Easy Crafts for Kids

Origami

The ancient art of paper folding can be difficult, intricate and demanding. But if you choose patterns designed especially for kids, it can be a fun, easy project. Besides, who doesn't love a craft that only requires a few sheets of paper?

• The Origami Swan for Beginners site includes step-by-step directions for making the most common origami pattern for beginners. It's written with helpful hints for the parents or teachers who will be coaching young origami artists.
• Tammy Yee's Origami Page has many fun patterns that can be printed out and then folded according to detailed instructions on the site. The full-color print-outs of animals like mice and dolphins are definitely the cutest origami around.
• Check your bookstore or library for beginning origami books. If you're willing to buy a book, some even come as kits with sheets of official origami paper - it's thinner and folds and creases better than standard office paper.

Fingerprint Art

I fondly remember attending a young writers' conference when I was in elementary school. One of the things we did that day was learn a simple way to add illustrations to stories--fingerprint art.

Fingerprint art is quite easy. You make a single fingerprint on a piece of paper and then you add details to transform it into something completely different. You could have a fingerprint flower garden or a fingerprint bird. A sideways fingerprint can become a fish with the addition of fins and gills. Try out each finger. What can you make out of a pinky print that you can't make out of a thumbprint? Just have fun experimenting with the possibilities.

The good old-fashioned plain black ink pad (think of the kind that librarians use to stamp the due date in books) works best for this craft. It creates a clean print that dries quickly. However, you can use ink pads made for rubber stamp crafting or even tempera or finger paint, according to your supplies on-hand and preferences.

Not crafty enough? Kids can add fun embellishments to their fingerprint creatures with glitter, sequins or googly eyes. Or they can use a more durable paint to create fingerprint art on a picture frame or other gift.

Animal Cracker Jewelry

This is a craft that I did in Girl Scouts once. The leader spread a bag of animal crackers out in front of us, and we each picked our favorite animal. We painted the crackers and then glued pin backs to them. It was a fun and easy craft that took very little time to complete. And once you've picked out the animal crackers you're going to use, you've got a ready-made snack.

My memory of the details beyond that is slightly fuzzy, but I could have sworn that we used nail polish to paint the crackers. Maybe that gave them a stronger shell of paint than poster paint would have provided? Something just seems wrong about using nail polish, though, so if you'd like to try this craft, I'd recommended experimenting with paints.

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