Kids Summer Craft Kit

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. For more details, please see our disclosure policy.

A little girl sitting at a table in front of a stack of craft books.

Want to save this post?

Enter your email below and get it sent straight to your inbox. Plus, I’ll send you time- and money-saving tips every week!

Save Recipe

True confessions time. Remember that fancy schedule that I made up with all kinds of outings? Well, it hasn’t really seen the light of day. We’ve been happy to be at home most of our days and have ventured out in the afternoons or weekends with FishPapa.

We’ve still done quite a few of the things we planned, but not the way I had planned on them.

For the most part, the kids, the FishBoys in particular, have been really pleased to occupy themselves. They have a list of chores that needs to get done first and then they have free time. They’ve  read books, played outside, shot dart guns, played video games, and done the Lego/Playmobil thing. I think that the break from our school routine coupled with freedom to go where the whim moved them has been good for everybody.

Things were going along quite swimmingly. Until last week when I heard someone say, “I’m bored.”

Interesting. I wasn’t too worried about it, though. Since we haven’t even scratched the surface of all the things we could do in the last few weeks of vacation.

Last night I broke out a Kids Summer Craft Kit that I had waiting in the wings.

Boys looking into a box of craft books and supplies.

Over the last few months I’ve collected activity books that we already had on our shelves as well a magazines to cut up as well as craft supplies. I corralled them in one big box, waiting for the dreaded sigh, “I’m bored.”

Last night the four younger ones had a great time making collages — well, three of them did, anyway. I handed them scissors, magazines, paper, and glue, as well as old file folders to decorate. One of the easiest crafts we could have done. I stood by to help cut and just talk. They were so absorbed in their projects. It was great fun to watch.

Here’s FishBoy6 to tell you about it. Talk about real life at the FishHouse, complete with whining toddler. But, this little man — oh my! Be still, my heart. He is a hoot!


(To see the video embedded in this post, click here.)

What to Include:

  • scissors (and adult supervision as needed)
  • glue sticks
  • crayons or colored pencils
  • old magazines you don’t care about
  • construction or craft paper
  • envelopes and stationery for letter writing – I also included in our kit a folder containing the letters from the child we sponsor through Compassion International. In this way, we can create cards and letters for Joseph while we’re crafting other things.
  • art and craft books – I love almost everything that Williamson Publishing makes, such as Art Starts for Little Hands and Making Amazing Art
  • activity books – These may or may not include crafts, but they are full of activities for kids to explore. Some good ones include: The Little Hands Nature Book, Gizmos and Gadgets, Science Play, and Great Games
  • logic, mystery and thinking books – These are better suited for older kids who may not be into “little crafts.” Some to

Note to self: do this more often with the kids.

Similar Posts

132 Comments

  1. This stuff looks so cool! My kids’ favorite is making cards and/or drawing pictures for friends and family. They use my cardstock and designer papers or construction paper.

  2. My kids love to make collages using magazine pictures, torn scraps and anything else they can find. I’m sure Post-It paper would be used in a variety of ways.

  3. We usually use construction paper. It is heavy duty and easy to use! This sounds like lots of fun though, we would love to try it!

  4. My son loves stickers and he would love to make his own.

  5. My 4 (almost 5) year old loves to make books about his favorite topics- dinosaurs, elephants, spiders. He also loves to make pictures with “found” objects- stick people literally made out of small sticks, or buttons, stones, cotton balls, leaves, etc. And he likes to write lists, just like his mama. 🙂

  6. I like to make paper chains when we have a big event coming up (takes away from, “Is it time yet…??”) 😉

    thanks!

    terraljones at gmail dot com

  7. Our typical paper craft is making homemade cards for friends and family and the occasional paper chef’s hat to make things fun while cooking!

  8. With a just turned five year old, we don’t get much more complicated than paper chains! He loves making ‘books’ though! He illustrates, and I write what he dictates, and do the binding, uh, stapling.

