In real life, Whitney is the crafty one and I’m the other one. About a year ago, I asked her what should be included in a basic arts and crafts kit. Armed with these supplies, I would have a few more tricks up my sleeve on rainy days. At that time, my sleeve was full of board games and play-doh.
She told me to get these 10 craft supplies:
- Kid scissors
- Colored cardstock – pack of multicolored stiff paper available at Target or any craft store
- Hole puncher for connecting things
- Water colors for least painful painting experience
- Tape – Scotch tape for crafts, blue tape for forts, duct tape to ruin your furniture
- Pipe cleaners
- Stickers or labels intended for office things – ie not licensed characters or holidays – for more open ended usage
- Beading kit – buy packages of manly colors or rainbow colors – do it now before little man becomes a hazard to all types of tiny object activities
- Kid catalogs and magazines they can cut pictures out of
- Wrapping paper
Whitney took pity on my fragile sleep-deprived mind and offered…
10 activities to DO with all these goodies:
- Make an alphabet or color book for the baby. Milo draws pictures, Holden writes the words. one word per page, ie banana, dog, car.
- Cut out and tape or glue eyes nose mouth from magazine faces (need entertainment or fashion mags) to make a new face.
- Make and send a card to cousins
- Print a picture of self in black and white and then watercolor it
- Make a paper chain to countdown days til x (holiday, birthday, grandparent visit!)
- Draw with crayons and water color on top
- Make jewelry out of pipecleaners
- String beads on pipecleaners
- Make a tic tac toe game to play
- Decorate a cardboard box
I loved Whitney’s suggestions because they sounded simple enough. Because I was stretched thin with a newborn, my quick run to Michael’s craft store was delayed for a bit (and blogging was pushed off for a year!). I reluctantly admit that the big shop finally happened because we were testing out TaskRabbit so I sent one of the rabbits out with my shopping list. Score! I purchased the items and stored them within my older sons’ reach.
Milo needed no further instruction to make the most of the new materials. This past weekend, he cut out foam masks (from the leftovers of my R2D2 baby mobile), made a frog puppet named Holden, and used up the tape (again!) making superhero wrist cuffs.
I love that he has the imagination to power his projects and the craft balls (sorry, that sounded wrong!) to turn into aliens and flowers.
I don’t love the little bits of shrapnel I find every time I walk near his work table, but it seems like a fair price for all the fun he’s having.
What’s in your craft supply kit?
I love the term CRAFT BALLS! I have heard so many adult women say, “I’m not creative…” We all need the craft balls to just sit down and try something new, and kids have huge ones! I’m thrilled to hear Milo invents his own projects.
Also, the Tinkerlab blog is a great resource for simple projects. She has a meme on instagram #creativetable where you can see different stimulus that parents are setting up for their kids. It’s about letting them be scientists, not creating something worthy of photographing with a DSLR camera. Check it out!
We have most of these things but we also have tons of WASHABLE markers and crayons. I do not allow non-washable writing/coloring implements in my kids craft area because they are evil.
Good point @Wendy. You can see from the photo of our real-world craft table, that we have washable markers in abundance. I love them and Whitney knew that I had them already.
@Whitney, I wish I meant “craft cojones” but I meant those styrofoam ball thingies. Does that make it a double un-entendre?
What a great post! We have a large plastic Make It Box that lives in our kitchen. My older son (age 6) is a purveyor of all things that can be recycled into new projects.
Some favorites in our kit:
Model magic
Sculpey 30 Color Sampler Set
Mod Podge (for collages)- Used with lots of adult supervision
Bulk purchased cheap canvases
Giant rolls of paper (IKEA has these super cheap)
We are fortunate that in the Durham, NC area we have a repurpose warehouse when you can buy most anything in bulk supply. The Scrap Exchange will pack and mail out materials based on weight (http://www.scrapexchange.org/shop/buy-the-bag/)
Thanks @Heather V, I like your additions.
I just added model magic and sculpey to Milo’s wishlist. Thanks again!
The best thing I ever did was put together a little “art cart” for Brooklyn — she uses that stuff constantly every single day. And, yes, there are always leftover scraps all over the place, but it’s worth it for the creative time she has every day as well as the vast amount of quiet time it provides for me;)
I filled little plastic containers with beads for stringing on laces, gems to stick/glue onto things, ribbon, etc.
She has paints and paintbrushes, markers, colored popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, loads of construction paper, stickers, etc.
One of my favorite projects and one we go back to often is using those little colored gems that can be found at the dollar store or in the floral arrangement section of Michael’s — using foam brushes, we spread clear glue out on the glass of a picture frame and then stick the gems to it — it makes a really pretty collage — I have one displayed in my kitchen window that she made:)
So she has a big bin of those colored gems — she also likes gluing them to construction paper which isn’t nearly as durable or displayable but is fun while it lasts.
As I type, she is out in the living room painting some bubble wrap;)
If this weren’t a bit beyond my price range, we would own this — love it.
My daughter’s preschool has one, and it’s a huge hit:)
http://www.amazon.com/ECR4Kids-Kraft-Dispenser-Assorted-Rolls/dp/B000CBWWHG/ref=sr_1_cc_1?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1353617943&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=colored+masking+tape+roll
This post brought back memories of all the crafts I used to do with my mom. We used to make pipe cleaner animals all the time. Having the right arts and crafts tools makes a mom’s life so much easier!