Think Crafts Blog - Craft Ideas and Projects - CreateForLess

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Despite the fact that the state I currently live in was once the capitol of the Confederacy we’ve had far more snow this winter than any of the years I lived in Oregon. In fact, the past two months have done a pretty good job of reminding me of my childhood in Northern Idaho. And with all that snow has come a lot of snow days. Snow days that cancel school and snow days that just cancel everything. With two kids in a smallish house, I’ve had to come up with a pretty steady stream of crafts and activities. Some have been good, some have lasted about thirty seconds and some have been a downright hit. At the top of the list for my son was this little project, which we spent an entire snowy afternoon on. 

Remember back when we were in elementary school and played around with the Ed Emberly’s Thumbprint book? Well it’s still around and just as fun as ever. And even if you don’t happen to have the book hanging around, you can still help turn your kids thumb and finger prints into just about anything they can dream up. And what better way to illustrate a story of their own making?

Here’s what you need:

Stamp pads in various colors (I sometimes just use washable markers with my daughter, just color the pad of their finger and stamp quickly, less mess for the little ones!)

White cardstock or thick copy paper

Black marker

Black pen

Ruler

Start by having your child write or dictate a story. It’s a great time to talk about the basics of story arcs and how they need a beginning, middle and end for a good story. As they write (or dictate) estimate how many “scenes” the story will have and draw a square for each on the paper.

Most comic books have a variety of sizes of squares so keep that in mind, and don’t forget to add a box for the title and the “the end” frame. Write each line in its box and read through the story with your child so they know what’s going on in each box before they get started. It’s a good idea to make a few examples of animals and characters they might want on a separate sheet of paper if you don’t have a thumbprint art book, just to get them started.

Then let the stamp and draw away. In the end you’ll have a (probably hilarious) memento of just what kind of story was bobbing around in their head at that moment in time. In fact, we ended up laminating the pages of our sons to make sure it was well preserved. I know I never want to forget the story of a pig that loses his “singing lung” and has to learn to trumpet!

How about you, have you introduced any crafts inspired by your childhood fun to your kids?

By Recycled Crafts Contributor, Anitra from the blog “Coffee Pot People”.

My husband and I recently had the pleasure (not to mention mild shock!) of attending his son’s 50^th birthday party. It was a family celebration, and the attendees ranged in age from four years to 74 years.

What do you do at a party with that wide an age span, encompassing both sexes, other than eat ice cream and cake and watch the birthday gifts being opened?

Our son, Jeff, had the perfect solution, and I’m only sorry I didn’t get the camera out earlier, because once we got started on our activity, all I could think was, I’ve got to share this! It’s great!

We had all settled in and were standing or sitting around the family room when Jeff got our attention and told us to team up in groups of two or three, choosing a partner or partners we thought we’d like to create something with. We were soon laughing, wondering aloud just what we’d be doing, and standing in little clusters before being led out to the garage.

There, Jeff had set up a large table, with small, identical, piles of materials places all around the edge. In the center of the table were jars of nails, hammers, and a big glue gun. As each team chose a station and examined the assortment of wooden pieces, Jeff explained the “game”.

Each team was to build whatever they wanted out of the pieces they’d been given. The only stipulation was that we had to use every piece, although we were free to cut or break any piece, or alter them, as we wished.

We had each been given two wooden circles with a hole drilled through the center, a piece that appeared to be the corner of a square piece of wood where a circle had been cut from, a couple of sticks roughly ½” X ½” X 4″, scrap of a 2X4, and a largish piece of very thin wood, which Jeff told me later was a door skin, cut into rectangles. You, of course, could use any scraps you had lying around, or cut scraps into interesting shapes, just making sure everyone got the same things.

After we’d made our “sculpture”, and named it, we were to visit all the other ones that had been made, and vote for the one we thought was the best.

There was so much whispering, chatter, and laughter, with every single person a happy participant, from youngest to oldest.

Here are pictures of three more projects, and while you might not be able to tell from looking which team had the 4-yr-old, which teams had cabinet maker partners, or which were comprised of a woman and child, I’ll bet you can tell we all had fun!

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Because my two kids, a boy - 7 and a girl - 3, share a room, our decorating scheme walks a fine line between girl and boy, between little kid and big. I’ve been a little weary of hanging much art so far, finding everything too one way or the other. But I also get tired of blank walls very quickly, so this week I decided it was time to tackle the wall above their beds. We needed color and fun and something they each loved. And in the end, their favorite books seemed like a good place to start. I should also say that this decision also happened to come about after picking up the dustcovers from those favorite book off the floor one too many times.

If your kids are like mine, they have very little use for dust jackets, and since I try to buy hardback copies of books that I suspect will get a lot of use, we have a lot of them hanging around. Sometimes they stay on the books and gradually disintegrate, eventually being sucked up bit by bit through weekly vacuuming. Sometimes I pull them off right away and tuck them in a cupboard where they sit, taking up space. This is, I think, a better solution than either of the two.