  9. We’re paper hounds in this house! I LOOOOVE paper. Lately we’ve been going through magazines and making crazy faces with different parts from different photos/people. The girls love painting, which always turns in to finger painting. My oldest plays schools by making mini books too.

  10. I have 2 little girls.

    4 year old – likes to cut & glue. Sometimes we make our own puzzles by gluing a photo (enlarged) onto cardboard, then cutting it into different shapes, then using that as a puzzle.

    1 1/2 year old – likes to stick stickers all over the house. Somehow, I cannot find sticker books to collect stickers in, the way I did when I was a kid.

    Thanks for the giveaway!

  11. We like making cards for different holidays and birthdays….the recipients get a kick out of the ones the kids make, b/c the cards will have all sorts of silly sticker on them (ie. Happy Easter! Mother of the Bride, etc)!

  12. We made and decorated paper airplanes today, and they were a big hit. Collages are definitely a favorite in our house thought too!

  13. One of my favorites is birthday cards. We never buy birthday cards, but each kid makes their own cards for their friends’ birthdays. Not only is it more economical, but it gives the child a chance to be creative and do something for their friend other than show up a the party and give them a gift that I bought and wrapped. They have to invest some time and energy! (It works for my son, too, not just my daughters!)

  14. We are just learning about cutting and pasting. It is still a “special” thing at 2 1/2 but she loves it. We make picttures and put stickers on. She would love this

  15. We no longer buy store bought cards or wrapping paper. I let my boys create the paper (using the art easel, crayons and a long roll of paper) and cards to give everyone. They love to use stickers, glitter, color, etc to make their cards. This paper pack would help us to continue this fun activity!

  16. HAH! Your son is adorable in that video!

    My son is too little to do much with paper, but he currently loves to shred magazines. So when I’m done reading them, I let him shred away.

  17. My children and I like to make cards for various people in our lives. We kind of look at it like our ministry. We try to bring something uplifting into people lives to let them know they are being prayed for and that we would take the time to hand-craft something for them. Blessings.

  18. We actually have never tried one- but we will be trying this! Cute video!

  19. Just one? I don’t know. She likes masks, coloring and curring out things, anything! She is an avid crafter that often makes up her own ideas!

  20. We love to make cards around here! Post It’s new sticker paper would make a great addition to our supplies!

  21. My oldest child loves to scrapbook and this year, my middle child has started being interested in it, also. They love to get some paper out of mom’s stash and love to add the cutouts I make with my Slice machine. They also love coloring, drawing, and painting, and cutting-you name it, they usually enjoy it!

  22. We love to draw and paint. My oldest also likes to draw shapes and then cut it out.

    njfoley at sbcglobal dot net

  23. My girls and I LOVE to make cards for my brother in Texas. And we love to make collages.

  24. My daughter loves to make homemade cards. It can be for a holiday or birthday, she doesn’t care.

  25. We do lots of things with paper! But I think these sheets would be great for lapbooks and bulletin boards that we do in our homeschool. I hope we win! 🙂

  26. We love making collages! Sometimes we go through my box of old magazines & catalogs to cut/tear out pictures but recently I’ve drawn shapes and lines on paper and let them get some good cutting practice. The end result is very “modern art-ish” – my favorite part is seeing how with the same shapes each of my darling littles will create something completely different!

    Thanks to Michelle P. for the menu idea! Why didn’t I think of that? My kids work in their play kitchen every day! I know what today’s project will be!

  27. Scrapbooking is the fav in our house. And with a new baby with lots of “firsts” to document, this paper would come in handy.

