What You Need To Make Kids Crafts At Home, Plus Free Egg Box Bug Craft

Encouraging your child's creativity at home by creating imaginative craft items is very beneficial for their development. Children can explore different textures, shapes and patterns, and discover how to put ideas into action by handling different materials, and sticking and gluing them together. Crafting can be great fun, and also a good way to spend some quality time with your children.

Buying craft supplies from a craft store can be quite costly, so why not start your own junk/scraps box at home. All you need is a box or a large storage bag that you keep in a cupboard ready to store your household packaging. It's easy to start collecting and is amazing how quickly your junk box or bag fills up with useful items. Each time you are in the kitchen preparing meals, keep all your empty boxes, tubs or cardboard tubes that you would normally throw in the bin or recycle, and add these to your craft box. Whenever you come across any interesting items, such as packaging and wrappers from birthday gifts or Christmas presents, you can put them in your box ready for when you want to make one of our crafts. Collecting lots of different items will ensure an endless source of creative crafts.

Craft shops carry a huge range of different craft materials. Why not visit your local store and buy a small variety of items to store in your box. Look out for cheaper end of lines, two for the price of one, bargain buckets, and reduced price crafts that have damaged packaging. If you look out for these cheap deals, or just buy one or two inexpensive items per week, you will quickly build up a good stock of craft materials for your home craft projects. Look out for feathers, pom poms, wiggly eyes, wool, material, tissue paper, coloured paper and glitter. Even at Christmas you could collect lots of shiny things to use, including small pieces of tinsel, wrapping paper, ribbons, gift tags, parcel twine, and shiny foil sweet wrappers.

While out on a shopping trip, check out fabric and material stores for fabric scraps, odd buttons, and for balls of cheap wool or yarn. Cookware and kitchen shops often sell cheap wooden spoons and spatulas. You can make a whole family of spoon puppets just by sticking fabric and wool onto spoons and drawing on faces with felt-tipped pens.

Don't forget to always have lots of paint, coloured crayons, glue and sticky tape at home!

Here is a free craft to help you design a cute Easter Hat. This is an easy craft, but very effective once done. Everyone will be asking you how you made it!

Egg Box Bug

You will need:
Two cardboard egg boxes,
Pipe Cleaners,
Wiggly eyes,
Poster paint - any colours you like,
Paintbrush,
Sticky tape,
Scissors,

To Make - Paint the outside of the egg boxes with poster paint. You can choose to colour the boxes however you like. Allow to dry completely.
Cut out one egg box in half along its spine. Cut the second egg box in half, and cut out each of the six depressions from the base where the eggs normally sit. These will make the six feet for your bug.
Attach each foot to the end of a pipe cleaner using sticky tape to make a leg. Then using sticky tape, stick the free ends of the pipe cleaner legs to the flat lid of one of the egg boxes. Make sure you stick the legs along each side. Sit the creature on top of the spare egg box lid so the lids are stacked together. Secure with sticky tape if necessary. Stick the bottom part of the remaining egg box with the six depressions on top of the creature so it has a bumpy back. Stick on some wiggly eyes, and use a pipe cleaner to make the bugs antennae.

Tip - You could decorate the bug in different colours, sprinkle on glitter or draw on patterns to colour in.

This craft and a lot more are available, along with photographs, in full colour, in our free Messy Tots mini-craft book by instant download. See the author details below to get your free copy today.


M Newbold is a prolific writer on many subjects. For a free full colour mini-craft book, visit:
http://www.cotswoldfamilylife.co.uk
www.cotswoldfamilylife.co.uk