Quorn Brownies Advent Calendar Crafts

Quorn Brownies wanted to do an advent craft so of course I thought- calendars! However, we had 1 and a quarter hours and all of the ideas on the internet and in books seemed to take ten times that so I made this one up! You need: a large sheet of card each, masking tape, brown and red crayons, brown, red and yellow poster paint, a glue stick, 2 sheets of white A4 paper, 2 cotton wool balls, a little water, scissors and a black fine line pen. Instructions: 1. cut out a robin shape and mark out it's beak and belly. 2. cut masking tape into 24 feather shapes and place all over the bird in the direction of it's feathers. 3. using the crayon, scribble feathery texture all over the bird using brown for it's back and red for it's belly. Do the same on the 2 pieces of paper- make one red and one brown 3. dip the cotton woll ball in water, squueze and dip in brown paint- rub all over the brown area of the bird, then do the same with the red paint and the red part of the bird. Do the same on the paper 4. finger paint the beak yellow. 5. when dry- which should be really quick (in fact I used this time to tidy away the water pots, paint pots and wash the brushes) peel off the masking tape 6. Cut 24 feathers out of the two sheets of paper so that they cover the white bits where the masking tape has been removed. 7. write messages, cracker jokes or draw little pictures on each white bit. Draw an eye on the robin too. 8. glue one edge of each feather cut from paper and place on the robin over the white bits. 9. If the feathers stick up, dab a TINY bit of glue at the other end to seal 10. Write the numbers 1-24 randomly on the feathers and finally, add a piece of red wool to hang up. We also made Santas using tufts of beard instead of feathers. Voila! A unique, fun, gorgeous advent calendar in 1 and a quarter hours!