  28. this is inspiring…mostly because I really don’t like crafts…my favorite “craft” to do is to let them color with crayons line drawings of subjects we’re learning about in our little preschool subjects

  29. That paper looks so neat! My 4 year old loves stickers. She is very into the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse so I have a feeling many of our stickers would resemble Mickey ears 🙂

  30. We do a lot of papercrafts here…being a scrapbooker, the kids and I will make pictures using my stickers or stamps, then they also like to cut shapes and glue them down to make cute pics or cards; then of course there is painting…lots and lots of painting….or I will draw some pics and the kids will color them…..we love paper crafts! 🙂

  31. Yesterday my 4 yr old son asked if we could make snowflakes! So we did. I think that is one of his favorite paper crafts, as well as paper bag puppets.

  32. My boys just love to draw and use colored pencils. My 4 yr. old like to cut the paper up too.

  33. Just give my kids paper, and some crayons (markers for my older one) and they are set.
    My 4yr loves to make pictures for everyone!
    After his younger sister goes to bed, he likes when we both sit there an draw. He usually tells me what he wants me to make.
    LOL when we go to my parents house, my son always tries to take the post it notes from them.

    I think my son would love this post it not stuff. how cool.
    Please pick us…

  34. I have fond memories of making collages when I was younger – super idea!

  35. My girls love to draw their own shapes, cut them out (with help), and glue them onto something. It would be great to skip the glue!

  36. We love to do paper crafts–the latest we made a little city with people and vehicles from a website called madebyjoel.blogpsot.com
    We also just like to color and use fancy tape and stickers and rubber stamps.

  37. My kids love to make paper snowflakes
    just fold and cut a square from typing paper or some such, fold it into quarters and show them which lines not to cut ALL OF – they’ll experiment and have a wonderful time

    For motivation I show them Hans Christian Anderson’s book of his paper cuttings – he was brilliant!
    See here for example
    http://museum.odense.dk/andersen/klip/billedstart.asp?sprog=engelsk

  38. My daughter and I create hand stamped cards. 🙂 She has her own supply of cardstock, ink and stamps.

  39. Honestly, my girls like plain white paper so they can draw, add stickers, you name it. They looooooove stickers!

  40. My 3yo’s favorite paper craft activity right now is making flowers out of tissue paper and pipe cleaners. We currently have her room totally decorated in them!

  41. We like to make sticker collages too. My kids are ages 5, 3, 1.

    We also like to write letters to our adopted college students (adopted through our church) who are away as camp counselors this summer. I’ll write the letter as my kids dictate, and they include a one-of-a-kind artwork page to accompany the letter. Our college students tell us they hang these precious pieces of art in their bunks, for other college students to see and be jealous!

  42. We love to make decorations for our door for each season. When my son was little we made reindeers from his handprints and placed then on yarn hanging in a row each with a number on them. That was my favorite because that is how he learned his numbers.

  43. We are just starting out with crafting my daughter is 21 months. She loves stickers! Right now construction paper to draw on is her favorite.

  44. Anytime I have a get together with my family at my house my oldest and I make the “invitations.” I choose a theme and he cuts, glues, colors and decorates with stickers. It is always so much fun and he loves it! Any new idea to add to our collection is welcome. I love the idea of cutting the paper and making your own stickers!

  45. My almost-5-yr-old twins and I love sending “mail” to each other. I save return envelopes I don’t need as well as random freebie stickers and the like. Then we pull them out and go to town creating little “notes” to go inside our envelopes, putting on “return address labels” and “stamps”, addressing them, and putting them into kleenex box mailboxes.

  46. We like to make puppets. It’s great because after we’re done we can pull out all the puppets we’ve made and put on shows for each other. My 4-year-old loves it.

  47. My kids’ favorite paper craft is cutting up my scrapbook scraps with fancy-edged scissors and then gluing them together in creative ways.

  48. We repurpose a lot of paper. He’ll either read random stuff, use it for scissor practice, or we’ll create something new. Our newest creation was a truck tunnel out of a diaper box. 🙂

  49. Oooh, I’m such an office supply junkie that I can’t believe I’ve missed these. Even though my boys are a bit older, my 8 year old loves to create things. This would let him create his own sports stickers that he always wants.

