By Terah Beckmann
I will preface this post with the disclaimer that I love crafting and I am pretty good at it, but I have never included Noah. When BabyPage asked if I would do a crafting post, I was thrilled! A reason to run to Michaels and spend hours on Pinterest? Sign me up! Here we go, this is my honest experience and recommendations on crafting with your kiddos!
I highly recommend doing crafts with your little one. Noah had a BLAST. I mean, a BLAST! But you have to be prepared: put on old clothes, have wipes and dry & wet towels handy, go outside if you can, and most of all just relax because it’s going to be a mess but it will be so worth it!
Tape Canvas
I saw this on Pinterest and I was like YES! This will be amazing for Noah’s playroom. I’ll get letter stickers and make words and I will shock and awe the world!
So I headed down to Michaels and grabbed the necessities per the Robin Egg View blog I found. I subbed in letter stickers for tape. Grabbed everything we needed, including Noah, and headed outside. I laid down a tarp and put on Noah’s Ikea craft smock. I gave him paint and a brush and let him have at it.
Oh my messy! But oh, so fun!
I learned on the first canvas that toddlers do not know what colors go together so we wound up with poo brown (yuck!) so I limited the colors available to blues, greens, and yellows. And the result is super cute!
A Couple Other Tips
- Robin Egg View used foam brushes and I don’t know if this is just Noah but he wanted to suck on them (kids are weird) so we used bristle brushes.
- Make sure you have ALL the towels you will ever own at your disposal, seriously.
- Back up water cups for when the first three you put out get too dirty or kicked over.
- And lastly, don’t have your dog around. She will most likely kick over the water.
Flubber Soap
I saw this on my favorite mom-vlog What’s Up Moms. I tried to channel my inner Brooke and well, here’s what I learned about this project. First, Noah had the most fun doing this. Second, I don’t think we actually got “flubber.”
You can watch the video of Brooke making this soap. I grabbed the ingredients and took a whack at it. I learned, which was confirmed when I re-watched Brooke’s video, to measure out the ingredients first. BUT Noah had a uber fun time measuring the corn starch so maybe control the liquids and let them have at it with the rest?
It really was super simple, our consistency is still in the icing faze, but Noah still had fun playing with it during bath time and he did get nice and clean! I think we’ll make a new batch of this for a hand washing station for Noah’s birthday party!
Clay Eggs
I “working mom’d” this craft. I had a beautiful plan to make clay eggs for Easter gifts to Grandmas and ran into this little kit while shopping.
We rolled out the clay, used the included cookie cutter, and painted the eggs. I hung a few off bushes for Noah’s egg hunt at home and he loved it. He loves painting so that was super fun and then seeing his reaction to finding them was even better! I’ll keep them for future Easters and maybe make a new one each year and hang them on an Easter tree.
These little kits are just perfect. I have bought sticker sets from Michaels for travel and it’s just nice to have it in a box so you can maximize your fun time. It’s a great starter into crafting with your kiddos and “paint excluded” one of my favorite on-the-go activities for Noah.
