Crafts for Toddler and 10 year old

November 19, 2007 9:30 PM

Holiday craft ideas needed-catch is I want ideas that can be fun for my very creative, talented artistic 10 year old, and her sister, not quite 2. Tried and tested ideas, if possible, not just links to generic craft websites (links to fabulous websites you've found to be useful will be appreciated, of course).

My oldest daughter loves art, especially multimedia projects that involve glue and paint and scissors and a billion little pieces. Her sister is a typical 20 month old-wants to do everything her big sister does, and gets very sad and frustrated when not allowed to get in the midst. We also love Christmas and all the holiday preparations-decorating, cooking, ornaments and all. Help us find ideas of fun things to do to pass our long rainy Oregon days and create some Christmas memories.

Craft ideas that aren't necessarily holiday specific will be much appreciated, as well.

posted by purenitrous to home & garden (7 comments total)

If you have a craft store nearby, they should have a section of unfinished wooden picture frames, small boxes, plaques, stools, etc. I used to love decorating stuff like that. You could present each of your girls with one of these plus a couple of bottles of acrylic paint (these usually run from $.50 to $.99 each), glue and baubles (rhinestones, old buttons, trinkets, broken jewelry, etc.), photos torn from magazines or copies of family photos, GLITTER!!, pom poms, and stuff like that and let them decorate to their hearts' content.
posted by kitty teeth at 9:51 PM on November 19, 2007

Last year I made a bunch of ornaments with salt dough, cutting them out with cookie cutters and punching a hole with a drinking straw before baking them.

Then I let my girls go crazy with glitter, paint, sequins, whatever.
posted by padraigin at 10:31 PM on November 19, 2007

The Craftster forums are an awesome place to find ideas for stuff like this.

In particular, you might want to look at the following threads:

Easy, Kid-Friendly, Non-sucky Holiday Crafts for the Masses

Ornaments 3 year olds can make???

Ornaments to make with 31 4th graders

Ideas for 12 Christmas Crafts for Kids
posted by sanitycheck at 10:35 PM on November 19, 2007

Kiddley (by the very missed loobylu) has a lot of great kid crafts. I especially like the potato stamps, gumdrop wreath, paper garland, pom-pom garland, and snowglobe(!).
posted by birdie birdington at 11:51 PM on November 19, 2007

Paper Bag Puppets (lunch bags) and Masks (bigger grocery bags) are a good any-time crafting thing, because it takes little pre-preparation if you can be creative in thinking how to decorate them (dried pasta, crayons, paint, pens, stickers, scissors, paper, paste). It also skews to different ages a lot easier than...

If you plan ahead, you can make styrofoam-based marionettes (use string and a long needle or wire to attach the pieces together in a person or animal shapes), and then go crazy in decorating them. This will take a whole weekend, but will be a fond memory for decades to come.

I second salt-dough ornaments , and also "outside ornaments for our bird friends" - pinecones smeared with peanut butter, apples rolled in peanutbutter and then in birdseed (warning, deer also love these, so if you don't want any ones hanging out nearby to come even closer...). There's also: Paper Chains and Kid Weaving (Take 2 popsicle sticks, glue them into a cross shape, wrap yarn around 1 stick, stretch it to the next stick, wrap around, etc).

You could always buy one of those Gingerbread House kits, but I have a more wide-open alternative: Make Christmas scenes and houses and buildings from graham crackers. Use frosting in a can (or make your own) to stick the pieces together, and lots of candies to decorate. I used to make my own light glazy frosting for ponds, and if I was working on big enough of a scale, I'd make cookie people or animals to further decorate the scenes. They harden over time, but get brittle after about 7 years. Constructing the buildings is similar to building playing card castles, although I'd use small empty boxes on the inside if I was having especial problems with structure.
posted by julen at 7:22 AM on November 20, 2007

Teach Soap has some simple and fun sugar scrub recipes. I'm using them to make gifts for all the girly-girls in my family.
posted by infinityjinx at 7:52 AM on November 20, 2007

Thanks, all! While many of the above suggestions would be great for the 10 year old, my toddler isn't quite ready for some of them. We did do the gumdrop ornaments linked to above in the non-sucky kids crafts link (my older daughter and I, that is) and they were fabulous.

The toddler was able to do some stringing of beads on pipe cleaners (I refuse to call them chenille sticks!!!!), so she did that randomly while her sister alternated red and white beads and made tiny little candy cane ornaments for all the thanksgiving guests.
posted by purenitrous at 5:25 PM on November 23, 2007