  50. We have all kinds of fun with paper. One of my favorites is to draw with crayon really hard, fish and seaweed for example. Then use watercolor paint, in this case blue for water, and paint it all over the paper. It won’t stick to anywhere you have crayoned, and it makes for a neat effect. 🙂

  51. What is more fun than blank colored paper, colors, marker, scissors, punches, etc. The possibilites are endless and their creativeness is allowed to shine through. Simple things such as these allow your child to problem solve on their own, make mistakes, and find great joy in what they produce. Its a great time to chat with your kids, find out what they are thinking. We love this family time and since I have all boys anything goes…no princess stuff here.

  52. My year old LOVES to cut especially on Sunday morning coupon clipping days, so he loves to clip things out of the adds and make collages!

  53. We love scissors and glue at our house so we are all about collages. We also love stickers on everything.

  54. My daughter’s only two so we haven’t ventured much past just coloring with crayons and painting but she loves stickers. She loves just randomly sticking them to paper.

  55. My kids love anything related to arts and crafts. They can spend hours coloring and cutting.

    Thanks for the giveaway opportunity!

  56. Lately my boys have liked paper airplanes and my daughter is making her own scrapbooks. This post-it paper looks so fun!

  57. I have my son make all of our greeting cards. I print out a coloring page on the internet, cut it out for him, have him color it and paste it to folded construction paper, then write something inside for the recipient. He’s 3 so it’s perfect for him, and he’s always proud of the cards he makes.

  58. This stuff looks cool!

    We use colored paper for all kinds of things–scrapbooking, card making. embellishing, etc! I would love to try these out!

    ~Debbie

  59. I have 3 kids and they LOVE to decorate cupcakes! I like decorating cakes and to keep them busy (while I’m working) and to get them to use their creative little minds, I bake cupcakes and they make mini masterpieces! It’s fun and they love to share and eat!!!

  60. My baby is just now getting to be able to use scissors… and he loves it! This would be fun to try!

  61. My 4 yr old is so used to seeing me scrapbook that if she is coloring and you ask her what she is doing she will tell you she is scrapbooking! For her birthday my mom got her a fishing tackle box that she has all of her crayons in, and she insists she has to have scissors and stickers in it as well. I save her works of art and we use them as cards for her to give to grandparents and friends.

  62. My kids to make cards for others with construction paper. These stickers would be a cute addition.

  63. We like making cards for our family members! There is nothing as cute as a toddler’s card!

  64. I save all of my junk mail enveloppes, and free address labels, since my 5 yo is all about making “mail” for others, including sealing up his Legos in the letters and sealing with stickers 🙂

  65. my boys, 4 and 2, love to make collages. although the craft of the moment around here is painting with watercolors on the newspaper 🙂

  66. That looks so fun! We make “cards” to send to the grandparents. The girls cut, use the glue sticks, and color (they are 3).

  67. One of our favorite projects is choosing a particular topic and cutting pictures from old magazines to match. We recently did two posterboards comparing healthy and unhealthy foods.

  68. We use a discarded shoe box to become a house–using old magazines to cut out people, furniture, “rugs”, art for the walls, etc. and glue stick the cutouts down. Sometimes, my kids glue paper or cardboard vertically to create walls for separate rooms. Even the outside of the house can be decorated, with cars, outside toys, flowers and trees, etc. Even my daughter with the short attention span can a lot of time designing and creating her “house.”

  69. My children and I enjoy making cards to send to family and friends.

  70. My girls love to cut out pictures of flowers especially & make their very own books. Collages are awesome! We’ve been talking about trying to make our own paper, too. We’ll see how that goes!

  71. Well first of all, thanks for posting the video with your cuties on it, as well as the whinny toddler noise! Sometimes I feel like that I am going to crazy listening to my own whine makers and I’m the “only one” for some crazy reason. (I’m not being logical, just unreasonable!)

