Craft Ideas Thread?

[mscatra]

Can we start a craft ideas thread?  I know others (definitely not me - I suck at original ideas and just steal them!) have posted neat ideas for craft recipes and cheap crafts, it might be nice to have them all corralled into one Important Thread.  Yay or Nay on this idea?

[TrudyCampbell]

Yay!

[Deleted]

Yes please. I want to do some crafts with Ada but have zero ideas other than coloring a blank sheet of paper!

[browneyedhunni85]

Yes please!

[AndyCohen]

Another yes, please!

[shevacc]

G's daycare does a bunch of cute crafts. They have some sort of rough theme each week and the craft goes along. A few weeks ago it was opposites -- they painted with black paint on white paper and with white paint on black paper. Painted = fingers, brushes, sponges, whatever the kids want. They also pasted/decorated a page with a big cutout on one half and a small version of the same cutout on the other half (I think they were big and small pumpkins in honor of Halloween). They did rough and smooth too. The smooth side was paint with glitter in it; the rough side was paint with sand in it. Recently the teachers painted a big tree and the children used hand prints to make all the leaves. They've also used those dot markers to decorate things.

One of the preschool classes took those sparkley sequin things (the ones that have tiny shapes of animals and things in them) and glued those to pumpkins to "decorate" them. The toddlers do a lot of stuff with hand prints and foot prints. Like two feet together with the left and right foot swapped can be decorated to make a butterfly.

[mscatra]

Nov 8, 2013 14:21:24 GMT -5 @lindy said:

Yes please. I want to do some crafts with Ada but have zero ideas other than coloring a blank sheet of paper!

Paha, same here, and Maggie hates that so far.

[mscatra]

cat19 or @smudgee, help us out please!

[katie]

ladybug has posted some cute stuff too!

[Deleted]

www.buzzfeed.com/popsugarmoms/the-best-toddler-crafts-for-little-hands-arr7

I have an entire list of playdough recipes. Most of them can be made with stuff you probably already have. If anyone is interested, I can email it, since it is in word format and a couple of pages. Things like gingerbread playdough, cloud dough, sand dough, oatmeal dough, etc.

[Deleted]

We like to put contact paper in the window and add tissue paper or stickers foam things etc

[Deleted]

And seriously, cloud dough is the best stuff ever. It's not a craft, but a time filler. 8 cups of flower and one cup of baby oil. I put it in one of those under bed storage bins, and put a bucket, shovel, and some trucks in it. It molds, but falls apart. It feels amazing. And it lasts a while. Just play with it outside because the flour can get everywhere.






ETA pictures

[Deleted]

Also shaving cream and cornstarch.

[Deleted]

I'm more about the process vs product except when it comes to time to make holiday gifts. I have used anything and everything to paint. Tooth brushes, food, bubble wrap, silk flowers make awesome prints, cooking utensils, cookie cutters.


Add a few drops of dish to the paint makes washing hands and clothes easier

[Deleted]

I like to do hand/foot print crafts for holidays!

So thanksgiving would be a turkey made from a hang print and there a lot for Christmas but the two on the top of my head are hand print Santa (upside down hand- fingers are the beard and thumb is the hat) and foot print Christmas tree.

We also made an owl mask out of a paper plate today- big hit! She's walking around "whoo whoo-ing" all day!

We made salt dough play dough that she plays with forever!!

My mom is a teacher and brought home a big roll of white butcher paper- we tape it to the tile floor and let her go to town. She thinks its the best thing ever. This would work with just big pieces of construction paper too.

I will think of more. I will PIP the owl in another post

[Deleted]

Owl Mask.

Big coloring paper

[meggabs]

LO brought home a tissue paper apple- just ripped up paper stuck to an apple. Same with sequence for an apple.

[browneyedhunni85]

Have you guys found special markers for toddlers?

[Deleted]

Nov 8, 2013 20:44:48 GMT -5 browneyedhunni85 said:

Have you guys found special markers for toddlers?

Crayons makes pip squeak markers that are half the size of regar markers. We just use washable normal ones

[dojo]

Put a big piece of bristle board or paper on the wall and then give stickers one at a time to put on it. I swear they'll love it!

[mscatra]

Nov 8, 2013 21:05:28 GMT -5 dojo said:

Put a big piece of bristle board or paper on the wall and then give stickers one at a time to put on it. I swear they'll love it!

I can totally see Maggie loving this.  Coloring with markers and pencils hasn't been a hit and I'm afraid to try paint.  She's such a crazy little brute and I can see myself trying to bathe cats, lol.

[claralou]

This is awesome. All of it.

[mscatra]

@dragonmommy, the cloud dough looks pretty neat. Does he throw it? We have a large sandbox (it's covered for the winter now) and she's quite a thrower in that. And every other sandbox 

[ruby412]

Here are some of the things that have come home from school lately:

A large baby food jar painted like a jack-o-lantern with a tea candle in it
A large baby food jar, painted brown, googly eyes glued on, a bunch of construction paper hand cutouts glued to the back
The footprint ghost
Different fruits/shapes decorated with different things - a paper pumpkin decorated with orange sand (?), an apple colored with crayon, a leaf colored with marker, something else with construction paper squares glued on it

[Deleted]

Nov 8, 2013 21:43:08 GMT -5 mscatra said:

@dragonmommy, the cloud dough looks pretty neat. Does he throw it? We have a large sandbox (it's covered for the winter now) and she's quite a thrower in that. And every other sandbox 

You know, he doesn't. I think it's because when I first introduced him to it, I played with him and showed him how to build with it, pack it in the bucket, etc. once he starts throwing I might have to reconsider.

[bean47]

Olivia had fun painting with toilet paper tubes recently. I dipped the ends in paint and let her "stamp" circles all over her paper.

[mscatra]

Nov 9, 2013 9:45:50 GMT -5 @dragonmommy422 said:

You know, he doesn't. I think it's because when I first introduced him to it, I played with him and showed him how to build with it, pack it in the bucket, etc. once he starts throwing I might have to reconsider.

Maybe he'll just be a nice sand/cloud player and not a thrower!  We have a bunch of buckets, shovels, and molds and she'll play with them a little but generally ends up either tossing it or standing up with handfuls and letting it sift through her fingers and fly with the wind.  I've learned to sit upwind so I don't get a face full of it before I can correct and redirect.

[mscatra]

Nov 9, 2013 10:01:16 GMT -5 bean47 said:

Olivia had fun painting with toilet paper tubes recently. I dipped the ends in paint and let her "stamp" circles all over her paper.

I like this idea, too.  I was thinking of taking some tubes and decorating them as bracelets when she is more in crafts.  She loves to wear them plain already, lol.

[meggabs]

Today, Mc painted a plastic Xmas bulb. I "helped" her paint the top half blue like sky, and the bottom half green like grass (I should have done white for snow...). Then I just puff-painted an Xmas tree on it.

Last year I used ink pads and stamped her hand and foot print onto an Xmas bulb. They might be too big to fit on an ornament this year.


Stickers- she loves stickers. We buy the 3D-ish ones that are kind of padded, they come off of everything (like windows and doors). She puts them on pumpkins and paper towel rolls.

[bean47]

This is a cute fall project if you have some wine corks handy.

indulgy.com/post/H4iwTtCMb1/thanksgiving-toddler-crafts