House of Burke: Personalized Hot Air Balloon Contact Paper Craft

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Happy Fine Motor Fridays!! If you have been following along this week, you know that this weeks Toddler Homeschool theme is Balloons. We have been having a blast learning about ,exploring, and crafting balloons of all kinds. For our last project of the week, we made this incredibly adorable fine motor filled contact paper hot air balloon craft!

For this craft you will need:

Clear Contact Paper
Assorted Color Tissue Paper
Brown Yarn
Scotch Thermal Laminator (Seriously.. you NEED this in your life. How many times do I have to tell you?!) Hole Punch
Tape
A picture of your child (preferably a full body shot)

It's no secret that we LOVE contact paper crafts. They are mess-free, help to develop fine motor skills, and are a phenomenal sensory experience. For this craft, Kingston got to do two contact paper crafts in one. The first thing he did was make the hot air balloon basket. To make the basket, I provided him with a piece of contact paper sticky side up and a stack of cut up brown yarn.

K worked on his fine motor skills by pinching, pulling, and picking up the individual pieces of yarn. He stuck them down to the paper in a clump and then separated them one by one.

When he was done with the basket portion, I put that aside. I gave him another piece of contact paper and some sheets of red and orange tissue paper. (You could use any color of course, but this is what I had on hand!)

I demonstrated how to squeeze the tissue paper into a ball (another fine motor skill), and Kingston was psyched about this. He pinched, squished, and squeezed the paper into crumbled little messes and then stuck them to the contact paper.

He squished and stuck until all of the tissue was stuck to the contact paper.

After he was done with his part, Mama got to work. I covered the tops of the contact paper creations with more contact paper sealing them in. Then came the best part, I printed out a full body shot of Kingston and ran in through the laminator creating a tiny laminated K!

To finish the rest of the project, I cut the balloon collage and basket collage into the aforementioned shapes. Then I punched two holes in the bottom of the balloon and two holes in the top of the basket and tied brown yarn to attach the two.

Side Note: The little K is seriously adorable. I LOVED playing with paper dolls as a child, and this was just like a little laminated paper doll. The possibilities are endless. It sparked the desire to make the hot air balloon more child friendly. So that Kingston could actually play with the hot air balloon and the mini Kingston, I ran the contact paper projects through the laminator as well! This made them super sturdy and flat. He will now be able to tote it around and move the little Kingston (which I attached with a piece of tape) in and out of the hot air balloon!

I am super inspired now to make an entire world for laminated Kingston and his adventures. I am planning on incorporating a laminated Kingston activity into each of our homeschool units. Eventually we will have a bunch of different activities for real life K to move his little laminated K in and out of. We can even add new characters to the adventures! So stay tuned for more laminated K action in the future. And seriously, buy a laminator, make tons of little laminated children of your own, and report back on their adventures. Their are endless possibilities!