Craft Ideas for Older Children

Many people think that once a child gets older, it loses its interest in crafts. That isn’t necessarily the case. These craft ideas for older children can help bring the artist back out in your child.

Girls seem to love scrapbooks, and who can blame them? It gives her a chance to create a personalized book for all her memories. You purchase a small scrapbook and allow her to fill it up. She may surprise you by adding some journaling in it, too. Stickers and other embellishments make them more individual. The sky is the limit on what she can do with a scrapbook.

Polar fleece blankets have been all the rage. Your older child, girl or boy, may like to create one of these.

• Decide how big they’d like the finished blanket to be, and then add 12 inches to the length of the fabric if they would like to create a fringe for it. They may choose all one color, or use two contrasting colors for variety.
• Make sure each piece of fabric is the same size and shape. Trim any excess fabric off where needed.
• Lay the fabric out in front of you, wrong side up, so that it is horizontal.
• Draw a vertical line on the fabric, going up 6 inches from the cut edge. Do this with both ends.
• Now create horizontal lines going from the vertical line, ½ inch apart, on each end of the fabric.
• Cut along the horizontal lines to make the fringe.
• If you’re using two pieces of fabric, tie the corresponding fringes together to join the fabric and create one blanket.

Let your older child create their own “treasure” box by decorating an old cigar box.

• Find a wooden or heavy cardboard cigar box, with the hinge intact.
• Using craft glue called “Modge Podge”, paint a thin layer of the glue onto the surface they are working on.
• They can decorate the box with photos from magazines, handwritten notes, or whatever they like. Then paint at least three coats of the glue over the paper, allowing it to dry thoroughly before adding the next coat.
• When it’s dry, they can add other embellishments to make it entirely theirs.

Painted flower pots have been popular for years. This could lead your child into a new business, or just allow them to release their artistic nature.

• Purchase small terracotta flower pots and the dishes that go with them.
• With an acrylic paint, decorate the outside of the pot however they like.
• Decorate the dish in a similar fashion so they obviously go together.
• Your older child can plant something in the pot after it has dried, or fill it with something else. The choice is theirs.

Just because your child is growing older, doesn’t mean that they cease enjoying crafts. These are just a few of the many crafts an older child may enjoy. There is also cross-stitch, painting, drawing, and a myriad of others. Encourage them to spend some time creating; they’ll probably be glad to have the creative outlet.


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Boys Can Be Crafty, Too

Often when people think of crafts, they think of things like crochet, scrapbooking, or jewelry making. These crafts are usually more associated with girls and women, but boys can be crafty, too. Just ask them, and they’ll let you know that they enjoy creating with their hands as well.

There isn’t anything saying that a boy can’t enjoy any of the crafts mentioned above, but they are thought to be a little more feminine. Boys typically need some crafts that allow them to be creative, in a masculine kind of way. The following crafts might be what they’re looking for.

Woodworking – You can’t deny it, woodworking seems to be more of a manly craft than something a girl would like. That doesn’t mean a girl couldn’t enjoy woodworking, just that it's not a feminine craft. In fact, you would probably see anyone enjoying this craft with dirty hands, sawdust all over them, and possibly a little sweaty. Those just aren’t things most girls enjoy. A boy, on the other hand, would think it was great!

There are a number of different areas of woodworking that a boy can try. The simplest is whittling; the most complicated is to make a designer piece of furniture, a musical instrument, or a boat. All of these are considered woodworking, although they’re also called something else.

Whittling is taking a piece of wood, often a stick, or driftwood that is found, and removing small pieces of wood to create an animal. Balsa wood is a good wood for beginner whittlers because it is easy to manipulate. The denser the wood, the harder it will be to remove what shouldn’t be there. Make sure to keep your whittling knife, or any other item used for carving, sharp. This will make your job much easier.

