I’m always on the lookout for crafts that don’t involve a lot of…well, anything. I want something that is easy to set up, supplies I have around my house and something my kids can do without a lot of supervision! And this, my friends, fits all those qualifications and more!

All you need is some crayons (check!), glue stick (check!), scissors (check!) and assorted envelopes (check!). So far, so good.

Let’s begin with the animal puppet. Take a long envelope, seal it and cut it in half.

With the open side down, snip off the two bottom corners. (Save ‘em! We’ll need them in a minute.)

Now, turn the envelope around, color it pink, glue on those two snipped bottom corners and you have a pig! How cute is that?!

We made mice and frogs with this same idea (just round eyes and ears instead of triangle ears). You could make a whole zoo this way!

Our next puppet is a caterpillar. Or maybe it’s a snake. Or just a crazy little monster. It’s whatever you want it to be! Just take a square invitation envelope, fold it in half and cut off the outside top corner. Then make a “V” cut in the middle.

When you open the envelope up (flap down!), you can stick your hand in, push two fingers out and you have a little puppet with antennas!

Aren’t they cute? The one on the left kinda looks like Lord Voldemort, doesn’t he? Oh, well. My daughter thought he was cute!

So, next time your kids are hanging at your office or you need to write some bills, grab an envelope and start a puppet factory!

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Amanda is a stay-at-home mom of two who blogs at OhAmanda.com and Impress Your Kids. In her former life, Amanda was a Children’s Pastor — overseeing, organizing and developing ministry for kids in nursery through middle school, but now that she is a mom, her “skills” are used up on her kids!

Guest Post by Jenae – I Can Teach My Child

Young children need plenty of opportunities recognizing and forming letters before they can become proficient at writing them.  Since the fine motor dexterity to form letters on paper sometimes doesn’t come until late in the preschool years, creativity is key!  When an activity blends multiple domains of early childhood development, this helps to engage your child even more. Here are just a few ideas for teaching letter recognition and letter formation in a fun and engaging way!

Attach several pieces of ribbon or yarn to one end of a

dowel rod.  Let your little one create the letters in the air using the “magic wand.”

Write a large letter on a piece of paper.  Show your child how to roll the playdough in order to create a “snake.”  Then have him (or her) trace the shape of the letter using the playdough snake!

What fun ways do you and your child practice forming letters?

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Jenae is a wife, mother of two boys’ ages 3 and 1, and former first-grade teacher. She loves spending time with her family and sharing fun and educational activities for young children on her blog I Can Teach My Child!

Getting Started In early Spring, we had lots of fun starting seeds indoors! This helped to give Emily an appreciation for how long it takes plants to grow. She took very good care of her seedlings.

Next, we planted seeds and transfered some of the seedlings over to the garden plot. We found it helpful to have a kid-friendly garden layout, so as to avoid any little feet accidently squashing plants. Some good options include: raised beds, container gardening, or going with a square foot garden layout.

Kid-Friendly Garden Ideas

1. Raised Beds

2. Container Gardening

3. Square Foot Garden Layout

We chose to go with a square foot layout, which gave us plenty of vegetables and was a clear way for Emily to navigate her way around the garden without fear of stepping on any of the seedlings.

To be even more kid-friendly, we even gave Emily her very own space within our lot where she could grow whatever vegetables or flowers she wanted. She chose lots of broccoli, tomatoes, lettuce, and marigolds!

If possible, give your child his/her own special garden space!

Ten Gardening Chores Kids Can Do:

1. Planting Seeds
2. Making Seed Markers
3. Watering Plants
4. Weeding (with supervision)
5. Harvesting Vegetables
6. Loosening Soil
7. Laying Down Straw
8. Decorating the Garden (handmade mobiles, pinwheels, banners, etc.)
9. Picking off bugs.
10. Collecting Seeds for Next Year’s Garden

Garden Themed Books! Of course, we took advantage of our local public library as much as possible over the course of the Summer. Our favorite “garden” reads are The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss….

….and Seeds! Seeds! Seeds! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.

….and decorating a photo frame with dried beans (which Emily learned are also seeds). There are many more gardening craft ideas on Frugal Family Fun Blog too!

With lots of hard work, our garden was in full bloom!

Gardening is one of the best ways for kids to learn about where their food comes from, basic plant biology, and exposes kids to nature. As an added bonus, we saved lots of money by growing our own organic vegetables! I made a fun garden goody bag for Emily to harvest her vegetables in, and it was a great hit! I love to share good things, so I thought you might like one too!

Good luck!!

Congrats Luna!!  You Won. Check your email !

Today’s guest post is my Amy, who like her post explains is a mom and not really a crafter, although she has me fooled!  I love how she approached these holiday crafts for a large group and you will too. Thanks Amy for sharing ! You check out more about Amy’s adventures on her blog, Blog-o!

Crafting for a Crowd:Festive Crafts at the Winter Fair

When I signed up to run the craft room at my childrens’ school Winter Fair, I wasn’t in it for the crafts. To tell the truth, I’m not really a crafter. My problem  with crafts, particularly little kid crafts, is that they can  be pretty bad for the environment;often they involve gluing a bunch of non-recyclable things to recyclable things so you end up throwing the whole schmagiggy into the garbage. Not to mention the amount of pointless stuff that gets manufactured just so kids can glue it onto other stuff!

