This post is sponsored by our friends at Stonyfield. 

I’m one of those people that LOVES shopping for school supplies. I love the fresh pencils (even when we rarely need to buy new ones), the crisp, spiral notebook covers, and the perfectly pink, trapezoidal erasers. Now that everything is bought and the backpacks are well broken-in, there’s a little room for some creativity for how to arrange and organize the materials at home on your kids’ desks.

When Stonyfield asked me to make a back-to-school craft by upcycling one of their sturdy yogurt tubs, the only question was…Ok, how will I make this into a desk accessory? There are SO many ways to give these Stonyfield quart-size containers a stylish makeover, but here at ProjectKid, we like to try to think outside the container.

Introducing…the Cute as a Button (Mushroom) Desk Accessory. (Do you think I can trademark that?) I batted around lots of ideas of what materials to use from fabric to pom-poms, but I landed on something that is so basic and accessible: paper. I used some newsprint sheets left over from our last move, but you can also buy a pad of newsprint for not a lot of moolah (or just use some scrap copy paper). It’s also a nice material to have on-hand as a quick solution to throw down on your table before the kids start painting and crafting.

Here is what you’ll need to make this cute mushroom pen holder:

• Quart-size Stonyfield yogurt tub
• Newsprint paper
• Mod Podge
• Foam brush
• Scissors
• Masking tape
• Paper cake plate
• Paper bowl
• Red paint
• Paint brush

Here’s how you make it!

Mushroom stem:

1.Cut strips of newsprint about 1-inch wide, and slightly taller than the tub. You’ll need approximately 20 strips. (If you are doing this with kids in the 4 to 7 age range, you may want to cut or rip smaller, chunky pieces, as they are less fussy to handle.)

2. Coat a section of the tub with Mod Podge, and place a strip on top. Paint Mod Podge on top of the paper and repeat to cover the entire tub. Trim off any excess ends, and while the Mod Podge is drying, set the tub aside.

Mushroom cap:

3. Flip your paper bowl upside down and tape it to the plate.

4. Crumple up some extra newsprint paper to round out the top; use masking tape to stick it down.

5. Wrap a piece of newsprint around the whole mushroom cap and tape underneath.

6. Paint the cap red and let it dry.

7. While the paint is drying, cut circles in varying sizes from newsprint paper. Attach circles to the red cap with Mod Podge, and then coat the entire mushroom cap in Mod Podge to give it an even sheen. Let it dry.

8. Hot glue the original lid of the Stonyfield yogurt tub to the underside of the mushroom cap.

Of course I had to make a baby mushroom too…I used a Stonyfield yogurt single-serve cup and flipped it over. For the cap of this ‘shroom, I used an extra lid from another quart that I had recycled.

Many thanks to our friends at Stonyfield for continuing to challenge us with fun ways to craft with their packaging!

This post is sponsored by KiwiCo.

SPOILER ALERT: Discount offer below…but you have to keep reading!

How familiar does this sound…your kid’s birthday is approaching and you’ve planned the party, wrapped the gifts, but you haven’t bought any special decorations for the home celebration! The next few days are jam-packed with soccer games, zoom meetings, and dance classes, with no shopping time to spare. You are left with no choice…you have to raid their crafts supplies! 

Or, if your child likes to join in on their own decoration making (perhaps you wrangle the sibling to help), you have a win-win scenario of a bespoke DIY birthday craft plus a screen-free activity you can enjoy together! 

Now…what to make? Let’s be real…do not sweat over trying to draw their favorite cartoon character or attempt a life-size cut out of their Roblox avatar. Keep it simple and make it special with an easy-to-craft DIY birthday name garland that you can repurpose with a quick edit year after year. Use your kids’ favorite colors or swirl some together to make a marble look…experiment and play!

Kid and parent favorite, KiwiCo, has expanded beyond their amazing kit line to craft supplies for kids (and people that used to be kids) to explore freely. From air-dry clay to vibrant paint markers, their high quality materials are bound to encourage your kids’ creativity and innovation. They sent me a bunch of goodies to play with, and the quality is just what you’d expect from them.

So whether you are sneaking into the craft stash when your kids are asleep or you are bonding together in the fun, the opportunities that the KiwiCo line of crafts offers is endless!

And wait! Click this KiwiCo link and you will get 20% off your order of $50 or more, or enter PROJECTKID at checkout! Go stock up for the kids and get a few things for you too! We won’t tell!

What you’ll need:

KiwiCo Embroidery Floss Set

KiwiCo Wood Bead Set

KiwiCo Rainbow Air-Dry Clay

KiwiCo Letter and Number Cutter Set

Parchment paper

Sewing needle

Scissors

Make It:

1. Cover your work surface with parchment paper. 

2. Make a pancake with clay and flatten onto the parchment paper. 

3. Press letter or number cutter into the clay and wiggle to release. Set excess clay aside.

4. Grab a pinch of white clay and mix it into the original color (in this case, blue) to make a lighter shade. Adjust with white or blue clay as needed. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each letter. 

5. To make a striped letter or number, roll three to four pieces of clay into a stick and line them up. Press down, joining the colors, but not mixing them. Make a pancake and repeat step 3. 

6. Let clay dry overnight.

7. To make the garland, thread a needle and embroidery floss through the top of the letter—this air-dry clay dries with a spongy feel, so it’s easy to pierce. 