The more complicated aspects of woodworking include using electric power tools to cut, sand, and shape pieces of wood. Often detailed plans are needed for this type of project and you have to be much more careful with what you’re doing. If you make something simple like a bird feeder, being exact isn’t that critical. It would be extremely important to be precise when you’re making fine furniture out of expensive woods.

Besides woodworking, boys sometimes do enjoy crafts that are considered to be more feminine. Many professional football players enjoy crocheting or knitting as a way to relax. Some even create items that can either be auctioned off or given away to help others. Let’s see anyone call them a sissy for enjoying these crafts!

Blacksmithing is definitely a manly craft. It’s another one of those dirty, stinky crafts that most girls don’t like. It takes a great deal of strength to be a blacksmith. Let’s face it; girls just don’t have the muscles. Blacksmithing and wrought iron work also takes a lot of skill. Manipulating hot metal isn’t a task for the faint of heart, or the weak of muscle.

Crafts that boys would enjoy will most likely be more physically demanding than what a girl would choose. There are also boys and men that enjoy the more feminine crafts, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Whatever they choose, it’s important to remember that boys can be crafty, too.

Three Things Your Family Can Do to Celebrate Earth Day

Earth Day is an annual celebration of the environment and learning to improve our world. Taking some time as a family to celebrate Earth Day is not only educational, but fun as well. There are many cities that host Earth Day activities. Check and see what is offered locally.

Visit your local zoo and see the animals in their environments. The zoo will probably have educational programs planned, as well as fun activities for the entire family. It can be a great way to spend the day. Some zoos even offer free admission, or free admission if you either take public transportation or ride your bike to the zoo.

As you make your way through the zoo, you can talk about how the ecology of one area of the world affects another. Discuss with your family how we benefit from things like the plants from the rain forest and how important it is to preserve them.

Why not spend the day at the local botanical gardens? Not only are the plants beautiful, but your family can learn about how we benefit from the plants. Plants provide food, medicines and oxygen. They also provide ground cover that helps prevent erosion and flooding. After visiting the gardens, it might be fun to plant your own garden at home. Research the plants that will be the best for your climate. It will be a great family activity that will last beyond Earth Day and will be a reminder to help care for the planet as you care for your own garden.

Planning fun activities at home is also a great way to celebrate Earth Day, as you will be saving gas by not traveling. Reuse items from around the house to create clever crafts. Turn off the TV, go outside and enjoy the fresh air, weather permitting, and have a picnic in the yard.

There are many websites that give additional ideas for celebrating Earth Day. You can also find scheduled events for your hometown that can inspire other family fun that also helps the earth.

Five Crafts Perfect for Toddlers

Toddlers love to create things with their hands. It's part of their personality and what makes being a toddler so much fun. These five crafts are perfect for toddlers. Try one or more so they can create artistic masterpieces.

1. Noodle necklaces are so easy a toddler can make them. Of course, Mom may have to color the noodles beforehand, but the results will be worth it.

• Mix together ½ cup vinegar and a few drops of food coloring for each color you would like.
• Soak various kinds of noodles in the various colors. Allow them to dry on pieces of wax paper.
• When dry, your child can string the noodles onto pieces of yarn. Tape one end to make stringing easier.
• Tie the ends together to close the necklace and let your child wear it with pride.

If you don’t feel like coloring the noodles, you could use colored cereal between the noodles to give it some pizzazz, or just make cereal necklaces, instead.


2. Paper plate maracas are easy and fun for toddlers, particularly if they like to make noise, and almost all toddlers are experts at that.

• Have your child decorate the bottom of two paper plates with whatever items you feel like giving them.
• Mom, help with this step: Staple the edges of the two paper plates, insides facing together. Leave a small opening for the beans.
• Place 5-6 dried beans or rice into the opening and then close it up.
• Put tape over the pointy side of the staples to be sure no one gets snagged on them.
• Turn on some music and let the kids join in!

