Cool Craft Idea: Make Your Own Craft Kit “Subscription”

Craft subscription boxes are a lot of fun for kids, but they can be pretty expensive, and if you already have a lot of craft supplies at home or in your classroom, you can even make your own “subscription” kits with a monthly theme for kids.

I came across this idea at More Excellent Me, and I think it was done for a single child but you could do the same thing for a family with multiple crafty kids, or even for the classroom. Having all the supplies together in a box or a bag just makes the making more fun, right?

The blog post I found includes 12 ideas for different projects, and there’s a printable that includes all the supplies and instructions for each of the project. Her ideas included:

sock snowman
Valentine’s card
puppet
flower pot
bird feeder
bug catching jar
firecracker flag craft
paper doll and fabric
decorating a notebook
monster glove
scarecrow Popsicle stick craft
snow globe

If you’re making your own kit(s) you can use whatever supplies you have on hand, or if there’s a craft you always do in the classroom that can be divided up into supplies like this, packaging it as a surprise can make it a little more fun.

Using the seasons and holidays for each month makes this even easier because you can find tons of easy craft ideas for different holidays and themes (even right here on Craft Gossip!) that use the supplies you already have.

Say you have a lot of felt and its January. You could cut out snowman shapes or just circles and give kids buttons, felt in other shapes like noses, scarves and hats and have them decorate a snowman. Take your excess buttons into February to make button bracelets or glue or sew down buttons in a heart shape.

If you’re doing this for one person instead of a classroom, think about their age, interests and skill level as you put your craft kits together. My daughter loves beading, painting and drawing and has a sort of goblin core/grunge aesthetic so I might make her a kit to paint this wooden mushroom that’s sitting on my bookshelf, gather some beads for friendship bracelets or backpack charms, that kind of thing.

Have you ever made craft kits for yourself or a kid in your life? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo: More Excellent Me]

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Have you read?

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