Categories
Craft crafts Holiday

Easy Thanksgiving Crafts: How to Make a Wine Cork Turkey with Pipe Cleaners

I love holiday crafts, especially when I don’t have to buy anything new for them. I have plenty of wine corks and pipe cleaners, so a wine cork turkey came to mind as an easy thanksgiving craft. My kids enjoyed making them, too. I helped put their pipe cleaners in but they did the rest and loved the result. 🙂

Easy Thanksgiving Crafts, Wine Cork Turkey

How to Make a Wine Cork Turkey as an Easy Thanksgiving Craft

Required Material:

***This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.***

How to Make It:

  • 1: Twist the pipe cleaners around your pinky finger, a pencil, or another thin object. Then slide the pipe cleaners off without straightening them, making sure to keep the curls.
  • 2: Stick the pointy metal edges of the pipe cleaners into the cork, leaving space for all four colors to go around. The pipe cleaners mimic feathers, so make sure they go around the back.
  • 3: Glue on the googly eyes. If you don’t have googly eyes, you can make eyes out of paper and glues those on instead.
  • 4: Cut a beak from orange paper and a gobbler from red paper. I ran out of red paper so I just found some red in a magazine and cut that into a gobbler.
  • 5: Glue on the beak and gobbler, and you have your turkey. 🙂

Other Easy Fall Crafts

If you love making fall crafts or doing sensory activities, check out these posts:

Recap: Easy Thanksgiving Craft – Wine Cork Turkey with Pipe Cleaners

Now that you have your easy Thanksgiving craft planned, don’t forget about Thanksgiving dinner! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and I’m excited about all parts of it.

What is your favorite part of Thanksgiving? Leave a comment and let us know. 🙂

Categories
Craft crafts Family Activities Free Activities Holiday How To Parenting Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

How to Make an Easy Last-Minute Valentine’s Card Box

I’m that mom who sees the note about the class Valentine’s party and only reads halfway through. I get the date and the number of Valentine’s cards we need, and that’s about it. Well, this time, my quick-scan method failed me because I didn’t realize we needed a Valentine’s card box!

As we were getting all of the Valentine’s Day stuff packed up for the next day, I re-read the note to make sure we weren’t forgetting anything. I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. My preschooler needed a Valentine’s card box for school. Oops.

No worries, though. He had a cute Valentine’s card box for his class party that we made without running out to the store. Plus, it was super easy to make.

Valentine's Card Box

How to Make a Valentines Card Box

Step 1: Find a box that is big enough to hold Valentine’s Day treats and cards.

You can use literally any box you have. We used a pop-tart box. There are only 10 kids in his class so his didn’t need to be very big.

Step 2: Paint the box or cover it with paper.

It took a couple of coats of paint to hide the pop-tart logo. I let it dry in between each coat but it didn’t take long.

For some reason, the sides of the box were giving us the most trouble (or maybe I was just over it). So, we cut cute craft paper and placed it on each end. We didn’t do anything with the bottom of the box.

Step 3: Add stickers and other embellishments.

We had some Valentine’s stickers so my little guy put stickers all over the box. You could also cut hearts out of different colored paper and glue those to the box.

We cut his name out of cute paper and glued that on, too. Use whatever you have and be creative. Other ideas include letting your child paint designs on the box or adding glitter.

Step 4: Cut a hole in the top.

Make sure the hole is big enough to fit treats through and not just cards.

Valentine's Card Box

While this Valentine’s card box was nowhere near perfect, my little guy loved it. Sometimes it is all about taking the time to help them create something rather than worrying about a perfect result. Sure, I could have run out to Target and hoped they had some left, but this ended up being so much more fun and I didn’t have to change out of my sweatpants.

How to Make an Easy Last-Minute Valentine's Card Box, Valentine's Card Box

Please tell me I’m not the only mom who does everything last minute?! And if you are a parent who plans ahead and already has their child’s Valentine’s card box ready, I’d love to see it!

*Does anyone in your child’s class have food allergies? If so, read this article: Keep Valentine’s Day Sweet and Safe for Those With Food Allergy.*

Categories
Craft crafts Infant/Toddler Learning Kindergarten Age Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Fall Crafts for Kids – Handprint Leaves

You guys, fall is RIGHT around the corner. Can you believe it? That means it’s time to get started on our fall crafts for kids!

