We love trying out new and different mediums for craft activities, so making sand art pictures with the kits from Kids Bee Happy was an ideal activity to keep Mr Z busy during the school holidays.

The kit contains two pictures; one small and one large size and a packet of ten sand art pens in mixed colours. It also includes a plastic sleeve and hook to attach so you can display it once the picture is finished, and two sticks which are used to peel off the different sections of the picture as you work.

Mr Z decided to do the small picture first, which is a Father Christmas design. His idea was to decorate Father Christmas in all different and unusual colours, to make a “really silly world, where everything is different.” I’m not one to stifle the kids creativity, so I let him go with his ideas rather than making him stick to the conventional Father Christmas colours. He really enjoyed decorating it in his own design and he found it quite funny to choose which colours he wanted in each place – like a pink beard!

The instructions are given with the kit and it is fairly easy to follow. I did help Mr Z a little and supervised him throughout the activity. Some 5 year olds may be able to do it independently, but for most I think some supervision is probably a good idea!

To get started, you choose the section you would like to colour with sand first, and lift up the yellow sheet from the front, just covering that section. This enables the sand to cover the area nicely without going over the lines into the next section and give a neat and effective finished result. Mr Z started with the sky which he decided to colour black, and we went on from there section by section. The sand pens are squeezable but to get more out at once, Mr Z decided to open the whole pen and shake some out, you can then spread it over the desired area by carefully shaking. Note: It’s recommended to do the activity on a tray, and this is why – as it will then be really easy to clean up all the shaken sand at the end.

Here’s the picture half way through – coming along nicely. As you can see, the bits which are not yet coloured still have their yellow cover to keep them clean until they are needed.

To complete the whole picture took us 45 minutes for the small picture. This may vary depending on how quick you work, but it seemed a good length for the activity as it kept Mr Z occupied for quite a while yet didn’t take forever for him to be able to see his finished result.

He enjoyed the activity and was quite proud of his finished picture, which he says looks awesome.

Before throwing away the left over sand in the tray, of course we had to use it for a bit of mark making as that is fun and seemed a wasted opportunity not to! You can also experiment with mixing the different colours in the tray before you get rid of the extra sand.

The Kids Bee Happy sand art kids are available from www.sandartcrafts.co.uk and start at only £5 for a kit like ours with one large and one small picture inside. This is good value, as both pictures combined will keep a child occupied for a good couple of hours+ and its a great easy way to experiment with new textures and different ways to make pictures. I think the activity would be enjoyed by children of all ages, whether boys or girls. It is not suitable for under 3s so do keep it out of toddlers’ reach.

Have you tried arts and crafts with Sand before? Let me know your thoughts and experiences in the comments

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