Most kids love to make crafts, and having a few easy crafts up your sleeve to make at a moment’s notice is helpful. The best crafts use household materials, or those inexpensively purchased from the grocery store or local craft store.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Sock Snowmen

This is an easy and fun craft to do at the beginning of the holidays. All you need are socks, rice, rubber bands, and optional decorations like buttons, ribbon, and colorful pipe cleaners. A glue gun makes attaching the decorations easier, but regular white glue will work too. Here are the steps:

1. fill a white sock with rice (we used 2 cups)
2. put one rubber band at the top of the rice, which will be the top of the head
3. put another rubber band part way down the sock, resulting in a head smaller than the body
4. fold over the top of the sock to make a hat
5. the face can be drawn on with permanent markers, or glue on dots or buttons for eyes and mouth
6. tie a ribbon on under the head for a scarf
7. glue 3 buttons in a vertical line on the body of the snowman
8. Optional: make a nose from an orange fuzzy pipe cleaner, and make arms from brown pipe cleaners (or any color really)

Illustrated Storybook

Children naturally are drawn to stories. What better way to remember them than by helping them create their own book?

1. Take 5 pieces of paper (regular white computer paper is fine, or plain colored paper can work too), stack them together and hold together horizontally (landscape)
2. Fold all of the pieces “hamburger”, or from left to right, making a book-like format.
3. Optional: get a piece of heavier paper like construction paper or cardstock to fold and use for a cover. Otherwise, use the first page as the cover.
4. Staple the booklet together along the spine, or sew along the spine, to keep the booklet together.
5. Use crayons or markers to write and illustrate a story

Popsicle House

Save up those popsicle sticks this summer, or grab a bag at your local craft store, and prepare for creativity to be unleashed!

Watch this video for inspiration and instructions.

Enjoy time with the children in your life by spending time crafting together!