I love so many things about fall. Bonfires, the smell of October, crisp fall air, and the falling leaves in bright colors are just a few of my favorite things. My all-time favorite part, however, is making memories with my kids.

Fall is the perfect time for family traditions and fun. Doing crafts is something we do for each season or holiday, so of course, there will be fall-inspired crafts.

This handprint leaves craft is one I first did years ago. I loved it so much I started doing it every year. I love seeing how much the kids’ hands have grown each year, and I can update their scrapbooks with the handprint leaves.

How to Make Handprint Leaves With Kids

This is a super simple craft that you can do with kids of every age. The required materials are minimal, and there isn’t much mess involved.

fall craft for kids, easy fall craft, handprint craft for kids, fall handprint craft, cute craft for kids

Required Materials:

Directions:

  1. Begin with a blank piece of white paper.
  2. Using a clean paintbrush, paint the child’s hand orange.
  3. Quickly and firmly place the child’s hand flat onto the white paper.
  4. Carefully lift their hand, being careful not to smear the handprint leaf.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 for the red paint and yellow paint.
  6. Allow the paint to dry.
  7. Using a thin paintbrush and brown paint (or a brown marker) draw the stem lines onto the leaves.

What Do You Think?!

Tell me what you think of this easy fall craft! Which fall crafts do you plan to do with your kiddos?

Share pictures of your fall crafts for kids in the comments! Feel free to drop a link to your fall craft blog posts in the comments, too! I’d love to see them!

Check out other fall crafts and activities by clicking the following links:

Simple Fall Handprint Crafts for Kids

Easy Fall Sensory Bin With Dyed Rice

Foil Printed Fall Art For Kids

Fall Bucket List – Free Printable 

Other Important Fall Tasks

While we’re on the topic of kids and fall, I want to remind you to label all of your child’s coats, jackets, snow pants, and anything else they might lose. I’ve spent too much time and money looking for or replacing these items, so I label them each year. If you want a label that will last, I urge you to visit dutchlabelshop.com. They offer custom labels that you can sew onto your child’s clothing and outdoor gear. You can even choose a label with your child’s photo.

fall craft for kids, easy fall craft, handprint craft for kids, fall handprint craft, cute craft for kids
Categories
Craft crafts Infant/Toddler Learning Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Paper Plate Sunflower Craft – An Easy Craft For Kids

I don’t know about you, but sunflowers just make me happy. They remind me of long, sunny, relaxing summer days. That is why I decided a paper plate sunflower craft was the perfect one for us this week.

How to Make This Easy Sunflower Craft

Materials

Directions

1. Cut out the petals.

I created a template for this so that we would have the correct shape. You can cut them out without a template, but I always need a guide. There are three different sizes for the petals because the petals on a real sunflower are always different sizes.

I printed the template onto white paper and then cut the leaves out. Then, I traced the cut outs onto a piece of yellow construction paper. Once I had covered the construction paper with traced sunflower petals, I began to cut.

I didn’t cut just one yellow page at a time. Instead, I put five pieces of yellow construction paper in a small stack and cut through them all at once.

sunflower petals template, sunflower template

2. Glue the petals to the paper plate.

You will want to put the paper plate upside down for this part. Glue the petals to the edges of the bottom of the paper plate so that they stick out from the back when you look at the front. Do this all the way around the plate.

3. Cut out squares of yellow paper and glue them to the center of the plate.

Glue small squares of yellow paper all over the middle of the plate on the front. This will be the yellow center of the sunflower.

4. Make black dots on the yellow center to show the seeds.

Use a marker to make random black dots all over the yellow squares in the center of the plate. These are supposed to represent the sunflower seeds.

paper plate sunflower craft for kids, easy crafts

What do You Think About This Paper Plate Sunflower Craft?

This paper plate sunflower craft was so easy, and the kids loved it. Plus, it’s super cute so I can hang it up for a while!

What crafts have you been doing with your kids lately? Tell me about it in the comments!