8. Thread wooden beads in between words and on either end to finish! Get a head start on next year by making the next number so you can swap out your child’s age!

Remember, get 20% with code PROJECTKID at checkout with carts over $50!

As with any gift-giving efforts, there’s no “one size fits all” when it comes to end-of-the-year teacher gifts. Some teachers like apples, some don’t. Some like pencil-patterned zipper pouches, most don’t. This year, Sommer and I are coming up with funny book titles for her favorite 4th grade teachers to make little notebooks.

What I love about this project is that it’s SO easy to draw a book spine! It’s just a rectangle with a curved top edge. Add some details to the spine and write the titles in playful handwriting styles! Plus you can draw these onto tote bags, notebooks, or even just make a cute thank-you card. This year was a real doozy for teachers and any nod of gratitude is going to go a long way!

Here are the materials and very basic steps:

• Notebook or journal with blank cover
• Paint markers
• Ruler and pencil

Draw your book spines using the ruler and pencil.

Color in the spines with paint pens. Let the paint dry.

Add little details to the spines like lines, swirls, or whirly-gigs.

Use a black permanent marker to write the titles.

As this school year comes to a close and the gratitude for these hardworking teachers swells around me, we have another practice of gratitude that you can try out: Thank with Google. I’m excited to be one of Google’s paid early testers for their Thank with Google pilot program. Thank with Google is a new experimental feature that you’ll see here on my website (see that little floating blue button below?). You can click on it and send me a little wink of encouragement via a virtual sticker.

This post is sponsored by our friends at Stonyfield.

Sometimes it can feel like “Flowers for Mom” is a little cliche as a Mother’s Day gift, but for me, a lover of all things nature and color, I simply will never tire of them. And when you are given flowers that will live forever, it seriously does not get any better than that.

These upcycled, DIY flowers are made from a plastic Stonyfield yogurt tub. Yes, you heard right…they are plastic! If you hate tossing these as much as I do, then this is the project for you and your littles. This a great project to make for mom, grandma, or another mother in your life, plus it reuses something that might otherwise end up in a landfill. They can live on your mantle all season long, and, bonus: they’ll never wilt. 

This post is sponsored by our friends at Stonyfield.

Please note: I use hot-glue in the video and photos, but these can also be made with tacky glue…perfectly safe for little hands!

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

• Stonyfield yogurt quart
• White and colored acrylic paint
• Paintbrushes
• Scissors
• Green straws, skewers or floral wire
• Pom-poms
• Hot-glue gun or tacky glue

1. Paint Stonyfield yogurt quart white. Let dry.
2. Cut 4 petal shapes from the white-painted Stonyfield quart. They should be about 2 inches tall and about an inch wide. Cut long leaf shapes.
3. Glue pom-pom to the end of the straw. (If you don’t have straws, you can paint a skewer green or use floral wire.)
4. Glue 4 petals around the pom-pom; glue the leaf to the stem. Gluing the unpainted petals and leaves to the stem first make it easier to hold for painting.
5. Paint the petals in the color of your choice and the leaves green. Stand them up in a glass to dry.

I have forever been a fan of Pysanka, Ukrainian Easter eggs decorated with a wax-resist method. The intricate, delicate designs are so detailed, and for anyone that has attempted to turn an egg into artwork, you too will be amazed. Pysanka artists often use a tool called a lathe, which allows the artist to rotate the egg, keeping the egg level and off the surface of the table.

I was thinking of the lathe when I made these eggs, using a basic lazy susan.  Really the only similarity is the spinning action, and while these eggs are not at all intricate like Pysanka, they are super fun to make!

I used wooden eggs from Oriental Trading that had a flat bottom. If you use real, blown-out eggs, just rest the egg in a lifesaver candy, using glue dots to hold it in place.

Here’s how I made these:

1. Before you get started, mix a little water into your paint so that it’s about the consistency of a milkshake. If the paint is too thick, it won’t distribute around the egg evenly.
2. Paint the wooden egg. I painted mine white so that the stripes would be vibrant, but you can choose any color you’d like (or leave them natural).
3. Glue-dot the wooden egg to the center of the lazy susan and spin!
4. As it spins touch the side of the egg with a brush loaded with paint. Repeat with different colors to make as many stripes as you’d like. You want to keep you hand as steady as possible so that the line remains straight.
5. After they dry, you can add this optional touch! If you want a more mod design, take a black marker and move the marker around the surface of the egg as it spins. Experiment and try lots of things!

Here’s a before and after comparison of how these eggs looked with and without the black. I appreciate both versions!

Here’s something fun for you (and me)! We are one of Google’s paid early testers for their Thank with Google pilot program! Thank with Google is a new experimental feature that you’ll see on my website (see that little floating blue button down below?). You can click on it and send me a little high-five of encouragement.

I can’t speak for all content creators, but I share these ideas because (A) I love to craft and (B) I love to encourage folks to get creative with their kids. Sometimes I’m paid for the content that I make—maybe by a magazine or a brand that has sponsored the post, but so much that I share is just because I believe encouraging kids to take risks, experiment, and create is so vital to their futures as confident, self-directed humans.

By clicking the Thank with Google button, you can just send me a sticker as a sign of appreciation, and some of the stickers translate into direct revenue that support our work and allow us to serve up more clever craft ideas!

If you try it out, let us know what you think! Thanks, as always, for your support.