Craft Ideas

Willsmom

Help! My boys and I are volunteering at the Ronald McDonald house next Sunday. We have Arts and Entertainment for the house for 2 hours. No idea how many children will be there or their ages. We need ideas for craft projects.

Thoughts, suggestions, ideas???? I don't want anything too hard in case there are younger kids, but at the same time, something to entertain any older kids as well.

They said we can bring music, I have the sound track from The Lorax and snacks. I thought I would make cupcakes.

If anyone can help I know it's you guys!!!

Thanks-

christeacher

Maybe bring the cupcakes undecorated and bring stuff for them to decorate. We also use whip cream and add food coloring, then just let them get messy. That is a very popular one even with junior high kids!

lippysaunt

This months family fun mag had a cool idea i plan to try. You roll out clay then make an indentation of a plastic toy, hammer, wahtever and then put it in a foil "bowl" in the shape of your clay. Then pour plaster of pair in it and when it dries you take the foil and clay off and thr plaster has a ba relief of the shape you dented in your clay. Looks reasonably easy and really cool.

Zen

Fleece blankets are fun to make with kids. You just get fleece cut into blanket sized lengths at any fabric store, then make a fringe at either end by making 2-3 inch cuts in the fabric at 1-inch intervals. Then tie knots. The kids end up with a hand-made security blanket to keep them safe and warm

Complicated blankets use 2 pieces of fleece and are fringed on all four sides. But the easiest ones are single layer with just two sides fringed. If you're doing this craft with kids too young to use sharp scissors, you can make the cuts for them and then just let the kids tie the knots.

As for a count, call RMH and ask how many kids they have. My Kiwanis club does a monthly dinner for our local RMH and found the staff (mostly volunteers) are very knowledgeable about the guests staying there. They can give you an idea of total number, ages, and boys/girls.

Kari

I am the most un-crafty person I know, but I get Disney's Family Fun magazine, and they've had some great ideas that even I could do. Here's a link to their craft page: http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/

You can choose crafts by age category, materials you have on hand, type, seasonal themes, etc. I bet there's some cool summer projects on there.

I also like food-related crafts. For Justin's daycare class, I made "worm cupcakes" based on an idea they had for flower cupcakes for spring. I didn't want to put in the effort for flowers, so we baked chocolate cupcakes, frosted them with chocolate frosting, rolled them in crunched-up chocolate cookie crumbs to resemble dirt, and then put a couple gummy worms on them. I was told they were a big hit. I also made Mickey Mouse cookies like these ones, only I used large chocolate disks for the ears and melted the edge of them a bit by placing them on a warm tea kettle. I also used white chocolate chips for the buttons instead of piping white dogs on them.

Kari

If they have an outdoor area and it's okay with the manager, you could make an outdoor kid "car wash" which is a sprinkler system using PVC pipes and hooking them up to a water hose. http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/the-deluxe-kid-wash-709166/

ETA: There are other variations online as well that look pretty cool if you google images of kid car wash.

Shaeley Mae

Lilianna and I just made bead bracelets and necklaces yesterday (she's 2 1/2).
I bought a bag of plastic beads (with large holes), and elastic cords at Walmart, for like $3.00. Both were sold in the craft section. There were 500 beads in the bag, and 20 yards of cord ..... so obviously, my $3.00 is going to go a long way.