Categories
Craft crafts Infant/Toddler Learning Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Tear Art – Little Red Riding Hood

This tear art based on the book Little Red Riding Hood was so much fun for my daughter! It was easy, allowed her to be creative, and can be done over and over again with different books. Before I get into the details of that craft, let’s catch up!

I hope you are all having an amazing summer! I know things are a little different this year since lots of things are closed/canceled. Plus, the things that aren’t canceled or closed likely have new rules and guidelines to follow.

It definitely takes some getting used to, but we’re still enjoying all of our favorite activities! We’ve spent a lot of time at the Lake (Lake Michigan is our favorite), and spent time exploring places we’ve never been before.

The kids have loved it and they haven’t even complained about missing out on things we would normally do.

It’s been rainy here lately, though, so we have been stuck inside a little more than we’d like. That’s been fine, though, because it gives us plenty of time for reading stories and making crafts.

Little Red Riding Hood Tear Craft

My daughter is obsessed with wolf stories, which has been a theme for her for more than a year now. Lately, we’ve been reading Little Red Riding Hood over and over again.

So, when she wanted to read it for the fourth time in a row the other day, I came up with a better idea. We decided to make a craft based on the book! I love to do that anyway, so this was a perfect time.

My little lady is currently grounded from scissors (a few too many mishaps with her hair, her Barbie’s hair, and now her toy horse’s hair… along with clothes and anything else she found). I wanted to stick to my guns on this one, so we settle for tear art.

Tear crafts are awesome anyway because they help with fine motor skills and using pinching skills. This one was even more fun because we had to copy the book while tearing our paper.

Plus, when you do a craft based on a book, it will help the child remember the book better. That means, if there are any lessons involved in the book, the child will remember those better, too.

Materials:

Directions:

  • Read the book
  • Choose a part your child wants to re-create
  • Gather the necessary colors of construction paper
  • Begin tearing out the shapes
  • Glue them to the paper
  • Use crayons, a pen, or a marker to add final details if necessary
tear craft, tear art, easy craft for kids, easy art activity, activities kids can do alone, keep kids busy while working from home, scissor-free craft, craft without scissors, paper craft, paper craft for toddlers, fine motor activity, fine motor craft, Little Red Riding Hood Craft
tear craft, tear art, easy craft for kids, easy art activity, activities kids can do alone, keep kids busy while working from home, scissor-free craft, craft without scissors, paper craft, paper craft for toddlers, fine motor activity, fine motor craft, Little Red Riding Hood Craft
tear craft, tear art, easy craft for kids, easy art activity, activities kids can do alone, keep kids busy while working from home, scissor-free craft, craft without scissors, paper craft, paper craft for toddlers, fine motor activity, fine motor craft, Little Red Riding Hood Craft

Use Tear Art to Occupy Kids While You Work From Home

So, I’ll be completely honest here. One of the reasons I’m trying to get my kids to enjoy tear art based on books is because I often work from home. As many of you are probably realizing, working from home when you have kids is incredibly difficult.

I did this craft with my daughter, but I’m hoping that it’ll help her stay occupied on her own when I’m working. Since the materials are basic, you’ll be able to feel comfortable that your child won’t hurt themselves without your guidance.

They can choose any book they want, even ones they haven’t read before. This opens the door to so many ideas and possibilities. You’ll be able to suggest tear art next time your kids are bugging you while you are busy with work.

Your kids don’t have to only create the characters in the book, either. They can re-create the scenery or any other aspect of the book. I think rainbows and other nature-related themes would be so much fun to re-create!

tear craft, tear art, easy craft for kids, easy art activity, activities kids can do alone, keep kids busy while working from home, scissor-free craft, craft without scissors, paper craft, paper craft for toddlers, fine motor activity, fine motor craft, Little Red Riding Hood Craft
tear craft, tear art, easy craft for kids, easy art activity, activities kids can do alone, keep kids busy while working from home, scissor-free craft, craft without scissors, paper craft, paper craft for toddlers, fine motor activity, fine motor craft

Final Thoughts on Tear Art – Little Red Riding Hood

This is a craft that kids of all ages can do. They get to use their creativity to create what they are seeing in the book.

