October 17, 2022
ad, Early Elementary, Everyday Crafts, Gift Wrap, Gifts, Grown-Up, Jewelry and Fashion, Older Elementary, Preschool, Toddler, Tween to Teen, Uncategorized, Unplugged Time
This post is sponsored by our friends JOANN Stores.
In my gazillion years of spreading the joy of crafting, the one statement I hear all the time is I’M NOT CREATIVE. (This is usually from adults, mind you. Not kids.) But if you define the word CREATIVE, it literally means having or showing an ability to make new things or think of new ideas.
If you are feeling stuck, whether it’s creatively, emotionally, or even in a challenging work or school project, sometimes the best way to get unstuck is to simply just MAKE SOMETHING. Easier said than done, but if you take away the pressure to be perfect, you might discover something surprising in the process. These easy-to-make inkblot tote bags are the perfect project to help you create something beautiful with super low stakes.
Our friends at JOANN sell all the materials you need to make these beautiful bags. I suggest buying a few bags and an assortment of paint…you won’t want to stop at just one!
What you’ll need:
Make it:
1. First put a piece of scrap cardboard inside tote bag to prevent the paint from bleeding through.
2. Place your plastic sheet, file folder, or cardboard on top of the tote bag. If you are using plastic or cardboard, make a crease in the center. Make a mark on the top edge to show the boundary of where your paint should go. Remember that it will bleed out a little bit once you fold it.
3. Squirt paint onto one side of the folder or board. Have fun and make a mess! You can be generous with your paint squirts.
4. Fold over and press so that the paint transfers to the other side. Open up to see your Rorschach, or inkblot, design!
5. Flip the design over and lay it on your tote bag. Smooth out to transfer the paint to the bag.
Peel the folder or board off the tote bag and let it dry!
Fun, right? Now you want to make another, don’t you? These prints would look great on t-shirts and aprons too!
Thanks again to JOANN Stores for supporting our creative projects!
September 28, 2022
ad, DIY Home, Early Elementary, Everyday Crafts, Fall, Grown-Up, Kids Rooms, Nature, Older Elementary, Organization, Paper, Upcycled
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:
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!
July 22, 2022
ad, Birthdays, Decor, Decor, Early Elementary, Everyday Crafts, Grown-Up, Older Elementary, Parties, Preschool, Uncategorized, Unplugged Time
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 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!
June 14, 2022
ad, Older Elementary, Tween to Teen
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:
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.
May 3, 2022
ad, Everyday Crafts, Grown-Up, Holidays, Mother's Day, Older Elementary, Spring, Tween to Teen, Upcycled
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:
