Summer's here - a sandcastle craft!

It's a lovely June sunny morning, I opened my curtains this morning and the sea was sparkling and I'm feeling all summery! So what better than this fab and simple sandcastle craft activity  – grab yourselves the following

-         A piece of stiff A4 card (or bigger if you like!)

-         Some glue – PVA with a spreader or brush is best

-         Sand, either play sand or beach sand

-         Some small pebbles and shells

-         Lolly stick and card

If you’re lucky enough to be able to get to the beach it’s great to go out and collect all of the things you need for this craft together and then you can have tons of fun reminiscing and chatting about the beach when you do this craft. You can buy craft lollisticks (they’re dead cheap and useful for tons of different crafts) – but I prefer to use it as an excuse to get the ice lollies in!

Firstly, draw a simple sandcastle outline on the card. Now this is why the spready glue is better for this craft – get your little one to paint inside the shape with lots of glue. Good practice for older toddlers at trying to keep within the lines – but if they go outside of it no worries!!

Now for the fun/magic bit. Sprinkle lots of sand over the gluey area, count 1-2-3 then shake off the excess sand leaving a sandy sandcastle shape. Use the leftover glue to decorate the castle with the  pebbles and shells and make a flag using the lolly stick and some more card or paper.

For older kids adapt this craft by using kitchen roll tubes and a paper plate. Cover the tubes with glue and roll them in the sand so they're completely covered - then stick to the paper plate with sellotape. More glue and sand on the plate gives the sandcastle a sandy base, then decorate with stones, shells and a flag in the same way!

Happy sandcastle building!!!

Hello - and intro and my very first blog!

Hello and welcome to the very first ARTventurers blog post!

This is in fact my first ever blog so please bear with me while I get the hang of it.....

ARTventurers is an art and creative events company for children based in Sunderland. We're pretty new as ARTventurers is just getting off the ground in the area, but it's an area of business that is very familiar to me! Re-wind time by 5 years or so - we were living in Yorkshire, I'd just had my first baby and decided to leave the legal profession and launch a business running art and craft classes for pre school children. Although I qualified as a solicitor my passion has always been art and crafts and over the years my spare time has been spent doing courses and teaching myself ceramics, life drawing, card making......I wanted to do something that indulged my creative side and allowed me to be my own boss to fit in with my growing family.

I was really fortunate in that the business took off big style from day 1 - in a short space of time I was running a number of jam-packed sessions for pre-schoolers each week as well as doing lots of crafty birthday parties, running sessions at Childrens Centres and other events. I loved designing and planning each weeks activities and helping the children have fantastic fun exploring and creating with new materials and mediums.

About 18 months ago though our family situation changed - my husband was made redundant and we decided to move back to our home town of Sunderland to live by the sea and be nearer to our families. The pull back to the north east was too strong to resist! I was lucky enough to find a fantastic girl to take over my precious business down in Yorkshire and so 18 months later I find myself with a lovely sea view every morning, two children now settled in their new area and relaunching myself into the world of childrens art and crafts!

We've loads of exciting things planned over the next few months and I just can't wait..... in the meantime I hope to use this blog to post pics and ideas of some great art and craft activities that you can try at home with your kids and have fun exploring and creating together!