How to create kids Detective crafts

The secret book

Oh well, this was way more difficult that I ever imaged. Always is with me though, get a book, cut a few pages out - job done.......not!

Get a book - well I ended up going to the charity shop to purchase a hardback book as I could not bear the thought of cutting anything I owned. When I was in the shop I did feel a bad about buying the one I did!

I then measured out the first page to see how much I wanted to take out the middle and proceed to cut through the pages. I'd take out the middles of the page and as I got near the last cut page I'd re-score the next set of pages to 'try' and keep the same measurements - It kind of worked.

I found myself pegging the sheets together as they'd been cut as it starts to get a wee bit fiddly as you get further along with just the outlines of the pages to work with - to the point I was rather glad I didn't choose a thicker book!

It took some doing too! Once I'd had enough.... I put my cutting mat under the last page I wanted to take the middle out of so as not to score the remaining pages - not sure why I did this - in hindsight don't think it matters!

Armed with my Mod Podge I glued each of the pages together - oh yes I did, and I did that in two sittings! Just a dab. I don't advice just glueing the sides, it's prone to opening at random pages if you do!

Once the glue had set I trimmed the inside edges and sanded them slightly to make them smooth - not dead straight and in line - but they are smooth and bingo - hiding place for the iPod......or T-Rex apparently.

Looking Glass

This is possibly my son's favourite I think. We got an empty lemonade bottle and used a couple of old bangles to mark circles on it. I placed one near the neck and one on the body to see which looked better cut out.

We've used both but I do prefer the cut out on the left which is from the neck of the bottle. We glued a stick to the plastic cut outs and left to dry. Once set we covered the sticks with tape - this was mainly to cover the plastic to give it a smoother finish.

Binoculars

My son had left me half way through this one so I've left in part finished state. Obviously, there is a world of choice with decorating these and such fun!

We got a couple of toilet rolls (well quite a few really as he tried to eat one of them and I still don't know what happened to the original blue one!) and quite simply decorated them. 'We' chose glue (favourite craft item of the month at the moment....) and tissue paper.

Once the rolls were dry I glued them together, added a hole on each side and threaded through a long ribbon. Although he wondered off after he'd decorated his tubes he loved the finished product. Nice and easy craft for all to get involved in.