Fun Crafts for Children

Painting with marbles.

Place the paint (poster or tempera) into medium plastic cups. Use a few different bright shades. Plase 2-3 marbles into each cup. Shake the cups to cover the marbles with paint. Place a sheet of white (or dark construction) paper into a shoe box. Place marbles from one cup into the box and roll them by moving the box. Then repeat with another color. When the paper dries you can cut any shape out of it according to the occasion or just leave it like it is. The final result will be even better than the spinning “art” kids do at some party places.

Potato stamps.

Wash the potato, dry with paper towel and cut in half. Draw the desired shape with a pencil. Cut around the outline. Place a thin layer of paint in a paper plate. Press the potato stamp into paint and then onto the paper.


	Paper cup "flowers". You can make a nice card using cupcake paper cups. Your child can color the cup with crayons, colored pencils, or markers, glue it to a card, and then draw a stem and a few leaves. To make it more interesting you can suggest that your child cut the sides of one cup and glue it into another or glue some other decorations into its center (there are many different possibilities).
	Paper gift box. It's really easy to make a nice box out of a simple piece of paper. Print out a box layout. Ask your child to color it before cutting it out. To make a sturdier box, trace the printed out shape onto a thicker sheet of paper and then let your child color it. To make it a bit more interesting he can simply color it with colored pencils or markers or else draw some pictures on the sides. Then, help your child cut the shape out and fold it (use ruler to fold thicker paper). Glue the sides together. When the box dries, glue some beads or other decorative items to the sides.

	Cotton balls clouds. Take 10-15 small cotton balls. Pour some white glue into a paper plate. Have your child touch the glue with a cotton ball and press the ball to the blue construction paper. After the "clouds" are ready, suggest that he paint or draw some rain drops and a few puddles with crayons(or markers).
	Baby pumpkins. Find a few round stones in your yard, and wash them. Suggest to your child to color them with an orange acrylic paint. When the paint is dry let him paint the pumpkins' faces.
	A paper spider. Cut or let your child cut out of black construction paper: one or two 1.5-2 inch circles (the spider's body) and eight 3 inch long, 0.25 inch thick legs. Glue the legs to the circle or glue the legs to one circle and glue another circle over it. Cut eyes and the mouth out of red paper, and glue them to the body. Bend all the legs in the middle and 0.25 inches from the end.You can tape this spider to the window or to the wall. Make a few of different sizes.

		Bats. Trace a print-out onto the black sheet of construction paper. You can cut it out yourself or let your child do it depending on your child's age. Also cut out two little red dots out of a red piece of paper. Glue the red eyes to the bat. Fold the wings. You can use these bats as window or wall decorations with the help of some scotch tape.
	Bat garland. Cut out of a black construction paper a few bat shapes (print-out). Bend their wings. Get a thread and a Scotch tape. Attach a bat cut-out to thread with a piece of tape. Use 4-5 cut-outs.
	Paper bag ghost. 1. From a print-out: Let your child cut out 2 white ghosts (or do it yourself), then draw their faces and glue them to the both sides of a lunch bag. Hang it by a string. 2. Using white acrylic paint let your child paint a ghost on both sides of the lunch bag. Once they've dried paint their faces with a dark blue or black. Hang the bag by a string.

	Paper Cristmas tree. (click image for detailed instructions)
	A paper ornament with your child's drawings. (click image for detailed instructions)
	Little Ginger Bread House (click image for detailed instructions)
	Paper lanterns.(click image for detailed instructions)
	Paper chain garland (click image for detailed instructions)


	Easter Egg Coloring There is a wide variety of totally different methods. Here you can see some of them. Using hard-boiled eggs. 1. You can find different egg coloring kits at any store befor Easter. It’s very easy to use them, but the variety of the final product will be limited. 2. Try to make your own dye using food colors. Decide which colors you like the most, then buy them. Good food coloring may be rather expensive. In a small (but deep enough for the eggs) saucepan combine 1 tbl spoon food coloring with 2 tsp of vinegar and add cold water half way to the top. To put an egg into the dye you can use a small ladle. Lower an egg carefully. The longer you let it sit in there, the darker it will be. Remove it from the mixture and pat dry with a paper towel. Using raw eggs (natural method). For almost all natural coloring methods you use raw eggs and then boil them to cook and color. I like the natural method more because I love natural cooking in general, I feel guilt free looking at my kids eating those eggs. It’s less expensive especially when you use outer onion peel as your coloring agent. My favorite products to use as coloring agents are: Outer onion peel gives golden brown shade Beets or purple onion peel give purple shade Blueberries will make your eggs blue (quite expensive) 1. Making a natural dye: fill a saucepan one third full with cold water and add the same amount of your coloring agent (onion peel or other) and half tablespoon of vinegar. Place raw eggs into the pan and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and let simmer for 12-15 min. 2. To make your eggs more interesting: Cut a small shape from the white paper ( flower, bunny head, etc ). Put this shape on a raw egg and carefully place it into a nylon stocking. Make a tight knot. (Cut the rest of the stocking.) Put the egg into a pan with a natural dyeing mixture of your choice. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 15 min.

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