“Penguin in Floatie”. This is our entry for the The Crafty Crow’s Funny Food Contest. My five-year-old came up with the idea and the plan as she picked through the fridge, but I did did much of the execution as it involved a sharp knife. Looks quite a bit like Lucy Goosey, I think.
Here are some fun downloadable crafts to do with kids. Great for a rainy day.
Pictured above: Mom and Baby Ladybug downloadable paper toy, available for $1 from Leafty.
Fantastic Toys has an adorable doll house and mushroom cottage.
The Toymaker has free, downloadable paper toys.
Pop-up book artist Robert Sabuda’s website has some free pop-up designs that would make beautiful cards.
Wee Wonderfuls free paper dolls.
Paper dolls from Kiddley.
The V & A Museum of Childhood has a Victorian village and more paper dolls.
If you want to get more complicated, try this UK site, the Flying Pig. Or you can order kits for architectural models from Paper Landmarks.
Korean artist Yeondoo Jung creates these wonderful photographs based on children’s drawings. I love the surreal feeling of a child’s imagination brought to reality. This might be a nice project to try at home (on a lesser scale). Link via Craft and Swiss Miss. Princess Twins, c-print, 2004.
After seeing this and this, we decided to try this simple class project for end of the year teacher gifts. We gave each child (three and four year olds) a shape to decorate, with the only limitation being no stickers or three-dimensional objects. We used thick watercolor paper for the shapes and then I spray mounted them to acid-free paper and framed them together. I have found group art projects for young children rather challenging, but this allowed us to have some control of the project while giving the children the opportunity to do their own work. I think the variety of media and colors made a nice collection and represents the unique personalities of the children.
With Mother’s Day coming soon, I’ve been thinking of things we can create with the children’s drawings. So here are some ideas:
#1 Applique Tee from a bit of this and a bit of that: This would work for a bag or hand towels as well.
#2 Embroidered Child’s Drawing from Bella Dia: This project idea has been featured all over the place, but this is a nice example. Great idea for pillows, hand towels, or framed art.
#3 Shrinky Dinks! Make key chains earrings, necklaces, etc. Check out these rings from Dillon Designs for inspiration.
#4 Note Cards: Make some stationery or note cards for your mother. I used my Gocco printer here, but you could make these by scanning artwork into the computer and printing on card stock or stationery paper.
#5 Softie: Turn your child’s drawing into a stuffed animal. Here‘s a good example with instructions from Martha Stewart.
#6 Fabric Collage: Re-interpret your child’s drawing as a fabric collage as seen on bloesem kids craft projects with Arounna Khounnoraj (all of her projects are wonderful, by the way).
#7 Glass Etching: Try this to turn a plain vase or set of glasses into something special with etching cream or glass paint.