It doesn’t matter how close your child (or yourself) gets to an exact re-creation. Just going through this process will help them remember the book and the lessons it has taught.

It’ll also keep your kids busy for a while, and they can do this craft without scissors.

What book would you want to recreate with your child? Tell me about it in the comments!

Check out this similar craft:

Big Bad Wolf Paper Plate Craft

Categories
Big Kid Big kid fun Craft crafts Free Activities Holiday How To Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Leprechaun Finders – Toilet Paper Roll Binoculars

These Leprechaun Finders were a life-saver for me today as my kids desperately needed something to do. The school’s are shut down in our state because of the Corona Virus (Covid-19), and many public places have shut down as well. This includes our local indoor play places, restaurants, movie theatres and more. Unfortunately, all of this means the kids are already getting bored.

I want to keep them learning, creating, and engaging during this social-distancing time, so finding new activities to do each day is important. Along with practicing sight words for Sylas, letter recognition (capital and lowercase) for Josie, and name recognition for Liam, time for creativity has been essential.

With St. Patrick’s Day here, I thought it would be the perfect time to create Leprechaun Finders! They were easy, so much fun (they doubled as fine motor play!), and they kept the kids busy for quite some time.

St Patrick's Day Leprechaun Finders, Leprechaun lookers, toiler paper roll binoculars, St Patty's Day craft for kids, easy craft for kids, easy st patrick's day craft, st. patricks day, St. Patrick's Day

How to Make Leprechaun Finders

Materials:

This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.

Directions

1. Cut the construction paper to fit perfectly around each toiler paper roll, then glue the paper in place. If you choose paint instead of paper, you would paint the tube green here instead.

2. Have the child decorate each of the green tubes with sequins, pipe cleaners, or sequins. You could also just have them decorate with markers or crayons. It can be as simple as you want it!

3. Hold the decorated rolls side by side and place a piece of tape starting on the inside of one roll and finishing on the inside of the other roll. Do this on both the front and the back of the toiler paper roll binoculars (or Leprechaun finders).

4. Now, you can add a piece of string to this so that the kids can wear it around their necks, but I didn’t do this for ours.

St Patrick's Day, Leprechaun Finders, Leprechaun lookers, toiler paper roll binoculars, St Patty's Day craft for kids, easy craft for kids, easy st patrick's day craft, st. patricks day, St. Patrick's Day

Where to Use Your Leprechaun Finders

We started out using them inside of the house, looking out windows. I think by the time they were done inside, they had spent at least 5 minutes looking out every window in the house.

When they didn’t find them outside of the windows, we took them out to the backyard. Then, eventually, we went on a walk around the neighborhood looking for Leprechauns.

St Patrick's Day, Leprechaun Finders, Leprechaun lookers, toiler paper roll binoculars, St Patty's Day craft for kids, easy craft for kids, easy st patrick's day craft, st. patricks day, St. Patrick's Day

Final Thought on Leprechaun Finder – Toilet Paper Roll Binoculars

This St Patty’s Day craft was so easy and so much fun. The kids loved it, and the prep and clean-up were easy for me. I’m a huge fan of toilet paper roll binoculars, and I foresee us doing more of these for future holidays.

Now, I have less than 24 hours to figure out how to trick the kids into thinking they found a Leprechaun using their Leprechaun finders! Any ideas? Let me know in the comments.

Categories
Big Kid Craft crafts Free Activities Holiday Teenager Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Valentine’s Crafts Based on the Book Hedgehugs

When my son brought the book ‘Hedgehugs’ home from school last year, I was so excited. I’d never heard of it before and it quickly became a favorite. While deciding on some Valentine’s Crafts, this book immediately came to mind.

It’s a cute story about a couple of hedgehogs that want to hug but can’t find a comfortable way to do so. By the end of the story, the hedgehogs find a way to hug by wiggling into the end of a torn sock. The sock covers their sharp parts so that they can share their love.

