One Dollar Crafts at Beverly’s Fabric and Craft Stores

One Dollar Crafts at Beverly’s Fabric and Craft Stores

June 3^rd thru the 20^th at Beverly’s Fabric Stores they are offering “Once Upon a Time” crafting session for kids ages 6 through 12 from 1pm – 2pm Mondays, Tues, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The cost for supplies, etc. is $1.oo.

There are several Beverly’s stores around the Bay Area. If you go to the Beverly’s Website Store Locator Page, you will be able to see if there is a store near you, and if they are participating in the kids crafting times.

Photography - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Photography - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

My kids always like it when I let them have my camera to take pictures of whatever they like. That's part of the beauty of the digital age. I was never allowed to take photos as a child because I would 'waste' film. You don't need a fancy camera to call it 'photography'. Even a camera on a cell phone will make the kids happy.

To go a step further, you might print out their favorite photos and make a scrapbook, or even frame one for their room. You can take a hike or just let them pose their toys at home for a snapshot. Most county fair offer a photography category for kids if they want a chance to see their pictures displayed, and maybe have the chance to win a couple bucks.

Make a Graham Cracker Gingerbread House - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Make a Graham Cracker Gingerbread House - Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

After one of my Halloween posts, I promised to share something fun you could do with the Halloween leftover candy that nobody likes. Here it is: use it to decorate a mini graham cracker gingerbread house.

These graham cracker gingerbread houses are cute, and fun to make. And since they are small, they aren't too complicated. The key to a nice graham cracker house is good frosting. A frosting that is too soft will make the house wobbly, and easy to fall apart as you add other decorations. However, a frosting that is really nice and stiff, and will dry like stone will also be pretty uneatable, so you might want to decide ahead of time if you want to eat them when they are done. I suppose you could also use glue instead of frosting if you don't want to eat them, but most white glues will dry clear, and I think they white joints look nice.

I find that the canned frosting is generally too soft. I like the prepackaged tubes of frosting because they are fairly stiff, and much easier to handle and work with with little mess. If you want to make your own, I found a  recipe for stiff royal frosting here.

For the graham cracker parts of the house, we used two squares (1/2 of a whole big graham cracker) for the roof, and 4 squares for the sides of the house. I have also seen ones made with 2 small rectangles of graham cracker (or 1/2 of a square) for the sides of the house, and the front and back made by cutting a square of graham cracker into a house shape by cutting the corners off one of the smaller rectangles. When I've tried to make those cuts, it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I broke a lot crackers, and became frustrated. They do turn out a little cuter that way though.

Use your frosting to stick all the sides and the roof together and then let it sit and dry a little while. When it is dry and fairly stable, you can use more frosting to stick candies on the house for decorations.

TA-DA! Little Graham Cracker Gingerbread Houses.

Sew a Monster Friend – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Sew a Monster Friend – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Sewing is a useful skill to have, for both boys and girls alike. A great way to start learning about sewing is to make something with felt. Felt is very forgiving, inexpensive, comes in lots of fun bright colors, and you don’t need to worry about raw edges. If you just need a good rainy day activity, and are not quite ready for sewing lessons, this can even be done with Tacky glue instead of stitching.

Monsters are fun to make because if they turn out looking a little strange, or goofy – well, that what monsters are supposed to look like!

Start by having your child make a simple drawing of what they might like their monster to look like. Emphasize for them to keep it simple. While thirty eyes and twenty arms might look cool, actually trying to cut out and sew them may not work so well, you could suggest maybe five eyes would be enough.

Next, you can let your child pick out a few colors of felt to use. Again, try to help them keep it simple.

Using their drawing as a guide, cut out the shapes you’ll need to make the monster. You, as the grown-up will have to make the call if this is a step your child can do on their own or one you’ll do for them. Any parts that you want to stuff, make sure to cut out both a front and a back for, this would include at least the body.

Simple chain stitches can attach any embellishments to the body of the monster. If thin parts like arms or antenna are needed, I would just keep those as a single layer of felt, and sew them into the seam between the two body layers.

Sew around the outside either with a chain stitch or a whip or blanket stitch, making sure to leave an opening for stuffing. After the monster is stuffed to your satisfaction, go ahead and sew the stuffing hole closed.

As an extra little sewing lesson, I like to have the kids use buttons for eyes. It’s always useful to know how to sew buttons on! If you want to make a no-sew monster, just use Tacky glue (it works much better than Elmers on felt) to glue on the decorations, and a line of glue around the edge for the seam. You’ll want to let the body seam dry before stuffing so it doesn’t pull apart once you start to add the stuffing, then just close the stuffing hole with a line of glue as well.

Ta Da! A little monster friend!

Be Thankful – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Be Thankful – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Some people like to keep a gratitude journal for the month of November. In it they write a short entry each day about something they are grateful for. Some keep the practice beyond Thanksgiving month, as it is shown to improve your stress level and mood.

