Crafts with kids are really fun. You will enjoy designing and making new DIY (Do It Yourself) works with your little creative minds. It’s very simple: most of the time the best ideas come from realizing them. Simple bits of material, empty boxes, everyday objects can be transformed into playful and colorful creations. Something to amaze you and make you beautiful surprises. Sometimes you have everything at hand, but you dry up in terms of activity: that’s why here are 5 DIY ideas to do with children.
So, if you are looking for craft ideas, DIY, creative hobbies to do yourself and with your children, you have come to the right place. Whether it’s the occasion to work with paper, to make a birthday present or to decorate a room, here are tips and tricks. So unpack everything you have on hand at home and simply choose the objects and DIY ideas that you would like to carry out with the children. There are tons of ideas, so here is a quick overview to make it easier for you:
1 – Make your own modeling clay
You see recipes offered everywhere and you don’t dare to take the plunge? You too, have you tested the industrial modeling clay that your children ended up tasting and which ended up in a large brown ball – all colors agglomerated together? Instead, try making an edible playdough with very few ingredients that your kids will love. You need barely more than 5 ingredients: flour, water, oil, salt, baking soda. And then some dyes if you want to make pasta of different colors. It is a homemade modeling clay that keeps very well in the refrigerator under cling film.
Ingredients
- 300g flour
- 250 g of the sel
- 380ml hot water
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons of oil
- possibly food coloring
Recipe
- Mix flour, water and oil. Then add salt and baking soda.
- Heat the mixture over low heat in a saucepan. The dough should come off a bit.
- Remove the dough from the pan to let it cool for a few minutes.
- Work it on a work surface.
- If you want to color it in several colors: make as many balls as necessary.
- Then place each of these balls in a container in which you will pour the dye.
- Knead for a long time so that the color permeates the dough.
- Store the dough in cling film in the refrigerator, this will prevent it from hardening.
2 – Create a cardboard table football
Notice to football fans: you can easily create a foosball game for your young children from a cardboard box. You will be able to organize frenzied foosball tournaments. Make your own cardboard table football very easily, to the delight of young and old alike. With just a shoebox and clothes pegs, you can make a football table from A to Z. Don’t deprive yourself of it and create it now thanks to the following explanations:
Material
- 1 flat bottom shoe box
- Rods a few millimeters in diameter
- 12 clothes pegs
- 6 corks
- An empty fillet such as a garlic or onion fillet
- Glue, tape, scissors or a cutter, a ruler
- Green and/or colored paper
Instructions
- Make sure your football stadium has facades and stable ground. Glue everything that needs to be glued into your shoebox.
- Dress the inside of your box with green colored paper. Draw the lines of the end zones with a marker and then draw a circle in the middle and then a center line. You can if you wish cover the outside of your box with colored paper.
- Cut out the rectangles that will simulate the goals. Do it carefully using a cutter. Be careful when handling pointed and cutting objects if you are accompanied by young children.
- Mark the position of the holes for the bars with a pencil. Drill the holes in the box. Then cut the sticks to size: they should be as long as the box is wide, plus about 10 cm on each side. Slide them into the box by pushing them through two exactly opposite holes.
- Attach clothespins as players: you can customize them and accessorize them with the colors of the two teams.
3 – Make jewelry like an owl pendant in FIMO clay
Your children are asking you for a new necklace, bracelet, a new ring? Let them turn into jewelry designers. With beads, ribbons, FIMO clay (polymer clay), they can make creative accessories. That they can hasten to offer to friends or family. Create, for example, an owl-shaped pendant in FIMO clay. So colorful, so fun to work with, FIMO is best reserved for older children, even pre-teens.
Material
- Polymer clay in the colors of your choice
- Tools for cutting polymer clay
- Mini metal cookie cutters in the shape of a heart or other
- small cord
- Attachment for the pendant
Instructions
- Choose 3 colors of FIMO clay for your owl.
- Take the body color of your owl, tear off a small piece and roll into a ball. Flatten it slightly and measure the size. If you are happy with the size, continue to the next step, otherwise make your shape smaller or larger.
- Next, shape the body of the owl. Gently pinch the ears and slightly flatten the top. Play around with the shape a bit until you are happy with how it looks.
- Make sure your owl isn’t completely flat.
- Cut out wings and then hearts to decorate your owl’s body. Use metal cookie cutters if needed. Place them on the owl pressing gently.
- Prepare white and black circles in FIMO clay to make the eyes. You need very little dough. Put your white circles on your owl to start the eyes. Make 2 even smaller balls of black dough and press them into small circles, place them on top of the white circles. Make 2 dots of white clay and add them to the black circles to complete the eyes. For the nose, shape a small amount of polymer clay – for example orange – into a triangle and lay it on your owl between the eyes downwards. To finish, add tiny polka dots in a contrasting color on the hearts.
- Install a small loop then bake your owl following the instructions on the packaging of your FIMO clay.
- Pass the small cord through the clip: your jewel is ready!
4 – Create a mini paper kite
This is the ideal activity for you if your children are bored during the summer!
Material
- thick sheets of paper
- 2 straws
- String
- ribbon for decoration
- Glue
- Possibly glitter
- Scissors, pencils, a ruler
Instructions
- Choose two coordinating papers. Using a very strong glue stick, cover the back with a sheet of glue and place the other color on top. Smooth the page down and make sure there are no bubbles.
- Using a ruler, draw lines to create the shape of the kite. Cut out the kite.
- Cut a length of string and tie one end to a paper straw. Cut the second straw in three to get three pieces. Tie the other end of the string in the middle of one of the pieces. This will be the handle of your kite.
- Add a drop of glue to the knot you tied on the handle so the string doesn’t slip off the handle.
- Place the side of the kite you chose for the underside – actually the side that will hold the kite with the paper straw pieces – face up on the table. Using a ruler and a pencil, connect the corners to draw a cross.
- Place glue along the cross. Place the straws in/on the glue to form the frame of your kite and allow the glue to dry for a few minutes.
- Cut a piece of ribbon or string to form the kite tail. Thread it through the long straw and add a little glue to the top of the straw to keep the string from falling off.
- Tie some decorative ribbons and let the glue dry completely.
- You can decorate with sequins, children love it.
5 – Make an origami bookmark
Quite quick to make, once you and your children have taken the fold – it is the case to say it, this bookmark will have no more secrets for you and you will be able to multiply it. This is a bookmark that slips into a page corner.
Material
- A rectangle of paper, preferably patterned
Instructions
- Place the pattern on the underside. Fold your paper down lengthwise.
- Then fold widthwise and open again.
- Fold one side at 45 degrees. Repeat on the other side. The two parts must balance each other.
- Turn the paper over and fold the top third over the bottom.
- Fold the angles to give a heart shape.
- Your heart is then ready to adapt to the corner of the page at which you stopped reading.