Here’s what you need:

5-6 sheets of scrapbooking paper in coordinating colors (and coordinating with your dust jackets)
Book dust jackets of various sizes
Old frames in various sized
spray paint
foam
Mod Podge
Sewing machine
Ribbon
Paper cutter

Start by matching your dust jackets to frames, deciding which look best where. Paint the frames to match the color scheme of the paper you have chosen and/or the bedroom decor. You can either keep the glass in the frames or choose to leave it out all together. I choose to leave it out, just in case jumping on the bed led to pictures falling on the floor or heads!

Cut a piece of foam core to fit into the back of each frame snugly.

Trim the dust cover neatly so that you have an even rectangle or square of just the front. Reserve the scraps.

Cut and piece the scrapbooking paper so that it covers the edges of the foam core just slightly more than the gap between the dust jacket and the edge of the frame.

Using Mod Podge (I’ll refer you to our own Mod Podge Amy for her excellent tips) decoupage the paper and then the dust jacket onto the foam core.

Once dry, pop your new art into the frames, securing with a staple gun or tape.

With the remaining paper and the scraps of the dust jackets, help your children cut even triangles (or, if they dont feel like a geometry lesson, you could do it yourself). Cut two lengths of ribbon for the beginning and end of the bunting.

Help your children decide on an order for the triangles to fall in the bunting, stacking them from first to last in a pile.

At your sewing machine, place the end of one piece of ribbon under the starting edge of the first triangle and start stitching using a straight stitch and a 1/4 inch seam allowance. As each triangle is done, run the next through, leaving only a few stitches between each. Sew the second piece of ribbon to the back of the last triangle and back stitch to secure.

Using the ribbons as hangers and arranging the art and bunting across the wall, hang your new kids art and stand back to admire. When your kids fall out of love with one book and in with another, or you just need a change, you can decoupage a new dustjacket right on top of the old ones, creating an up to day display of their reading habits.

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

If your child, well let’s be frank, you son, is REALLY opposed to gushy valentines, try this little project. This can actually be done with any old image and is a fabulous last minute Valentine or last minute ANYTIME gift bag. Although I used smaller white bags here, I’ve also done this with plain old lunch bags for a quick wrapping idea and try to hang onto any paper bags that come my way to reuse this way as wrapping.

Here’s what you need:

Paper bags small enough to fit in your printer - here I used 4 5/8 x8 5/8
Paper
Markers
Printer
Something to stuff in the bag (candy is always a good choice!)

Have your child draw their image. For this valentine I had my son draw a series of monsters from a “How to Draw Monsters” book. After looking through his drawings we picked the one he liked best and I scanned in into my computer.

Open a new word document  on your computer and adjust the page size to the size of your bag. Measure the lower end of the bag when it is folded flat up to where the bottom folds up. This will be your bottom margin. If you print over where the bottom folds up it tends to blur the ink.  Insert the image from your scan, resizing as needed by dragging the corner in and up. Add your text in a fun font. Abstract Fonts is a great source for fun, free fonts.

Insert the bag into your printer fed, right side down and with the end of the bag away from the printer. Adjust the paper feed to fit the bag and print away. These are super cute straight out of the printer but even more special colored in by your little artist.

What kind of Valentines will your kids be making this year?

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Remember back to the Valentines days of our youth? All those little Scooby Doo and Barbie Valentines cards with their perforated edges and strangely sweet envelope glue? Yeah, they were cute, I’ll admit it. But somehow now that my kids are school aged, I find myself shying away from the cards that my classmates and I stuffed into shoebox “mailboxes” each year. Maybe it’s the fact that most of them are covered with kind of scary looking cartoon characters or maybe it’s the fact that I know all that paper will just end up in the landfill. Or maybe it’s just the crafter in me that hates the idea of sending my son off with something store bought (he’s going to hate me when he’s a teenager -What? No I will not buy you that shirt! I’m sure we can MAKE it for less honey!)

The problem is that now that he is seven and almost a half, the cutsie valentines that we’ve made in years past ARE NOT COOL MOM. No more puffball hearts or hand drawn red and white cards. No more talk of love or be mine. Sigh. So how on earth do you do a non lovey-dovey, boy approved, kid make-able valentine? Well, I’ll tell you, it took some serious thinking.

Actually, I’ll be honest; my son inspired the idea when we were eating lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant last weekend.

“Fortune Cookies! I love Fortune Cookies!” He said “Hey mom, can we make fortune cookies this week?”

Humm, well, yes, I think we can.

These are really simple and very kid friendly and let’s face it, who doesn’t love a fortune cookie?

Here’s what you need:

Felt - 1 sheet will make three large fortune cookies

Tacky Glue

Small treats (Hershey Kisses work great!)

Paper and pen

Fabric and paper scissors

Trace a five-inch diameter circle onto your felt. You can either cut a template from cardstock or find a bowl or lid that’s around five inches. You can also go bigger or smaller but I found that a five inch circle was the best size for holding a few treats and being handleable for little fingers.

