Craft ideas wheel

A basic craft box

Most of the wheel can be made from one box of supplies. Keep it stocked and any spin is ready to go:

• Child-safe scissors, glue sticks, white glue, tape.
• Colored paper, paper plates, paper bags, tissue paper.
• Yarn or embroidery thread, buttons, craft sticks, pom-poms.
• Markers, crayons, a few acrylic paints and brushes.
• Clean recycling: cardboard tubes, cereal boxes, jars, egg cartons.

How a few of them work

• Salt dough ornaments: mix 2 cups flour, 1 cup salt and about 3/4 cup water into a dough. Roll, cut shapes, poke a hole for string, and bake low (around 250°F / 120°C) until hard, often 2–3 hours. Paint once cool. An adult handles the oven.
• Pinecone bird feeder: spread a pinecone with seed butter or lard, roll it in birdseed and hang it outside with string. Check for allergies if you use nut butter.
• Tissue paper suncatcher: stick squares of tissue paper onto the sticky side of clear contact paper, cover with a second sheet and tape to a sunny window.
• Cardboard loom weaving: cut notches along two ends of a piece of cardboard, wrap yarn around as the warp, then weave over-and-under with another color.
• Leaf rubbings: a leaf under thin paper, then rub the side of a peeled crayon over it until the veins appear.

Ages and safety

Ages 3–5 do best with paper chains, leaf rubbings, collage, paper plate masks and painted rocks. From about 7, friendship bracelets, origami and weaving work well. Keep hot glue guns, craft knives and the oven as adult jobs, and supervise small items like buttons and pom-poms around toddlers.