With National Hugging Day on the 21st and Valentine’s Day less than a month away, I figured it was the perfect time to have some fun with this one. If you want to buy this book for your home library, you can get it on Amazon by clicking HERE or by clicking on the photo below.

heart craft, Valentine's day, Valentines Day, Valentine's crafts, handprint craft,  hedgehugs book, hedgehog craft, hugging craft

This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.

heart craft, Valentine's day, Valentines Day, Valentine's crafts, handprint craft,  hedgehugs book, hedgehog craft, hugging craft

Valentine’s Crafts 1 – Paper Hug

This craft is SO easy and we had everything on hand to make it ahead of time. Even more exciting, our teenager participated in this one!

Materials

Directions

  1. Cut a large heart onto pink paper.
  2. Using any of the three colors of paper, cut a long, skinny piece and fold it up like an accordion.
  3. Put white paint on one of the child’s hands and have them make a handprint on red paper.
  4. Do the same with the other hand so that you have 2 handprints for each child.
  5. Have the child cut around their handprint and glue one handprint to each arm.
  6. Glue the other end of the arm to the large heart.
  7. Using markers, draw a face on the heart.

Valentine’s Crafts 2 – Hedgehog Hugging a Heart Craft

Materials

Directions

  1. Draw or print a large oval onto white paper and have your kids paint it brown.
  2. Draw or print a medium-sized oval, a medium sized heart, two small ovals for feet, and two long, skinny ovals for arms. At the end of each long, skinny oval, make it flat instead of rounded. (I know, this isn’t an oval anymore).
  3. Mix brown and white paint to make a light brown or tan color. Then, paint the rest of the shapes with this color.
  4. Then, cut out a couple of hearts onto pink or red paper.
  5. Once all of that is done, assemble the hedgehog by beginning with the large brown oval. Using glue, add the medium-sized tan oval next, more toward the bottom of the large oval leaving about half an inch of space at the bottom.
  6. Then add the tan heart so that the top half of the heart is on the brown oval and the bottom half is on the tan oval.
  7. Next up are the feet, which should be put on the very bottom.
  8. Finally, add one of the red or pink hearts right into the center of the tan oval and put the arms so that the flat side of the arms are on the edge of the oval and the rounded parts are overlapping the red or pink heart.
  9. Add a second red or pink heart overtop of the first one and add the googly eyes to the tan heart.
  10. For the final steps, add a pom-pom to the point of the tan heart to make a nose and add claws to the feet using a black marker.

That’s it!! You’re done and you’ve created a cute hedgehog hugging a heart.

heart craft, Valentine's day, Valentines Day, Valentine's crafts, handprint craft,  hedgehugs book, hedgehog craft, hugging craft

Final Thoughts on Valentines Craft Based on the Book Hedgehugs

Valentine’s Day is such a fun holiday to celebrate with your kids. It’s a good time to teach kids fun ways to celebrate rather than spending money to celebrate.

Which craft are you going to do with your kids? Let me know in the comments!

heart craft, Valentine's day, Valentines Day, Valentine's Day craft, handprint craft,  hedgehugs book, hedgehog craft, hugging craft

While you’re at it, parents, go ahead and treat yourself this Valentine’s Day with some pampering and self care.

Categories
Craft crafts Sensory Play Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Foil Printed Fall Art For Kids

*This post was originally written for my old blog, and was dated September 28, 2017. It was one of my favorite posts and we have done this exact craft or one very similar each year since. Foil printed fall art for kids quickly became a favorite in our house. If you like this one, come back in December for a foil printed winter craft!*

Chris took the little boys with him to Peyton’s football practice tonight, so Josie and I had a little one on one time. I literally never get alone time with JoJo so the minute the guys were out the door, Josie and I got started on our mommy-daughter time.

We painted first, which she was pretty excited about. She isn’t a HUGE fan of painting, but she is a huge fan of making a mess and gets excited when she sees me get it all out. The goal of our artwork tonight was to create fall artwork using foil as our “brush”.

Fall Art For Kids – a Simple Fall Craft

I gave Josie a small sheet of foil and told her to crumple it up. It was a fun sensory part of our craft and she loved it. I let her crumple mine up, too.

simple fall craft, fall craft for toddlers, fall craft for kids, foil printing, foil printed fall art

I quickly painted the tree trunk before I let her begin painting. She’s a bit too little to paint her own trunk and I wanted her to sort of understand where to put her painted “leaves”.

