Make Fun Crafts with and for Your Kid with Project Kid

I’m a sucker for craft idea books. I don’t always make projects directly out of them, but I think they’re a lot of fun to look at, and to have on hand for those days when the girl wants to do something crafty but doesn’t have any ideas of her own.

Project Kid: 100 Ingenious Crafts for Family Fun by Amanda Kingloff was inspired by upcycling, reusing and re-envisioning basic household items into something new.

The projects are divided into general categories:

animal kingdom
hold everything
home sweet home
playtime
ready to wear
the great outdoors
abstract expressions

Each project includes a detailed supply list and lots of step-by-step instructions. While the title of the book makes it seem like kids would be creating these projects themselves (at least to me), many of them will at least require supervision, if not just the adult doing it themselves.

That said, there are definitely projects here that I would love to make for or with my kid. To name a few: butterflies made out of joiner biscuits (in a shadowbox for extra cuteness), a pom-pom covered pull toy made from cardboard and old toy cars, tiny suitcases made out of mint tins, envelopes made out of book jackets, a super cute Melissa and Doug tray upgrade made with paint chips, woven paper cups used to decorate twinkle lights, a photo family tree made out of branches, a homemade memory game made with a kid’s drawings, a super cute hot air balloon made from a yogurt cup and a paper lantern, a pirate ship made out of newspaper, necklaces made from old T-shirts and a bird feeder made from a nut can.

These aren’t all completely original — what book is? — but there are some good ideas and basic techniques here that should get you and your crafty kiddos thinking about fun projects you can make together.

Learn more about the book (there’s a new one, too) and get more cute projects on the Project Kid website.

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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