When the little one was around 2, I had got him a little kid's scissors. These are great for little hands, as they are not sharp and dangerous while are good enough to snip paper. I was excited to introduce these to him, but apparently he was not yet ready for them back then. He would just hold them but was not able to snip papers. So I kept them away and planned to reintroduce them after a few months.
As part of my work, which I do at home, I have a lot of cutting of fabric that I need to do (I make Memory Quilts!). Mini sees me at work and lately showed a lot of interest in wanting to sit with me and cut too! I was delighted and brought out his little scissors and handed him a sheet of paper. And voila! It was a hit this time and he took to it immediately!
It gave him great joy to see himself work his way around snipping paper and this kept him busy for a good time, while got to get some work done in parallel. Once he got a little fluent in basic cutting, I decided to make this craft for him - a pretend play hair cutting salon with wild haired little tissue paper roll men!
Being a DIY enthusiast I have a whole lot of tissue paper rolls, cardboard boxes, craft paper and the like lying around to help me make up a DIY, as and when an idea strikes! So for this one, I used up a few tissue paper rolls and some basic stationery supply. It took me just all of 30 minutes or so to get these done.
And the joy it brought to the little one was absolutely priceless! Worth every bit of the effort put in.
I introduced a few different textures for him to play around and work his cutting skills on. I used straws, crepe paper and craft paper for the hair of the tissue paper men. We have since then bought another kid's scissors which are slightly more sharper than the absolutely safe one which we used earlier. Since he is a little better with his cutting now, and since we have more textures here than only plain paper, I gave him a choice of both scissors to use as needed.
He needed a little reminder every now and then to open the scissors wide before attempting to cut and each time he did that, his little mouth too opened wide! :D Oh, it was the cutest sight!
This Mini Salon is going to remain one of my favourite DIYs to date. I loved every aspect from planning, making to presenting it to him to play and also watching him in delight and enjoying the set up! :) If you have a toddler who loves to cut, this one is for you! Do try it :)
Tissue Paper Rolls
Craft Sheets - I used crepe paper and thicker chart paper.
Straws
Glue and Cellotape
Scissors
Goggly Eyes
How I made it:
- I first wrapped a chart paper sheet on the top of one tissue paper roll. Glued it in place.
- I then snipped the sheet into strips to make it look like hair.
- I added on googly eyes and drew a quirky face.
- And voila! Our first tissue paper roll man is ready! :)
- I made one more in the similar process using a chart paper of another colour.
- Our third tissue paper roll man had hair of crepe paper. I followed the same process to make this one, like I did for the previous two.
- The fourth man had hair of straw! For this, I first cut a few plastic straws in random sizes and laid them out next to each other with one end aligned together.
- I taped them together to keep them in place and carefully turned it over and stuck it around the tissue paper roll. Added more cello-tape to secure the straw hair onto the roll.
- Added face details and the fourth man was all set!
I love how the other two are looking and this straw haired punk! :D
And there you go, the four wild haired men are all ready and waiting to get their hair cut!
There comes the barber and gets to work! :D
Oh, I love a happy mess! :) I set this up in our balcony so it was super easy to just clean up every little bit of scrap.
I am just going to leave you with some pictures of a very happy little barbers who takes his job very seriously! :)
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