above.

We hope that you will agree that this is a really worthwhile venture and a really direct way to make a difference to the quality of these kids lives.


· Orphanage website: http://www.ghanaorphanage.org/
· Contact: Andrea Ku andreaku@hotmail.com
· Blog: www.offexploring.com/andreaku (it has the details of Andrea's trip from last year)

Pipe Cleaners for Kids Crafts

At littlecraftybugs we sell a huge range of pipe cleaners for crafts in single colour and mixed colour packs.

Available in pack sizes of all sizes, including bulk packs, you are sure to find what you are looking for.

Mixed Colour Pipe Cleaner Packs

Single Colour Pipe Cleaner Packs

Bulk Pipe Cleaners

Tinsel Pipe Cleaners

Extra Long Pipe Cleaners


What can I make with pipe cleaners?

No matter whether you call them pipecleaners, tinsel stems or chenille sticks, they are the same thing really and can be used in so many different ways in the world of kids crafts.

We have given a few ideas below on how you can use pipecleaners for children's crafts - imagination and creativity are probably the only limits in pipecleaner crafting!


Wobbly Pencils

Give a child some pencils, pipecleaners, pom poms and wobbly eyes together with some craft foam or card and they can have a bumper crafting session.

To start these crafts, we would suggest that you wind a small amount of double sided tape in a spiral at the top of the pencil and then, after peeling off the tape backing, you then wind the pipecleaner over the tape.

Keep the pipecleaner spiral tight and leave a section overhanging the ends if it can be used in the decoration, as in the examples above. The decoration will then wobble on top of the pencil when being used.

See below for the best glue.


Alien Monsters

Giving kids a pile of craft supplies and expecting them to create something can have varying degrees of success.

Why not choose some supplies that you know will work together to make a model on a theme. In this example we have made an alien monster using a selection of neon pipe cleaners and pom poms, which you could add wobbly eyes and craft foam to.

This makes a great craft party idea and is also perfect as a team building activity.

As with all pipecleaner activities, you need to choose the right glue - see below. This will particularly apply where you want to attach pipecleaners to other things. A top tip here is to rest it on a flat surface whilst a tacky PVA gets a firm grip.

Pipecleaners for Christmas, Easter & Halloween

Every kids craft season comes with it's own colour themes, which is reflected in our range of pipecleaners for Easter, Christmas and Halloween.

The traditional colours of yellow and white for Easter, red, green and white for Christmas and black, orange and purple for Halloween do not need to be the only colours you use in these seasons.

The Christmas reindeer bug above is made using brown pipecleaners but you could also use gold. Similarly, green pipecleaners are great for Easter or Spring themed crafts, making excellent flower stalks.

Hairy & Loopy Pipecleaners!

Loop pipecleaners, where the chenille is looped on the wired centre, rather than cut at the ends, come in a great selection of colours and can be used for hair on puppets, pom poms, monsters and much more.

If you're making people or animals, choose the natural coloured ones, otherwise choose bright or tinsel for monsters etc.

Peg Dolls

When making peg dolls, you will obviously need the wooden pegs and possibly stands. We also use tulle nets, cutting a hole in the centre to thread the peg through) and ribbons.

In addition, you will need natural coloured pipecleaners for the arms. The chenille stems can be used to help secure the dress in place under the ribbon if you wrap it tightly.

Take a look at all of our peg doll kits and supplies at the littlecraftybugs company.


Something More Complex

As with all kids crafts, you can make pipecleaner craft ideas as simple or as complex as you like.

Taking a simple idea like wrapping pencils with pipecleaners and adding foam, eyes and pom poms can result in some very basic finished crafts or can be more detailed, as the giraffe topped pencil above.


What glue should I use with pipecleaners?

The difficulty with sticking pipecleaners to other pipecleaners or anything else is that sometimes they have a mind of their own.

Pipecleaners themselves can be joined by twistng them together. However, kids normally want to add other bits and pieces as well.

To best stick chenille and tinsel stems we would always recommend a high tack or fast tack glue.

Our popular tacky glue is perfect for this job as it is immediately more tacky than normal PVA and will have a good strong bond within 10/15 minutes.

Browse by pipe cleaner colour

Beige pipe cleaners
Black pipe cleaners
Blue pipe cleaners
Brown pipe cleaners
Gold pipe cleaners
Green pipe cleaners
Grey pipe cleaners
Mixed pipe cleaners
Neon pipe cleaners
Orange pipe cleaners
Pink pipe cleaners
Purple pipe cleaners
Rainbow pipe cleaners
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White pipe cleaners
Yellow pipe cleaners

Rocker Crafts for Kids & Adults Too

We have some new rocker crafts to our shop this week, these all rock to and fro when assembled in the style of a rocking horse.

These are in two styles, the first are designed for adults and older kids to make.

Younger kids could make these but would need supervision.

All of the parts in these are die-cut, so no scissors are required.


We have also added some crafty rocker bugs to our shop, packed for children's group craft sessions.

These are based on our very popular and exclusive crafty bugs.

These can be used as name cards, crafts to make and give or just as part of a children's themed craft session or party.

Please view our range of rocker craft kits.