3. Let your budding artist create by making edible finger paints with sweetened condensed milk and food coloring.

• Mix together small amounts of the condensed milk with a couple of drops of food coloring.
• Give the child a sheet of paper on which to create their work of art.
• Don’t worry if they put the paint in their mouth, it’s yummy.
• Wash their hands quickly to keep the food coloring from staining their hands.

4. Pompom caterpillars are furry friends you won’t mind finding in your toddler’s pocket.

• Get three pompoms, the same size, in varying colors.
• Glue the pompoms together in a line.
• Glue on the wiggly eyes.
• Mom, you may want to hot glue the caterpillars onto a clothes pin with a magnet and use them to show off your child’s other artwork.

5. T-shirts with painted handprints are more than just a craft. They are a snapshot to help you remember your child when they were little.

• Get a new t-shirt in your child’s favorite color.
• With fabric paint in a shallow bowl, allow your child to place their hands into the paint. Immediately help them put their hands on the t-shirt.
• As an alternative, they could place their thumbs or fingers in the paint and place several prints together to form a caterpillar.
• Help your child wash their hands thoroughly with soap.
• When the paint has dried, use paint markers to write the date and name on their t-shirt. Finish off the caterpillar by drawing on a face, feet, and antennae.

Making crafts with your toddler can be a highlight of your day. These five crafts, perfect for toddlers, may be enough to spark new creativity in your toddler, and in you.

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Three Crafts Girls Will Love

Girls of all ages seem to have an affinity for pretty things. They want their clothes just right and their makeup perfect. They like to create beautiful things as well. Here are three crafts girls will love – to make and to give.

Jewelry making can be an expensive hobby, but it doesn’t have to be to begin with. There are a few required tools to start with, however. To make beaded earrings, necklaces, and bracelets, you will need to purchase these items:

• Beads in various sizes
• Head pins
• Earring hooks
• Wire cutters
• Round nosed pliers
• Elastic thread
• Jump rings and other findings

Here’s how to make a simple bead earring set:

1. Place the desired bead onto the head pin, either as a single bead, or in a particular design.
2. Leave at least one inch between the last bead and the end of the head pin. If there is more wire than one inch, trim it with the wire cutters so it’s only one inch.
3. Use the round nosed pliers to bend the wire away from you, forming an “L”.
4. Place the pliers in the middle of the bent piece and curl it toward you to create a circle.
Do not close the circle yet.
5. Place the earring hook onto the curl and then close the curl.
6. Make the second earring to look like the first.

There’s no limit to the earrings you can make with a little time and practice. Who knows, this may be the start of a great craft for the older girl to enjoy. For other instructions for making jewelry, go to your favorite search engine and look for “free jewelry instructions”.

Girls and women alike enjoy using their hands to create beautiful art pieces with nothing more than some fabric and colored thread. Cross-stitch is one of the simpler of the needlecrafts. All you need is even weave fabric like Aida, a pattern, a needle, the required floss, and an embroidery hoop.

Find the center by folding the fabric in half and then in half again. Mark this point. The center of the pattern is generally marked with points along the edges. Follow the arrows to find the center. Using two threads of the symbol closest to the center, create a stitch by going up in the upper right corner of the center square and down through the lower left. Continue this half stitch going to the right until you reach another color symbol. Come back through the upper left corner, and go through the lower right corner. The complete stitch looks like a cross, thus the name cross-stitch. Complete the colors, moving from one to the next, until the entire pattern is complete. Choose the best framing for the finished project and display it with pride.

Scrapbooking is another craft that is popular, especially with girls. Not only can a girl use scrapbooking as an artistic outlet, they can also journal in them, store all their photos of their friends, and use them as a photo diary of sorts. The ideas for scrapbooking are limited only by each person’s imagination. Funny or chic, serious or playful, there’s no right or wrong way to create a scrapbook. Each is a one-of-a-kind creation to commemorate a girl’s life.

Girls love to create things that are meaningful to them. These three crafts are something girls will enjoy doing, perhaps for the rest of their lives. Encourage them to try a craft and watch what they can create.

