My kids are 5 and 7. They will go and play all day, but when I work on my cards or scrapbooks, or any such project in my craft area, my kids follow me like lost puppies and want to join right in.
This particular project is great for a variety of occasions, I first had my kids make Christmas cards for the grandparents.
I found stencil sets (6 per book) at Amazon.com (you will find I am a HUGE Amazon fan) from Dover Little Activity Books, each one is $1.50 (and if you buy 3 the 4th is free). The stencils are made out of sturdy paper and they have a wide selection- we personally own 2 Christmas books, dinosaurs, and fairies.
I use white paper the size of a card, have then trace the stencil on the “front,” then color it.
For Christmas they used colored glitter glue to decorate the traced designs. Whatever they use, it makes a cute card, it’s easy enough, and it keeps them entertained for quite some time. On top of that- it’s inexpensive and the grandmothers will LOVE IT! What more could you ask for?
I keep an acordian folder hanging from the table where I work. When I’m working on scrapbooks I toss pictures in the folder when they don’t make it on my page. When I’m making cards I add scraps of paper, ribbons, stickers, etc to the folder- if it’s something I don’t want to save.
I do save lots of scraps, but I throw things in this folder as well. This is my kids’ folder. They know they can go there and take out whatever they want to make their “projects.” They love to use these scraps and pictures for cards, frames, books, and all kinds of other things. It’s a great way for me to keep my supplies cleaned up a bit and it allows them to have new things of their own to work with.
So here’s the deal… I’m having technical difficulty loading my video from yesterday on my site. So for today you get a craft for your kids to do.
This is a simple projects for your kids, making cute little magnets. For this project you will need: bottlecaps, pictures and/or paper for stamping images or drawing. You will also need ribbon, glue, and magnets.
Have your child cut the pictures into small circles so that the pictures fit inside the bottlecaps. Add a dab of glue to the pictures so they will stay in place.
Add ribbon from the back of the bottlecap as a decorative effect. Once the magnet is attached your project is complete.
My kids love to do these types of projects and we often use them as gifts for grandparents.
Please note: My 5 year old daughter made these (I only helped a little bit) so you could get a true representation of what our final project might look like!
