Whether you are camping in the woods or camping in your backyard, it is nice to have a fire to sit down by. Recently my son and a friend help me craft a campfire to read by and enjoy in our backyard. Once this cardboard craft was finished, they brought out a favorite dinosaur book to explore.
The campfire is made of three pieces of cardboard cut out of a cardboard box. The pieces were cut out to resemble a log on the bottom and flames on the top. Slots were cut into the cardboard pieces so that they could be put together to make a three-dimensional fire.
Black, brown and red paint were set out for the boys to paint the cardboard with. They were also given sponge and bristle paintbrushes to paint with.
I suggested that they use the sponge brushes for the log section and the bristle brushes for the flames, but they ended up using both for both sections. They loved getting to see the different types of strokes they could make with each brush. Layering the brown and black paint on the logs was also fun. The logs ended up looking close to the real thing.
Once the paint was dry, the boys made dabs of paint with a bingo marker onto the flame section of the cardboard pieces. Then we used the paintbrushes to smooth out the dabs of orange paint. We all liked the texture that the orange paint added to the flames.
As I mentioned earlier campfires are great to read by. We also found this campfire was great to sing by and tell tall tales around. The best part about crafting a campfire it that you can take it apart and store it until the next time you want a campfire to read by.