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Teach Your Children about Green Living This Earth Day

Earth Day was established in 1970 to help raise environmental awareness in the United States and around the world. By making a few simple changes, your family can start living green. It not only helps the environment, it can also help your family save money. The phrase "recycle, reduce, reuse" can help in remembering the key points to helping the environment.

Recycling is one of the easiest steps toward green living. By teaching your children what things can be recycled, they can help sort things. If you live near a recycling center, your family might even take a tour and see how it works. When shopping, you can turn it into a game of "I spy" by trying to find the three arrow symbol on a product that shows it's made from recycled materials.

Reducing is another important step in learning to live green. Most families use more water and electricity than they realize. Remembering to turn off electronic items and lights when they aren't in use is one of the easiest things to do. Have the kids go around the house and see who can find the most number of things that are on that don't have to be.

Water is another area most families can reduce usage. Make a usage chart and keep track of how many times a day people use water: drinking, showers, flushing, watching clothes or dishes. Try to see how much each activity uses and find ways to use less water. Shortening showers and adjusting the toilet tank are only a couple ways to save water.

Take a walk or bike ride with your family. See if you can spot ways that people are either saving or wasting resources in your neighborhood. By not driving, it reinforces using alternate means of transportation, which not only saves gasoline, but also reduces air polution.

Reusing is another way to help your family start living green. On Earth Day, why not plant a garden and start a mulch pile? Even if you don't have a large yard, you can clear a small corner and plant a few tomatoes or cucumbers. By starting a mulch pile, you can show how nature can replenish itself by reusing organic materials. You also have the pleasure of raising vegetables, which are a healthy alternative to other snacks that your kids might pick.

Earth Day makes the perfect time to start teaching new earth-friendly habits. By putting the green ideas into practice now when they are young, they will be more likely to continue as they get older.


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Tips to Stop Bedwetting

Bedwetting is a fairly common problem in children under 7 years old. It can be very frustrating for the parents, and embarrassing for the child. It is important to remember that bedwetting is not normally a medical problem, and it is usually not associated with psychological or physical problems. In the majority of cases, children simply sleep too deeply and do not feel the urge to go to the bathroom when they need to, and as a result they wet the bed.

Bedwetting will almost always go away on its own eventually. But there are some things you can do to help your child stop sooner. Here are some treatment ideas and general tips:

* Don't give your child fluids for two hours before bedtime. Let him have plenty of fluids up until that point, however, to prevent dehydration and constipation. While this may not completely stop bedwetting, it may reduce its frequency.

* Make sure your child goes to the bathroom right before bed, and that he completely empties his bladder. Tell him to try again once his bladder feels empty, just to be sure. This is called double voiding. If more urine comes out, have him try one more time.

* Some children's bladders are simply too small to hold their urine through the night. Bladder stretching exercises may help in these cases. These simply require your child to hold his urine a bit longer than usual. If he generally goes to the bathroom at certain times during the day, have him wait 15 minutes or so before going, then increase the time slightly each week or so. This will take several weeks, and possibly months, so be patient.

* Take your child to the doctor. There are some underlying problems that can cause or contribute to bedwetting. The doctor can check for these and treat the problems he finds. As a result, the bedwetting may go away on its own.

* Use a bedwetting alarm. These have moisture sensing pads that go in the child's underwear at night, sensing moisture when it first starts to dribble out. The alarm then wakes the child with sound or vibration so that he can go to the bathroom. After using an alarm for a while, children often become conditioned to wake up when their bladders are full, eliminating the problem.

* Consider medication as a last resort. There are medicines that can help prevent bedwetting by slowing urine production or relaxing the bladder. They do, however, have potential side effects. Consider using them if the other methods fail, or perhaps keep some on hand to give your child for sleepovers or trips.

* Avoid scolding your child for bedwetting. It's not his fault, and scolding will only make him feel hurt and ashamed.

Grab this informative guide from MomsTalk Network: Stop Bedwetting Guide Ebook

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