Once the trunk was painted, I showed her how to create the leaves and let her go to town. She loved it and had so much fun with this one.

foil printed fall art

When we were done painting, we baked some cookies. I used my go-to cookie recipe that I’ve been using for years (click here to try it yourself!). Josie really likes dumping the ingredients in the bowl and eating the chocolate chips when mama’s not looking.

The guys were excited that we surprised them with cookies, and Josie & I had a blast bonding. It was such a good night.

I’d love to see some of your guys’ fall art creations! Share them in the comments so we can try them, too!

simple fall craft, fall craft for toddlers, fall craft for kids, foil printing, foil printed fall art
Categories
Craft crafts Free Activities Holiday Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

4 Simple Fall Handprint Crafts For Kids

**I originally wrote this Fall Handprint Crafts post for my old blog, which I do not post to anymore. I decided to move it over here when I realized it was still being shared.**

Years ago, I worked as an infant/toddler teacher. I taught one-year-old toddlers, which was so much fun. Between my classroom of Wonderful One’s and my own babies at home, I did lots of simple crafts that could be used as keepsakes for years to come.

Handprint crafts are always my favorite because, let’s face it, what parent doesn’t want to see their tiny toddler’s handprint when that tiny toddler grows to become a not-so-tiny child, teen, adult, etc.? I know that my little’s won’t be little for long, and I want every memory possible of how little they once were.

Without further ado, here are a few of my favorite simple handprint crafts for fall.

Simple Fall Handprint Crafts

1. Frankenstein handprint craft

Frankenstein craft, fall craft, hand print craft, easy fall craft for kids, handprint crafts

For this cute little Frankenstein, you’ll just paint 4 of the child’s fingers black (do not pain the thumb), and the rest of the hand (not the thumb) green. Then, place their hands flat on the paper. Once the paint is dry, use a sharpie or other black marker to draw the face and the lines.

2. Handprint pumpkin with fingerprint stem

hand print pumpkin, pumpkin craft, fall craft, hand print craft, easy fall craft for kids, handprint crafts

For this fall handprint craft, you will paint your little one’s hand orange and place it flat on a white piece of paper. Then, paint their pointer finger green and place that flat on the same sheet of white paper. While you wait for the paint to dry, cut an orange pumpkin shape and a green stem shape out of construction paper.

Once the paint is dry, you’ll cut around the handprint and around the fingerprint. Have your little one help you glue the handprint to the pumpkin shape and the fingerprint stem to the green paper, and then glue the stem to the pumpkin.

3. Handprint leaves

leaf craft, leaf hand print, fall craft, hand print craft, easy fall craft for kids, handprint crafts

I love, love, love this one!! You’ll paint the child’s hand 3 separate times, once for a yellow handprint, one for red, and once for orange. You’ll put all 3 handprints on the same page, wait for them to dry, and then draw “stems” through the handprint leaves.

Check out my post about this craft here —-> Fall Crafts for Kids – Handprint Leaves – Mom Wife Wine

4. Handprint spider

spider craft, halloween craft, hand print spider, fall craft, handprint craft, easy fall craft for kids, handprint crafts

This one was so much fun and the kids really loved it. You’ll paint your child’s hand black (excluding the thumb) and put it flat on the paper but sideways. Then, you’ll do the same with the other hand, overlapping the palms of the hand. Once the paint is dry, add a white smile and googly eyes. You can even add a spider web to the craft, too.

Side Notes on Fall HandPrint Crafts

*If you don’t know what kind of paint to use, here is the link to what I use!

*Always remember to write the child’s name and the date somewhere on the craft (this could be on the back).

***This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.***

spider craft, halloween craft, hand print spider, hand print pumpkin, pumpkin craft, leaf craft, leaf hand print, Frankenstein craft, fall craft, hand print craft, easy fall craft for kids

Final Thoughts on Simple Fall Handprint Crafts

You could really turn any Halloween or fall-themed idea into a fall handprint craft of some kind. You just have to be creative and use your imagination (or Pinterest, of course).

What do you think? Which ones are your favorite? Leave a comment and let me know!

Do you love fall as much as I do?

Check out my free fall bucket list printable!