Sandpaper Crafts
At first glance, a square of sandpaper doesn't scream "craft material." Look closely, however, and you'll see that its lightweight construction, stiff yet flexible composition and highly textured surface make sandpaper the ultimate crafting tool for children and adults. Thinking past the initial appearance of plain sandpaper opens a world of colorful, textured creations that you and your little ones can enjoy without making a mess.
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Sea Creations
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Capturing the textured surface of sea creatures, like starfish and crabs, is an ordinary crafting problem that sandpaper solves. Even if you need a single starfish or hermit crab, cutting a creature from a swatch of sandpaper gives your creation instant authenticity before you've even applied additional color or decoration. Use a stencil to create several different shapes and let children cover them in glitter. Help younger children paint or color their sandpaper creatures using crayons or pastel chalk.
Sandpaper Rainbow Drawings
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The textured surface of sandpaper lets you make colorful renderings drawn in the style of pointillism, or at the very least, drawn with texture. A piece of computer paper, colored heavily in crayon, provides the pigment while a closed-top marker acts as your writing implement. Turn the crayon-colored paper face down on a plain sheet, with a piece of sandpaper on top of it facing down. A simple capped marker pressed into the sandpaper creates a delicate, almost stippled design on the white bottom sheet of paper. For this project, use a broad tool instead of fine pen to capture the texture of the sandpaper.
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Sandpaper Letters
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Young children learn through feeling and touching. This is why Montessori schools have children trace sandpaper letters to encourage familiarity with the shape and dimensions of each letter. An alphabet of sandpaper letters cut from stencils and colored with marker or crayon makes an intriguing set of learning materials. Contain the letters by stringing them together in flash card formation with a piece of ribbon or glue them in a straight row on a smooth background.
Changing Sand Castle
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You can't go to the beach every day, but you can still bring the joy of sand castle sculpting to your child any time of year. Begin by gluing a large square of solid Velcro backing to a poster board or piece of wood. Draw and cut out multiple variations of each part of a sand castle from sandpaper, such as a base, towers and walls. Gluing a small piece of the adhesive Velcro material behind each sandcastle piece lets your child rearrange the different structural components and create new versions of his sand castle without ever leaving home.
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References
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