Little fingers are just as crafty as big ones, so we challenged our crew to share some fun creative ideas for kids that they can be proud of the finished results. Don’t get us wrong, we love popsicle sticks, pompons and paper plates, but we wanted to share projects that in the end were little works of art that would be welcome gifts for moms, dads, grandparents, teachers, babysitters and more. Our children are only little once and that is the time to unleash their young creativity so it is captured forever.
Kids Can Do Project 1 (by Dana Tatar):
‘My Color Canvas’ – you can choose any size canvas from 2×2 to 10×10 for this project, it is a great surface that in itself already has a clean, finished look and when crafted with little hands it captures their sense of color, style and design and is truly a piece of art.
Step 1: Mist Canvas Corp Tissue with Tattered Angels Mist (Glimmer Mist, Chalkboard Mist, Simply Sheer Mist and Baseboard Mist) – offer a range of color choices allowing each child to choose their own color palette. Let them dry.
Step 2: Punch round pieces of tissue and place them onto the canvas randomly.
Step 3: Mist with water.
Step 4: Remove the tissue pieces and you have a tie dye art piece that reflects each child’s color choice and style.
Make sure these works of art are signed and dated. Luckily these are too big to just hang on the refrigerator, they deserve a permanent spot in the play room, bedroom or in the craft room for all to see. For more on this project visit Dana’ blog.
Kids Can Do Project 2 (by Riikka Kovasin):
‘Painted Glass/Plastic Cups’ – what a great way to recycle old cups and glasses, paint them. The paints create a vintage, faux finish look all by themselves and the addition of dots, stripes and swirls makes them one of a kind. One hint when choosing colors for kids crafts is to pre-choose the color combinations so that the end results will be pleasing the the eye and keepers for sure and let the children focus on the details. Just two simple colors that work together are a great start for these painted cups.
If you can teach a technique or two during the process, kids will use those techniques forever, like using painter or masking tape to create their stripes so they have a guide when painting them. It is like magic when the tape is removed you have created nice stripes. Tattered Angels Paints adhere well to glass and plastic, so the choice should be made on the age of the children and the safety of handling glass.
Fill you painted glass with votives, cookies, candies or shells you gathered on the shore as perfect keepsakes for moms, dads and grandparents.
Kids Can Do It Project 3 (by Nadine Carlier):
‘Painted Headbands’ – what a great gift to give at your child’s next birthday party that she can say she made herself. It starts with an ivory or canvas flower from Canvas Corp and your choice of any Tattered Angels Mist – you can choose one color or create an ombre effect with more than one color.
Step 1: Mist your flower – don’t forget to mist from the top and on all sides if you want to transform the flower completely, then recycle an old headband or buy inexpensive bands and cover them with burlap or fabric.
Step 2: Glue the flower off-center on the headband and add a fun jewel, crystal or even vintage piece of jewelry found during a recent garage sale shopping spree. What a fun outing to plan to shop local garage sales in search of old jewelry for the next headband project, no two will look alike.
Kids Can Do It Project 4 (by Linda Skotheim):
‘My Little Painted Tote’ – it starts out as a plain canvas little tote, oh so boring and it is becomes a little work of art with just a few pumps of Tattered Angels Mist and topped off with simple black ink stamps, add one or many.
Step 1: Cover workspace completely, this could get a little too much fun and a little messy, but that is what creativity is all about.
Step 2: Shake up your choice of Tattered Angles Paints and pour them into small containers where a brush fits right in. Each mist paint is made up of different colors and some of them even have mica, so when they are applied to canvas you can see the different colors and the glimmer show up in many fun different ways. Paint the entire tote, handles and all with the different paints to create a trendy hand-dyed paint look. Let bag dry completely.
Step 3: with a permanent ink and a fun stamp stamp on top of your painted design once or many times.
Kids Can Do It Project 5 (project by Viktoria Porechnaya):
‘It’s in the box’ – kids love boxes, they will play with them more than the toys or gifts that were inside. Here is a great idea that can be a box filled with found treasures or a box filled with created treasures.
Step 1: Die Cut boxes and lids from your favorite box die cut – this part can be done before hand or you can show the kids how die cut machines work, they start with a piece of solid paper and your roll them through cutting them into fun shapes.
Step 2: punch or die cut assorted flowers, leaves, butterflies from a variety of papers.
Step 3: lay you box flat and place your die cut pieces randomly on the box and mist over them, using them as a stencil. lift them up and you have white spaces where your shapes were and you also have painted shapes that can be added to other places on your box inside or out. Tattered Angels Mists are a perfect for covering a large area such as this box with one or more colors and the end results are amazing.
Step 4: Decorate the inside of your box with different shapes, misting them as you like. If you have little treasures you can put them in the bottom, like found rocks, flowers or little candies.
Step 5: Mist you lid with the same colors, but consider changing the intensity of the colors so that they contrast each other.
Step 6: fold up the sides and put the top on and your are done.
Hint: if you don’t have a die machine you can cut these box from a sheet of paper or you can recycle shoe boxes or other boxes by painting and misting them.
Kids Can Do It Project 6 (project by Craftisan Studios):
‘Photo Holders’ – our phones and photo cards are filled with photos that don’t ever make their way to be printed. Have each student bring in a printed photo of something or someone they love or have each parent send you a digital image and you can print them out on your printer or very inexpensively at Walmart or a similar photo processor.
Place a wide range of papers, stickers, clothespins, punched pieces, cords, pens, markers, crayons and challenge each child to match their photos with objects that are there. Decorate the photo holder anyway they could like and attache the photo to the holder with their choice of colored clothespins. This is a great project to help the kids match colors, find like items, cut, glue and just put it all together. You can add a magnet to the back of the clothespin to hand on the fridge.
Kids Can Do It Project 7 (project by Valeri Andrieux):
‘Hearts Anytime Card’ – kids love to draw, cut and color hearts in any color, shape and style. Adding them to a card for Mom is a great way to capture that art.
Step 1: Cut, Punch or Die Cut hearts from card stock weight paper
Step 2: With a white or light colored crayon have the kids doodle onto the paper making squiggles, lines, hearts, circles, dots…
Step 3: Mist the hearts with any color mist – and magic happens, the designs appear
Step 4: layer the hearts onto a white piece of paper. You can wrap yarn, string, ribbon or cord behind them.
Step 5: Mist your card the same or a contrasting color as your hearts
Step 6: Glue your white card with hearts onto your misted card and you have a simple handmade card with artwork by kiddos that is a keeper.
Canvas Corp offers a wide range of canvas and paper items that are just waiting to be painted, stamped, inked, misted and more and the end results are amazing. If you are looking for inexpensive blanks for your next class, scouting craft venture, church activity, camp craft or vacation Bible school project consider totes, aprons, stretched canvas, book covers, eye glass cases, coasters, flags and more. If you goal is for the kids to create a keepsake that can be gifted and kept forever, the supplies you choose can make all the difference in the world and the way you put the craft together by the colors and designs you put in front of them will help guide them in creative ways, but help to create a project that the receiver will love.
For more ideas visit our Pinboard – DIY Kids Crafts
We’d love to see some of your creative kids crafts. Use the link up tool below to add!
'Crew Challenge: Kids Crafts' have 2 comments
April 8, 2015 @ 2:29 pm Mandy (kashagray5)
Wonderful projects ladies! Perfect projects for kids! Love them all!
April 8, 2015 @ 5:11 pm Dana Tatar
Thanks for the fabulous ideas ladies! I know my girls would love to create these projects!