it’s raining, it’s gloomy, it’s cold. Ellee and Careese are sick and cranky. Evan is bored and trying to get my attention every 5 mins. When it’s gloomy and cold, I have to make an extra effort to get myself motivated to get stuff done.
What’s my motivator? A dose of craftiness with my kids.
Here’s the problem: I can’t leave the house to go get art supplies, because dragging three little kids in the cold rain is no fun. And how to spend extra pent up energy so they will go to bed on time?
The solution: Get busy with what we’ve got around the house, especially with what’s in the recycle bin!
On a side note: The Japanese are SO good at recycling, it’s amazing. They will pick through and separate their garbage with a fine tooth comb. And they make all kinds of kids toys and crafts with plastic food trays, bottles, papers, scraps of fabric, newspaper, bottle tops, milk cartons, you name it. I got to see this first hand when I went to the Tokyo Metropolitan Children’s Hall. It’s a 5 story government run institution dedicated to enriching children’s lives for free. Well, near free. They do charge for some art supplies. There’s a entire floor just for making crafts with recycling. There were stations to making little toy sushi bento boxes out of cardboard, bubble wrap, and scraps of paper. Another station to make paper mache creatures with newspaper and scraps of fabric. Great stuff!
Different stations set up with step by step examples.
Look at Careese coloring! She actually colored the whole picture in with tons of color. I’m amazed cause Evan has only started to do this recently.
Food stand, aquarium, and tray of sushi made of recycled stuff.
Not only creative, but SO organized. For how many kids were running around making stuff, I was amazed at how organized the place stayed.
cute kids crafts
Here’s what we attempted to do at home to keep busy indoors:
hopscotch with Japanese painter’s tape. I didn’t measure right and we ran out of room. Oops. But it was good to keep Evan busy while burning off energy. Oh and the bean bags are made from Mark’s old button up shirt and filled with rice by the kids.
I don’t know what to call this… there’s probably a name for it. I just can’t think of it right now. Too tired. But it’s cardboard tubes cut and decorated and attached with magnets and stuck to a white board. Then the goal is to get a marble from the start tube to the end tube. The fun is trying out new patterns and adjusting it just right. Evan loves it. It kept him busy for hours.
I think this was plastic packaging from a set of kids underpants. hahaha. I saw it and thought it would look good as a fish tank. So Evan and Careese helped pick out what fish and to put in it, I’d cut it out and then they’d tape it in. So cute and easy to care for fish. :)
I found a book at a used book store that is full of kids crafts made from recycled material. Evan and I have been collecting “junk” to make some of the projects in the book. Evan’s gone as far as pulling garbage out of public trashcans to get “junk” for our projects. I need to teach him there are limits for where we get our art supplies.
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4 Comments
Oh, my goodness, Bev! You are so stinkin’ creative and resourceful! Teach me, teach me! Actually, do it for me! Do it for me! My kids would think I was the best mom ever if I did this stuff with them. Hmmmm. . . Thanks for the ideas!
I love the TP tube thing. We’ll definitely have to try that. Those are some very good ideas. We’ll have to try hopscotch once the rainy season hits. Thank you!
I’m totally going to make those modular marble tubes. I saw it on a Curious George video and got the bug. But I’ve been dragging my feet a little bit because of who knows what…
genius! i’m totally saving all my tp tubes for this! and we have tile which will make our hopscotch super easy to tape off! perfect for this horrifically long hot summer we’ve got coming up.