10 Creative Projects for Crafty Kids

Arts and craft projects are perfect for days stuck indoors or anytime the kids are in search of something constructive to do. Keeping a collection of art supplies and found objects on hand will ensure you have everything you need whenever creative inspiration strikes. Below are our recommendations for a ready-set of crafty materials and some of our favorite projects.

1. Print & Build It - Ready Mechs
Ready-Mechs are free, flatpack toys for you to print and build. They are designed to fit on an 8.5"x11" page and printed with any printer. You'll need double-sided tape, thick matte paper, and 10-15 minutes for build time.

2. Stamp with Found Objects
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art offers this easy activity perfect for rainy days. When found objects are dipped into paint and stamped onto cloth or paper, they can be used to create amazing works of art full of repetition and pattern.

3. Use Your Hands - Literally
Updating the old turkey from kindergarten (tracing one's hands and coloring the fingers to look like turkey feathers), this trace-and-color book shows how to create an octopus, snail, horse, giraffe, dragon and a dozen more creatures by holding one's hands in different positions. Crayons, googly eyes, and pom-poms are included.

4. Supersize It!
Learn how to use papier-mache to create an enlarged version of a common object in Making Amazing Art, a terrific book for serious artists — ages 7 and up. It takes kids through 7 elements of design: line; shape; texture; color; value; form; and space. Projects range from simple for beginners, to more sophisticated, incorporating advanced terms as well as techniques.

5. Take Your Play-Doh Skills to Extremes
The ARTLAB Clay Studio includes not only clay, but also a very detailed instruction book, complete with a broad view of artistic and practical sculpture, directions and patterns for shaping realistic (and sometimes exotic) animals, information on mixing colors to create various effects, and processes for using tools and layering clay to make textures.

6. Make Your Own Monster
Personalize a monster doll with this kit that requires no pins or needles. Assorted colored felt and templates let you create iron-on features. Instructions and birth certificates included.

7. Bring Your Drawings to Life
Crayon Town is a coloring activity that includes 8 crayons, two coloring mats with a zoo scene on each side, a paper lion's cave, tree, and polar bear cave, a plastic jeep with attachable wagon, a plastic zookeeper, five plastic toys (a giraffe, lion, alligator, polar bear, and monkey) and a plastic tree and gateway. This project also becomes a game set. It comes with two double-sided mats making it easy for more than one child to participate.

8. Experiment with Texture
Perfectly sized for small hands, the Ready2Learn Creative Texture Tools set includes four paintbrush "texture tools" and gives young artists plenty of creative license. This set includes handles that hold a crinkly sponge, soft foam, foam strips, and a chamois.

9. Cartoon Storytelling
The next time your kindergartner decides to makes up a new story, challenge him to a whole new method of storytelling—asa cartoon! Teach your child how to work in all the essential parts of a story (beginning, middle and end) as he engages his creative mind.

10. My Giant Busy Box
Can't decide on just one thing to do? This craft kit includes 6 projects in one: make dough animals, collage a farm, sticker art, paper bag puppets and tissue art pictures. Also included are two plastic frames, four animal punch outs, ten colors of dough, two peel-and-stick tissue art pictures, tons of tissue paper, glue, and easy instructions.