Good Times For Everyone With Family Fun Crafts

Are you looking for something inexpensive and fun to brighten up a rainy day? Crafts can be the answer! Craft projects can be great fun for the whole family as well as an excellent way to bond with your kids. Craft projects help encourage kids to use their imagination and creativity.

There are many things you can do as a fun family craft project. The ages of your kids and what types of materials you have on hand can help you choose. Even if you don't have many supplies laying around, if you have kids you probably have paper, crayons and some other odds and ends at minimum. Even these basic supplies can be the foundation for a fun afternoon of craft projects.

Some craft projects can be downright messy. It's always a good idea to lay some newspaper over the table before starting anything that might require an extensive cleanup. Smocks are great to have to protect clothing, but if you don't have any handy one of Dad's old tee shirts will do just fine.

What to Make?

There are so many great kids crafts to do that it might be hard to decide what to make! The internet is a wealth of information on kids crafts. You can even find sites that list step by step instructions for kids craft projects, many with pictures to follow. When you find projects that you like, you can print them out for easy reference.

Some crafts are simple, yet kids really have a ball with them. My kids favorite crafts all involve colored piple cleaners. They are simple, but the kids really enjoy twisting them together and making pipe cleaner sculptures and cat toys out of them. We also keep a nice supply of "googly eyes" that you can find at any craft store, those make nice eyes for the pipe cleaner people.

Painting crafts are a staple and good fun for everyone. You can paint almost anything made out of wood or ceramic and with just a few simple supplies, you can create fun and functional works of art. Painted picture frames, ornaments and keepsake boxes are easy for older kids to do and with a little help can be made as gifts.

Fabric paint is another painting craft thats fun for the whole family. Get some fabric paint and plain white tee shirts. Have everyone make a hand print on the teeshirts with the fabric paint and decorate however you'd like. These family hand print tee-shirts are wearable art that you will cherish forever.

With just a little bit of imagination and some basic craft supplies, craft time with the family can be a bonding experience that's fun for everyone.

Looking for more family craft ideas? Visit the Family Fun Crafts [http://www.dotparent.com/index.php/Family-Fun/Family-Fun-Crafts.html] page or check out my free kids crafts blog!

Crafts For Kids-Craft ideas for the whole family

In the busy world today can be difficult to find time to do things as a family. Many people view watching television together as quality family time. However, for others, completion wooden crafts are quality family time. Here are some ideas for different wooden crafts that can be involved in the whole family.

Race cars -Down hill race cars made of wood and painted by individual members of the family than reed of a smooth course are great ways to have fun. The individual cars, all the same, a simple block of wood propped up by four, free spinning wheels. Each family member can then paint for their vehicle in the manner that best suits that person. The track can be easily performed by a wide wooden board and small sides connected to the Board of directors so that the vehicles do not fall out. The vehicles drove over and over again, with a small trophy going to the winner of each race.

Doll houses -doll's houses are very popular wooden crafts. There are some very beautiful dolls houses that are made by professional crafters around the world. However, simplicity is usually best for dolls houses that will be played with and the children involved in the construction. In the construction of the doll's houses, one can go a few different routes. A can build each room individually; allowing them to be stacked to build the House, or one can build the frame of the House and then dividing the House in rooms. Either way, the children and other family members can help by painting the rooms and by picking furniture for the House. Make sure that the House is big enough for the standard "Barbie" doll.

Wooden toys -toy animals and humans can be a lot of fun for children to play with his. These toys can be a simple slot design, so that for the body and head on a piece of wood, and the legs on separate pieces of wood that fit in the first piece and provide a stable basis for the toys. The family can be involved in the creation of these toys through the painting of the toy and the addition of eyes and hair. These toys can then be held on and played with over the years. They can even be memories of great times at home when the child grows up and moves out.

