Toddler crafts for Australia Day {2016}

It is Australia Day this coming Tuesday, so to celebrate LuLu & I thought we would share this super fun & very cute craft.
I am all for celebrating holidays – any holiday deserves celebration. Now that I am a Mumma of a little toddler I really like to make the effort that we do at least 1 little activity for each holiday we celebrate. We talk about the holiday while doing the craft and why we are making this certain thing & how it is relevant to the holiday… You can’t get to in-depth with a toddler (well you can, but I think it may get a bit overwhelming for them), or expect them to know why we celebrate certain holidays with out talking to them first, so I think starting a conversation is good, even if they just take away a very basic point – I just think it’s important & really great to just make them aware and just chat about it. This applies for any holiday. Books are a great starting point for conversations. 
So today we made frill neck lizards and a koala to decorate our house for Australia Day.

They are both simple crafts to do, the lizard does require a little bit of prep work but it isn’t super hard. 

Koala.
You will need…

• 1 large paper plate
• 2 smaller paper plates (or cut some card board)
• Grey paint (or black & white paint – I had no grey)
• Googly eyes or a sharpie to draw on features
• Glue & a stapler
• Cotton wool, white crepe paper, tissue – something to create fluffy ears. I used crepe paper because I cannot stand the feel of cotton wool, so I don’t own any.

Lizard.
You will need…

• Some cardboard, I used an old wrapping paper tube leftover from Christmas – this gave the lizard a more 3D type of effect because it was curved and sat up a bit. 
  

• Sharpie/pencil/pen.
• Stapler, sticky tape & glue.
• Scissors.
• Paint of your choice, you can either do a natural coloured lizard or some bright fun ones like we did.
• Glitter or embellishments if you feel like bedazzling your lizard (that’s a sentence I never imagined I would write)
• Red pipe cleaner.
• Cupcake liners/patty pans.
• Googly eyes 

1. Draw your lizard on the cardboard with a pen. Now, draw a test lizard first so you can work out how you like your lizard – I kind of fluked my lizards. They kind of look like spoons with fat stomachs and tails – but I guess that’s pretty much a lizard though! 
   

2. Cut out your lizards.
3. Lay your lizards on another piece of card board, draw legs on either side – use the lizard body as kind of a guide to how you want the legs to look. Mine are not perfect, but, at least my lizards have legs. If you really do not want to bother with legs, make it a legless lizard. (LOL) 
   
4. Cut out your legs and staple or glue them to the lizard.
5. Prepare your paint.
6. Paint the lizards. 
   
   
   
7. If you want to decorate your lizard, now is your chance – glitter, sequins – whatever you like – make the lizard shine. (This step is added in because no craft is complete in LuLu’s opinion without a healthy coating of glitter – she makes me proud) 
   
8. Let the lizard dry.
9. Take 2 patty pans, flatten them out & place together with the plain sides facing in. Cut a small section out of them and a small hole in the middle. Attach around your lizards neck and staple, think of it like attaching a necklace. (This step is optional – you could make a lizard that isn’t a frilly if you like) 
   
10. Glue on eyes (or draw them on)
11. Roll up pipe cleaner for tongue and attach with sticky tape or glue. (I attached mine under the lizards head) You could use a blue pipe cleaner & leave the frill off if you would like to make a blue tongue lizard.
12. Admire your one of kind true blue lizard.