Farm project for daughter's nursery.

Had to create a farm project as my daughter's nursery assignment. And this is what I made -

 

Before I made this, I had googled a lot about ideas to make a farm quickly, but couldnt get a single site where I could follow steps and make a nice farm. I had this idea in mind but was skeptical since it seemed quite tricky to execute. But then after wasting few hours researching, finally decided to do it myself. 

The windmill(did via a origami site), and animal pictures to draw from were the only things I picked online. Rest all was my idea and I am mentioning steps below if anyone interested to know :) Guys, I am new to blogging , this is my first blog and i aint any expert in art. So cannot give exact dimensions and measurements. You can look at the pictures and try n understand :) 

1. Cut the thermocol sheet (thick size) in to half or any size you want to make the farm base.

2. Cut brown velvet paper of size about 1-2 inches more of the farm base dimension. And using glue stick it on the thermocol sheet so that it covers the top as well as sides.

3. Cut a rectangular piece of green velvet paper and stick on side of farm. So this will be the green (fruits/vegetables/grains) farm while other would be the animal farm.

4. Take ice-lolly sticks(are available in craft stores) and cut few of them as per height you want the fence to be. Since I was going to insert them in the sheet, I kept it  few cms more than required height. Keep few sticks of the whole length. This you would require to tie to the cut pieces to put them all together.

5.Take one whole length stick and using thread tie one cut piece at right angles leaving few cms. Similarly tie another piece on another end leaving few cms. So this would be one unit of fence. Make 15-16 such units depending upon the size of the farm.

6. Since I had used white thread, I coloured it brown using brown colour felt pen. :)

7. Now make markings on the thermocoal farm base at places where the vertical cut sticks would go inside all around the farm. Insert pen-knife in the marked lines, to make opening in the base sheet. Apply some quick glue at the tips of the cut edges of the sticks and  insert all the fence units all around the base so as to make a fence. Keep some space at front center of base for the farm gate.

8. Draw a gate pattern on cardboard and cut it. Stick this at the front empty space.

With this, major task of the farm is done!

9. Create the windmill fan using square blue (or any colour) craft paper. (Will update the link from where I made this later if i find it.). Using cardboard, make its pillars and stick the paper fan at top. Stick a small yellow colour circle in center.

10. Now draw patterns on the cardboard(listed below). Draw a sharp triangular wedge at bottom of each pattern. This will help when you insert these shapes in the farm base. Dont draw too intricate patterns as you would have difficulty cutting it. Cut all the patterns to make separate pieces.

1. Farm animals - cow, pig, hen, horse, chickens etc
2. Large Trees
3. Various flower shapes and vertical strips as stalks.
4. Small vegetable/fruit shapes - carrot, brinjal, strawberry etc.
5. Plant/crop on which you will be sticking above vegetables.
6. Tractor
7. House

12. Colour all these shapes as required using water colours, felt pens etc.

13. Insert these at required places on the base. Use pen knife to make slits before inserting the shapes.

14. Colour the farm gate with name of your child. e.g Aarav's Farm.

15. Your farm is done!!! For some more touches, add some hay in the animals area. Add some rice grains near the chickens. You can use small brown/black lids of bottles as water trays for animals.

And voila!!! You child's farm is ready.

Hope you get more clarity with few of the close-up pics.

Hope you all like it!!

P

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Few points to note -

a) This was quite a long and tiring process. Since I am working mother and I knew that the idea had elements that possibly wouldnt work out. e.g cardboard animals and too many details, I started work about 3 weeks before the submission date. One weekend I just sourced all the required stuff. Then I spent an average 1 hour per working day and around 3-4 hours on 2 weekends, to get this done. I used to feel so proud with the progress each day that I took pictures and those helped me while creating this post today :)

 

 b)3-4 days before the submission date, I got tired of the cutting process- my fingers paining with the cardboard cutting. So I gave up on the number of animals and crops. So you would see that my farm is quite empty as per the proportion. So keep in mind that size of base will decide the no of animals, flowers you would have to make, in case you want a nice filled farm.