    Anyway, we like to color and cut and staple. Especially making birthday cards for grandparents. They use my paper left over from printable coupons usually!

    1. @Maya Andrews, By the way, we will be camping until Wed July 28, so if I win, someone else will prob need to be chosen 🙁 I won’t be checking email from the tent 🙂

  72. Would love to make home made photo albums for the grandparents!

  73. My kids love to scrapbook with me and they also make a lot of cards.

  74. Well, the daughter loves any paper craft you throw at her. She will cut paper apart and glue it back together to make her own paper! The son – he just loves making paper airplanes!

  75. My daughter LOVES to use watercolors to paint on big pieces of paper and then turn those painting into cards for other people. She also loves to take paper lunch sacks and make puppets!

  76. My little man likes to paint and draw pictures around stickers on his paper. He is sooo into stickers right now! I know that he would love the sticker paper–I may just have to buy me some of that!

  77. We make lots of collages–as well as cards these days.

  78. That paper looks awesome — my kids would love it! Our favorite paper craft is drawing/coloring on big pieces of paper.

  79. My boys like to use lunch sacks and contruction paper to make “books” and glue magazine pictures to them. Our last theme was animals. So fun!

  80. My three boys are still pretty young, so we haven’t gotten into a lot yet. One thing my oldest loved to do when he was too young for glue was a “glue-less collage”. I got the idea on-line somewhere. You tape down a piece of clear, peeled contact paper onto the table with the sticky side up. Then the kid can stick whatever collage thing they would like onto the paper. We have used paper scraps, tissue paper, sequins, feathers, yarn, etc. When they are done creating you take the tape off the edges and carefully lay another piece of contact paper over it to seal in the contents. You can then trim it with scissors if you need to. We have made these as grandma gifts and they look kind-of neat hung on a window.

  81. My girls like to make paper dolls and outfits for many occasions.

  82. My boys like to paint. They also make paper airplanes out of any scrap of paper they can find.

  83. Our favorite is probably finger painting…but my kids are young. 3 and 2 and it’s more like finger paint mud squishing!

  84. My oldest will do anything she can get her hands on with paper. I don’t even have to think it up! Pictures, painting, cutting, colage, stickers, folding, and the list goes on!

    Thanks!

  85. I like to let my kids use my scrapbooking “stash” to make cards for people or do an art project for their homeschool albums. I love paper!

  86. We make a lot of homemade cards in our house. I would love to try this product out. Thanks for the chance!

  87. my kids love making cards for everyone. we do it all the time!

  88. My 5 year old loves to draw cityscapes on large pieces of paper. Right now he is drawing Lego City, complete with a river, streets, buildings etc.

  89. We love to make homemade cards and being able to make stickers would be really great. I would love to try this product with my kids. Thank you.

  90. I love Post-Its’ and so do my kids. My daughter like to make labels for her bedroom door and color them or add stickers. My son, who is only 2, mainly likes to tear Post-It’s off the pad for fun!

  91. My two year old is totally into stickers right now. Otherwise, our most fun project recently was making tissue paper mache bowls. And I love the idea of using scrapbooking punches with the Post-it paper!

  92. My son is decidedly not crafty, but we do it sometimes for the fine motor skills. Anything with stickers or the “real markers” is the best.

  93. My 3 yr old loves to do crafts with those foam stickers. You can get a ton of them for cheap and they keep her entertained for quite a while.

  94. I would love to do so many paper crafts BUT… our kids are still pretty little so, gluing/sticking anything to paper is considered great crafting fun!

  95. My daughter is almost 15 months, and my son is 12 weeks old. So, our crafts are limited to about 20 seconds of coloring in a coloring book. That’s about all our attention spans can handle right now. Then it’s time to read a book. Or make a tower with blocks. Or drool. I’ve been spending this summer collecting ideas of fun things to do once they’re a little older!!