No matter what crafts and interactive events that you plan for your child, these are times that your whole family will remember and cherish. As the children grow up, they will be able to look back on those times, and then tap the wooden toys and crafts that they contributed to move on in life. If they are, they will come to treasure those moments even more if they were prepared to realize how much time you invest in them in your busy life. These are the moments of childhood that reminded me the best.

Lara Smith is an aspiring artist and an employee at craftparts outside of Fort Worth in Texas in Haltom City, offer many products including wooden toys, wooden toys, parts wheels and plugs and a huge stock of buttons unfinished wood parts for woodworkers and hobbyists. For all your needs part wooden toys, check out Crafts for Kids

Free Printable Vintage Clip Art – Victorian Fashion, Home & Family Images

Most people who know me know that I am a huge lover of anything antique or vintage. I’ve recently created a larger collection of vintage clip art (see below!) but these four images are freebies for long-time Craft Jr. readers. I must admit, these four were some of my favorites in the bunch – especially that sweet Victorian doll – isn’t she adorable? These printables would make great wall art, iron-on transfers for pillows or other fabric crafts, or would be great for digital scrapbooking!

Victorian Woman Printable Image

Antique Doll Printable Picture

Printable Vintage Sewing Machine

Antique Coffee Grinder Clip Art

These images are part of a larger collection of vintage printables in my new Etsy shop, Vintage Fangirl! Each of these images come from one of the sets I’m selling (for an extremely reasonable $3.00!): Antique Toys, Victorian Fashion Accessories, Vintage Sewing Images and Antique Kitchen Items. Usually, Woo! Jr. printables come in one size and are not downloadable. The images in my Etsy shop are all “vector” images, meaning you can resize them to any dimensions and they will remain crisp and clear, with no loss of resolution! Plus, you get the images as a downloadable PDF file, so you can print them from wherever you want, whenever you want.

Vintage Clip Art Collections

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DIY Family Spooky Stories Book

We’ve been on a writing-kick lately, for homeschool.  Remember my A Fun Way to Encourage Handwriting post??  I’ve also raved about how great journals are for kids.  Yep, I’m still on one.  And, with Halloween coming up, my thoughts turned grim…well, gruesome.  My kids LOVE scary stories.  I think they’ve inherited my twisted mind.  So, I put all of our creepy thoughts to good use…we started a book.  Not the kind fancy kind of book that we want published, oh no.  Just the kind where we will pull it out, in a year from now, and crack up at our silly, scary stories.

I picked up a small notebook at Target, and gathered the kids in the craft room.  We decided that we would each write just one page, and then pass it to the next person.  We could only read just the page before ours, before we continued writing.  Not knowing the complete story was part of what made it so silly, in the end.  So, I went first, “Once upon a time, there was a girl who was asked to babysit three children, for a whole week.  The parents were going away on vacation…”  Then, I passed it on to Shane.  He wrote something about a stranger calling and being a total creep-face.

(There’s no Michael-Jackson-thing going on here…he’s just camera shy.)

The book was then passed on to Caden.

Caden wrote a little something about the babysitter and kids being all scared, like a bunch of sissies.  Then, I wrote about how one of the kids randomly became possessed and had blood squirting out their eyes.  (I mean, really.  If we’re going to be scary, let’s do it right.)

Whoever wasn’t writing, was creating monsters with play dough.

There was terror in the street, attacks in the dark, and zombies taking over the world.  The book took giant leaps, it was hilarious.

They gave the story a name, and we left plenty of room in the notebook for additional stories.

They fashioned a book cover…

And, here it is!  A fun, spooky/silly book that we can add to and keep for memories…plus, it was another great way to practice handwriting and encourage creative thinking.  Fun for Halloween time, or really any time of the year.

Tagged as: bookcover, books, children's books, Halloween, Storytime

Mariel authors the blog, Or so she says… where she shares her most favorite ideas on parenting, homeschool, marriage, cooking, crafting, etc. She dreams about golf, traveling, reading, a cabin in Montana, and cake. Read other posts by Mariel

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