The following is a guest post by Jessica Snow over at PartSelect
Making crafts with your children doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to require a trip to the craft store either. Children don’t care whether an activity uses special equipment or extensive supplies, they appreciate simple crafts just as much, especially if someone they love is willing to help!
Here are 10 do-it-yourself crafts you and your children can do together using supplies you probably already have around the home.
1. Create a bird feeder by coating a stale bagel with a tablespoon of peanut butter mixed with a tablespoon of shortening or oil. Coat with seeds, then hang outside and watch what comes.
2. Make an activity tray from an old rimmed baking sheet. Cover the surface with contact paper to make a dry-erase station that can be wiped clean easily. 3. Since younger children love noise, add assorted charms or buttons to the inside of an empty water bottle to create a noisemaker that’s fun to watch too.
4. Make an ocean in a bottle. Fill a small soda bottle half full of cooking oil, add some glitter or confetti, then fill nearly full with water. Watch how the colorful items dance as the bottle is turned.
5. Every child deserves as least one pet rock, so make one from an odd-shaped stone from the yard and whatever paints you have around. The ones pictured are actually from a professional rock shop on Etsy, but the ones you make at home will look just as good!
6. Use four popsicle sticks to form a picture frame, then decorate with whatever charms are around the house. Add a stiff cardboard back and your child’s favorite picture for a very personal treasure.
7. Raid the recycling bin for some old newspaper, then teach your child to make paper maché animals with a simple flour-and-water paste. Even plain old balloon shapes will be fun if they’ve never done this before.
8. Egg cartons are still as much fun as when you were a kid, so cut one into tulips and use twigs from outside to make a nice arrangement in a pot that your child has decorated too.
9. Help your child create a treasure chest by decorating a small plastic container with whatever the child wants to make it uniquely his or her own. Then, teach the importance of putting precious things away inside.
10. Schools don’t always teach macaroni art anymore, so make sure your child knows about the joys of gluing pasta to construction paper to form pictures and words. Tutus and Turtles has a great tutorial for dying pasta too if you want to make it extra fun.
Other ideas are limited only by your imagination. Using whatever you have around the house, you can keep your children entertained and spend some quality time with them too.
This post was written by Jessica from PartSelect, online resource for do-it-yourselfers and appliance parts retailer.