  96. My sons and I love making paper airplanes. We have a calendar that has a new plan a day, and we make our own variations to them. 🙂

  97. We draw, paint, stamp, cut, glue with all kinds of paper. Collages are a fun way to create with whatever you have laying around!

  98. My daughter is less than one so her most interest is putting the paper in her mouth. I do use the envelope that has the clear window and squeesh and tap with her to make noise, which she loves. I really like making cards and scrapbook myself, and I’m hoping to start her young for birthday and holidays.

  99. We take empty paper towel or toilet paper rolls and create spyglasses, wands or whatever they can think of with markers, tape, etc.

  100. My son is one and a half, so thus far we really only do coloring. But, I’m looking forward to doing all sorts of crafts when he gets just a little older!

  101. My kids are still quite young (1 and 3) so mostly we just draw together. I want to start doing drawing dinners with my daughter (3) and my husband where we put a butcher paper table cloth on the table and do drawings of the same “thing” together as we eat. We also draw cards for our loved ones on their birthdays. 🙂

  102. We’ve been enjoying some tissue paper crafts (tear different colors into small pieces, then glue them onto other paper to make — something. Like a rainbow!), as well as painting and rubber stamping (she uses the rubber stamps to “decorate” thank you cards).

  103. We like to make cards with pictures made out of the kids’ thumb and fingerprints.

  104. My four year old is obsessed with making greeting cards for people. She works so hard at her little desk for a whole hour on one card!

  105. We also do a lot of collages. I have a huge craft box with old magazines, googly eyes, construction paper, popsicle sticks, stickers etc…. The kids make monsters, signs, and all sorts of stuff by gluing any or all of these items to a piece of construction paper. This is their favorite craft because they can just be creative.

  106. I’ve always wished for paper like that. Our favorite craft of the moment is cutting the ABCs out of paper. Educational for my four-year-old!

  107. I’m not married and don’t have kids, but I love paper crafts! My favorite craft is to make special birthday cards for friends and loved ones.

  108. My daughter is 8 months old so our “paper crafts” pretty much consist of her snatching any paper I accidentally leave out and crumpling it and eating it!

  109. Right now, it’s a three way tie!

    Painting – large sheets of paper off a roll (from IKEA) and tempra paints. I then stick them in inexpensive frames and hang them on the walls of our family room for artwork in there!

    Making Cards – my daughter LOVEs to do this! And everyone we know gets cards all.the.time! I like that too!

    Coloring and drawing – the creativity of my kids just amazes me most days! Made up scenes, things we have done, places they’ve seen in books or on a DVD all appear in crayon, marker and colored pencil! Gotta Love that!

    They’re also into stickers so this paper would be WAY cool!
    Thanks for hosting,
    Lea

  110. Sounds like your kiddos had a lot of fun. My almost-4 year old loves coloring and I know he would be thrilled to bits to be able to make his own stickers. Hope we win!

  111. My daughter is 18 months old so our only paper crafts so far have been coloring. After we move in 3 weeks I’ll break out some more crafts!

  112. Right now paper snowflakes are our paper craft. We’re making lots for our VBS in a couple of weeks.

  113. Well, my daughter is still under one so we don’t really do crafty projects yet but I have a coloring book and crayons waiting in the wings for when she is ready. Her big thing right now is to put things (and herself) into baskets. So we do lots of that and lots of walking practice.

  114. My girls love to use the grocery paper ads to make their own collages. Then we use them to play restuarant and the collage is the menu. 🙂

  115. My two oldest kiddos are in bunk beds right now and they LOVE any paper craft they can use to decorate their own space around their bunk beds. I simply draw dinosaurs, shapes or other animals – and they are very forgiving of my limited drawing skills – they cut them out and color them with various markers, crayons, colored pencils, etc. and then are thrilled to get a roll of scotch tape and the freedom to make their little space their own!

  116. My son and I do tons of paper projects. We recently moved to CA from Ohio and he is constantly busy making cards for friends and family. He would love this paper!

Comments are closed.