It can also be a fun activity to do as a family. Well, maybe more 'uplifting', than 'fun'. The journal can easily be adapted for any age. Teens and adults, and even older children can just keep a normal journal, or use filler paper. For my younger kids I like those journals that have the bottom half of the page lined for writing and the top half blank for drawing. Even younger pre-writing children can draw pictures for their gratitude journal.

Another nice variation is for the kids to draw a 'Thankful Tree' and each day they write on a leaf something they're thankful for and add it to their tree. We did this on drawing paper, but I suppose you could even get a small tree, or branch and add a ribbon to the thankful leaves and hang them on. The whole family could even share a tree this way. 

Leaf Rubbings – Fun Stuff to do Anywhere

While we may not get the dramatic seasonal changes here in the Bay Area that much of the rest of the country experiences, I think it is still fun to stop and notice the seasons, the California way.

We still get a nice and beautiful fall here, complete with leaves on the ground. Take a short walk and let the kids pick up a few of their favorites. Leaf rubbings are simple, and fun. When you get home, all you need to do is lay the leaves on a table, with the more-textured side of the leaf facing up. Place a piece of white paper on top, and with the side of a crayon, rub back and forth over the leaf until its impression shows up on the paper.

For very young children, making the rubbing is probably enough. If your kids are older, or you want to add a little more learning to your leaf rubbing project, you can use a magnifying glass to examine and observe your leaves. Group them into leaves that share traits that the child observes, then pick a different feature, and sort them again. For instance they might sort by color the first time, then by simple vs. compound leaves the next time, or by bumpy vs smooth leaf edges, and so on.

To take it even further, here are a few books about leaves that you and you children may enjoy:

Also, if you have some Halloween candy left over that you don't care for (we all get some less exciting candies in our bag every year), don't throw it away. Save it in a ziplock baggie, and I will have a fun craft in a few weeks to use it in. The more colorful the candy, the better. 

Draw with Sidewalk Chalk – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Draw with Sidewalk Chalk – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Those big pieces of sidewalk chalk can be found very inexpensively.  Whenever we are with a group of kids it's always a surprisingly big hit. Toddlers love making marks on the ground, and even the teens in the group enjoy making more elaborate or artistic drawings. I love activities like this that appeal so well to all age groups, and are just so simple, and pure fun.

Halloween Crafts

Halloween Crafts

Kids love Halloween. Most grown ups too for that matter. While decorating for Halloween can be fun, it is even more fun when you make the decorations yourself.

Pumpkin painting:
Supplies needed:
Paints (we used washable tempera paint but you could use fancier acrylic paints if your kids can be trusted with them.)
Paint brushes
Pumpkins

My kids are still to little to do any pumpkin carving on their own, so they usually draw a design, and we do the carving for them. Painting is another way they can decorate a pumpkin on their own. These little pumpkins are usually fairly cheep, and the kids love painting them.

Lolly Pop Ghosts:
Supplies needed:
Lolly pops
Tissues
Ribbon or twist ties
Black marker

This is a old classic too, but still fun. Put a tissue over the lollypop, tie with a ribbon or twisty tie. Draw eyes on. Ta-Da!

Let The Kids Invent Their Own Halloween Craft

Supplies needed:
Possibly, but not limited to: pom poms, pipe cleaners, glue, googly eyes, markers, construction paper, sequins, fabric scraps, feathers. . . etc.

Today, the kids dragged out all our craft supplies on their own and started making Halloween decorations. They made ghosts out of construction paper and craft foam. Spiders our of pipe cleaners, and other spooky critters out of pompoms. Sometimes, giving them a pile of stuff, and letting them create all on their own can be the most fun (and least work for Mom!)

I'm going to try out this neat pumpkin art project with my kids this week:

Starlight Pumpkin Art Lesson

There are many other absolutely wonderful art lessons and projects on the Deep Space Sparkle site. I suggest subscribing to the RSS feed there if your kids enjoy art. 

Make Thumb Print Critters - Fun Stuff to do Anywhere

Make Thumb Print Critters

I think we first did this thumb print craft in a preschool group, but we’ve done it a few times since then and it’s always a lot of fun.

The main idea is to make a thumb print, then with a marker or pen, add details to turn it into a critter. I bought a special stamp pad with washable ink to use for making thumb print critter art, but you don’t have to do that. Washable markers can be used too. Just cover the pad of the thumb with the ink and then press that spot onto the paper, and wash the ink off the thumb. Or you can keep some wet wipes at the table with you to avoid the kids having to get up and wash over and over again.

One thumb print makes a good spider or owl. Two together can give you a body and a head for a critter. A whole line of them could be a caterpillar. Just let the imagination go. It didn’t take long for my kids to start  using whole hand prints in their thumb print art creations.

You don’t have to have great art skills to make cute pictures. They kids like that it feels kinda messy (but if you make sure to stick to washable inks, it isn’t really messy). It’s a fun way to spend some inside time when the kids need help for ideas of what to do.