Cut, or if your child is old enough, allow them to cut the circle out carefully. Try to keep the edges as smooth as possible.

Cut a strip of paper 1 inch long by 1/4 inch wide and write a message on it, leaving one third of the strip blank. Run a bead of tacky glue around the circle and lay the strip of paper just above the halfway point on one side. If you want to insert treats, put two kisses end to end (or other small candies) in the middle.

Fold the circle over and press to close, keep pressing the edges down until the glue has a good hold on it. Allow the glue to dry completely.

Using your thumb, push the center of the flat edge (between the two candies) toward the seam.

Dab a dot of glue where the two halves of the “cookie” meet and hold it closed for a minute to allow the glue to set.

And you’re done! How cute is that? My son is gung-ho to make these for all of his friends this year, which is good because I really don’t think I could have given in to the Power Rangers Valentines, no matter how anti-lovey dovey his seven-year-old self is!

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

So you know the expression “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey”? Well, that applies to crafts too. The doing is just as much fun, if not more, than the satisfaction of the finished product. And sometimes, making the stuff to make the stuff is the best part of the whole thing. This is one of those projects.

At the end of this project your going to have yarn. Yarn is good. There are lots of things you can do with yarn. But, you know, it’s yarn. Granted, this isn’t your average yarn, but it works in just about everything that regular yarn does. The fun part about this, is making the yarn.

Here’s what you need:

• An old (or new) t-shirt, Preferably one with no side seams but an old T will work
• Good, sharp fabric scissors
• Someone who likes to stretch things (hint: your kids would be good for this job)

If you want to be precise:

• A ruler

Lay your t-shirt out on a flat, clean surface.

Cut just above the hem line and just below the armpit line so that you have a nice rectangle of uninterupted t-shirt fabric.

With one of the folded edges up, fold the fabric in half, leaving a one inch space at the top uncovered and then fold it in half again, still not covering that one inch area.

Either measuring evenly across the folded fabric or, just eye-balling it (it doesn’t need to be perfect) cut even strips through the folds to the edge of where the one-inch margin is. (DO NOT CUT ALL THE WAY ACROSS!) If your kids are of the older and/or trustworthy sort, let them do the measuring and cutting. One inch strips works well but you can go wider or narrower to produce a thicker or thinner yarn.

Once you have the fabric cut all the way across and have unravelled the whole thing, lay the uncut portion out flat.

Cut at an angle from one end of the first loop up to the opposite end of the next loop up. Continue this until you have cut them all through, trimming the ends so that you have one long strip of jersey.

Now for the fun part. Working along the length of the strip (or really, in any direction your little pullers want) firmly pull on the fabric to stretch it as far as it will go without breaking.

The jersey will curl in on itself creating a thin, rounded yarn like material.

So what CAN you do with t-shirt yarn. Well, like I said, just about anything you can do with yarn. It’s also a great material to make braided rugs or pot holders, both great kid projects. I taught my son to finger crochet and he happily used up an entire t-shirts worth of yarn making a long chain which he promptly carried off to do something with, I’m not sure what, but since I remember making finger crocheted chains long enough to go all the way around my room when I was seven, I’m not too worried. As for the rest? Well, I’ll confess that I rolled up five t-shirts worth of yarn and stuck them in a big bowl on my dining room table. Just because it looked so darn pretty.

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

I keep a bin of clothespins in my house even though I’ve long since given up on line drying in this humid part of the country. They are one of those super handy, tons of uses kind of things. They hold up the sides of forts, keep the chips bag closed, identify dinner napkins and hang this week’s art assignment up in the playroom. But you know, they’re kind of boring; especially for something that makes appearances in every room of my house. After seeing some painted clothespins featured on an online store a few weeks ago, I decided to give my set a makeover, and if there’s paint (and it’s washable) my daughter is only too glad to help. 

There are really two ways of painting the basecoat of the clips. If you aren’t bombarded with “I want to help!” from a three year old, go with spray paint. It’s fast, it’s easy, it dries quickly and the colors are nice and bright. If, however, you are also blessed with a little helper, washable craft paints are the ticket. 

Clip the clips along the edge of a sturdy box, leaving enough room between each for fingers (or spray paint cans) to get in there. Paint the front, back and sides of the clip and inside the top. Allow the pins to dry, take them off to check for missed spots, and add another layer (hint- turn the clips around for the second coat)

Once the base coat is dry, lay them of a flat, paintable surface and get going with the dots. Drops of puff paint will certainly work but I found that applying paint with the tip of a knitting needle gave me more control over the size and shape of the dots and had an over all nicer effect. 

Allow the dots to dry completely before flipping over and dotting the other side. 

The possibilities for these are endless. Hang art, mark a page in your favorite book, close a lunch bag. Imagine the possibilities. I’ve already got a set of green and red clips in the works for holiday gift bags and Christmas ornament hangers.