In truth, I signed up to run the crafts room with an agenda: I wanted to green it up. Our school is one of the leaders in the city on environmental matters and I thought our Winter Fair crafts room should reflect that. In addition to that challenge, I and my co-crafters Nancy and Tanya had to create a variety of crafts  which would appeal to children from JK (four years old) to Grade Six (eleven years old), and that wouldn’t be too messy or too expensive. Here is what we came up with.

Bows and Chains, or The Stapling Table

The simplest craft we offered was paper chains made out of strips of construction paper. We cut lots of different colours of construction paper into strips, and provided both staplers and glue sticks. This craft wasn’t very popular, I think because the other crafts were more glamourous (or messy). However, one mom made a nice long paper chain of her own and said it was very  relaxing!

Also at the stapling table was our most challenging craft: magazine paper gift bows. To prepare for this craft, we cut strips about five or six inches long and wide out of magazines. (The best pages for this are pages which are mainly one colour on one side and another colour on the other.) We also cut little inch-by-inch squares from cereal boxes to  act as backs for the bows.

There are two ways to make gift bows. I call them “The Hard Way” and “The Easy Way”. Here’s The Hard Way:

1. Take a strip of magazine and fold the end over into a twisted loop. Use a dab of stick glue to stick the loop together.

2. Turn the strip around and make another loop at the other end.

3. Set that strip aside and repeat steps 1 and 2 for three more strips.

4. Stack the four completed strips on top of each other, angling them to get a full bow. Staple or glue the whole thing to a cereal-box square.

Here’s The Easy Way:

1. Take a strip of magazine and join it into a loop. Bring the middle  of the loop together into a figure 8. You can staple this now, or just hold on to it, depending how dexterous you are.

2. Get another strip of magazine, join it into a loop and bring the middle of the loop together as above. Put the two loops together  in the middle to make a +. You can stop at this point and staple the + to a piece of card to make a very minimal, chic bow, or continue…

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 to make a second +, then join the two together at an angle to make a fancier bow.

These bows look great, but they would look even better if you could figure out a way to finish the middle of them. We were experimenting with  gluing a little loop in the middle on top of the staples. Perhaps you could stick a sticker over the staples, or it might be nice if you made them with coloured staples.

Cards

We set up two tables for the children to make cards. At one table we provided small, deckle-edge cards along with crayons and watercolour paint. We drew simple holiday designs on some cards, and left the others plain. Some of the kids coloured with crayons and then painted over the crayons, and some just painted. This craft appealed to all age groups: the little ones made a painty mess and the bigger ones were very careful and precise with their painting.

The other table had larger cards, some of which we stamped with  festive designs and others left plain. We provided pencil crayons, glue and foil shapes and let ‘em at it.

Ornaments

The last craft;my favourite;was directly inspired by this one . To prepare, Nancy borrowed a die-cutter to cut a bunch of shapes out of card stock: trees, round ornaments, dreidels and stars.

We cut lots of coloured bits out of magazines and sorted them into baskets by colour. We also cut out interesting little pictures, like animals and bugs, and cool patterns, as we came across them.

Our little crafters stuck on the bits of magazine using stick glue, and then a helper trimmed any overhanging bits from the edges…

And voila!

This craft, as Allie says, works equally well for little kids and bigger ones. Little ones love the gluing and the sense of accomplishment, older kids like experimenting with colour and texture and combining images in unexpected ways.

In the end the Craft Room was a big success: everyone who came in, big and small,  left with a craft which they enjoyed making and were proud of. We managed to reuse a lot of stuff, and most of the things we bought,  like recycled paper and cardstock, and woodless pencils,  were easy on the earth. And even I appreciate crafting a little more! Maybe I will make some bows for my Christmas packages.

I have the best readers in the blogosphere ! When I sent out a message to my facebook fans that I needed help with guest posts because morning sickness was leaving me unable to do much more than turn the tv on for my son , they flooded in! I still have more to come and I hope you have been enjoying them as much as I have. Today’s craft is perfect for our series of kid friendly Christmas ornaments.  Jessica for Muthering Heights was kind enough to share it with us , thanks Jessica!

{Super Simple Snowflake/Star Ornaments!}

This truly simple craft was originally inspired by a similar project that I, myself, made for my parents in my Kindergarten class.

{I will say, for the record, that a part of me died when I realized that it was twenty one years ago! Good grief!!!}

But *ahem,* I digress.

My daughter and I completed this project together. She is nearly three. And let it be known that she will be taking full responsibility for the wardrobe styling in the photos below.

The necessary materials are craft {ie: popsicle} sticks, Glue, dry pasta of your choice {we used Rotini}, paint {we used silver glitter paint}, and some sort of string {we used fishing line}. The paper plate pictured below is optional, for the neat-freaks among us. 

Step One: Using the glue and craft sticks, arrange and affix the stick in a star-like shape.

Step Two: Using the glue, arrange and affix the pasta on the sticks, as your child’s fancy dictates.

Step Three: When the glue dries {the time lapse will depend on how heavy-handed your little crafter is with the glue}, apply the paint.

Step Four: When the paint dries, attach the string. Hang and enjoy! OR, omit the string, and use these little beauties to adorn holiday packages!

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These ornaments are wonderfully simple, but so much fun for little hands!