Finding ways to boost wellbeing and feel good at home are imperative towards maintaining healthy bodies and minds.

Getting creative at home is a great way to keep yourselves and your families entertained for hours, whilst stimulating those minds and taking a moment to relax and feel good. Enjoy our quick and easy-to-follow guides for fun, feel-good crafts using bits and pieces from around the house.

"Create at Home" crafts are generally aimed at and adaptable for all ages or to participate in as a family, but some crafts may be more age appropriate than others.

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Brighten up you pot of pens or pencil case when you’re back to school with these fun pencil toppers. We've made a monster pencil topper, but you can make anything you want - make animals, stars, smiley faces, anything you can imagine! 

You will need:

• Paper – coloured paper, magazine paper, tissue paper, any paper you have available
• Glue
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Coloured Pens
• The pen or pencil you want to make the topper for 

Got everything? Let’s get started: 

  

1. First, let’s make the attachment which will fit onto your pen or pencil. Start with a strip of paper which is at least 4cm wide. Roll it around the top of your pencil and trim it down so that it will wrap around your pencil with a little bit of an overlap. Once you have the right size roll it round the pencil and glue it in place to create a tube which fits snugly on the top of your pencil.

2. Remove it from your pencil and cut little slits around one end of the tube, about 1cm long. This can be a bit fiddly - you'll want the slits to be quite close together, but be careful they don’t rip off. Fold the slits out wide, your pencil topper shape will stick to these to hold it to the top of the pencil. Set this to one side for now, you will need it later. 

 

3. Now it's really time to start getting creative. You can decide how you want to decorate your topper. Cut your base shape out of some paper and decorate it. We made a splodge monster. 

 

4. Now to decorate it more – you could cut thin strips of paper to make wild hair, or use wool, and cut shapes out of more paper to make your creation really inventive.

5. Now find your pencil attachment you made earlier. Glue it by the strips to the bottom of your monster. 

6. Let it dry and there you have it! Grab your pencil and pop it on the end.

Why stop there? You could make a whole family of monsters! Or make a whole bouquet of flowers. Or lots of the same monster or flower or whatever you choose, in all different colours. What else can you imagine?