Moon and Star Dried Flower Suncatcher

Spring is finally here! Anyone else love this season? The longer days and warmer weather definitely help to brighten my spirits. We've shared a ton of spring crafts over the years and today's is an oldie, but a goodie. We're making celestial suncatchers using contact paper! 

Moon and Star Dried Flower Suncatchers

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Easy Recycled Gnome Sun catcher Craft

We love making easy kid-friendly suncatcher and stained glass crafts! They're especially fun in the winter when everything outside seems cold and grey. When I saw this adorable gnome sun catcher on Etsy, I knew we had the perfect inspiration to make our very own kid-friendly holiday version. Tada!

How to Make an Easy Recycled Gnome Sun Catcher

They're so cute!!!

(I love hanging out with my gnomies. It's the only hanging out that we're allowed to do. Oy. Quarantine humor..)

Super Easy Recycled, Homemade Sun catchers

If you're looking for a super easy kids craft that you can make from recycled materials... this is it! We've tried making several fun suncatcher crafts with the kids.  But today's suncatcher craft is by far the easiest one ever.  You can literally make dozens in minutes.  Intrigued?  Read on!

How to Make Super Easy, Homemade Recycled Suncatchers

Note:  This post contains affiliate links.  This means I make a small bit of change when you purchase items through the links.  Thank you for your support and the grocery money! For my full disclosure policy, click here.

Two ways to Make Confetti (And Celebrate Fiesta!)

Have you ever made confetti before?  I've seen bags of it in the stores, but never made my own.  Recently my son and I walked with our church in our town's parade.  It was a really fun Children's parade celebrating our town's Mexican, Spanish, American Indian, and early history.

I really wanted Chuck to have something to throw in the parade.  (Because let's face it, allowing a preschooler to throw colorful things at people = SUPER kid fun.)  So the night before the parade, my husband and I made two HUMONGOUS BAGS of confetti for kids to throw.  And guess what?  We made it in less than half an hour.  That's right.  We became confetti-making machines!  Here's how we did it!

Let's Make Confetti!

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Easy Kirigami Fish Craft

Howdy! For those of you living above the equator-- how's summer so far?  I'm slowly recovering from illness (hooray!)  Our days are packed with swim classes, trips to the library, play dates, and night time walks.  Is it just me, or is summer just as busy as the rest of the school year?

Lately, I honestly haven't had the time (or energy) to craft.  (Do you ever feel that way too?)  Well, in case you wanted a quick, summer craft to do with the kids, I'm sharing this easy kirigami fish craft today!  I've always enjoyed paper cutting and folding crafts, so I thought this was a really great way for young children to get creative with scissors and paper too!

Let's make some Kirigami Fish!

Make Super Graphic and Colorful Shark Sun Catchers with Kids

Did you know that it's Shark Week?  We don't have cable, so I had no idea until someone else informed me.  While I'm not quite sure what Shark Week entails.... we do love learning about sharks and doing easy shark crafts..... like this

Super Easy Shark Sun Catcher Craft!      

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Glue Suncatchers

Awhile back I made this lovely apple faux stained glass using black glue as the "lead" and tinted clear glue (affiliate link) to paint colorful panels.  Ever since making that craft, I kept wondering if there was a way to adapt it for preschoolers.  So I came up with this super easy kids glue sun catcher activity.   It takes only 2 ingredients to make the "paint" and you probably already have all the materials on hand!

Super Easy Glue Sun catcher Art with Kids  

St. Patrick's Day Clover Sun Catchers

Looking for an easy St. Patrick's Day craft? Well, today's your lucky day.  Here's a simple St. Patrick's Day Clove Craft to make with young children!

St. Patrick's Day Clover Sun Catcher Craft

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Recycled Pumpkin Sun Catcher Craft

Tis the season for Halloween crafting, fa-la-la-... Oh wait.  Wrong song.  Well, you get the point. The season for Halloween crafting has begun!  Last year we made of ton of Halloween crafts (see bottom of post for links).  This year we've folded an origami black cat and made a cardboard pumpkin with a changeable face.   Today we're going to make another recycled Halloween craft.  This time we made these milk jug pumpkin sun catchers!

DIY Milk Jug Pumpkin Sun Catchers

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I really liked this craft because the pumpkins were SO easy to make with my 3 year old.  And we didn't have to spend a ton of time on prep or a ton of money for materials.  (That's a definite win win in my book.)  Ok!  Let's get making!

Make Sugar Skull Sun Catchers and Crystallized Sugar Skull Ornaments

Alright everyone... the countdown is on.  It's just a couple of days till Halloween.  Are you excited?  Or, are you over all the orange and black?

I'm in the first group and still SUPER excited for Halloween.  I just finished Chuck's costume this past weekend, so he's ready to go.  I'm not sure if he'll appreciate the idea of trick-or-treating (plus his allergies prevent him from eating a lot of the candy out there), but I think he'll enjoy seeing other kids in costumes and all the spooky decorations.

I'll upload some photos of his costume later on this week... but today I just wanted to share the last of my sugar skull crafts.

So, we already made DIY sugar skull candle holders and DIY sugar skull luminaries and Allison shared her lovely tutorial for DIY sugar skull shoes.  Today's sugar skull crafts were designed with kids in mind.  They're easy to make and the resulting products look great.

1.  Sugar Skull Window Clings

Colorful and fun, these two skulls will float happily on your window.

Materials:

• Contact Paper (Buy the cheap stuff from the Dollar Store)
• Black paint pen (You could also use a Sharpie marker, but the lines won't be as dark.)
• Scissors
• Cellophane 
• Tape

Make a stained glass house using cellophane

A while ago, a cousin sent me a beautiful faux stained glass panel that her friend made using colored cellophane and a picture frame.  I've since lost the photo, but every so often I keep thinking back to that image and wanting to make my own faux stained glass using cellophane.

Here's a fun kids' craft that I came up with:  a 3D stained glass house constructed out of cellophane and plastic containers:

Materials:
- paper
- pencil
- scissors
- clean and dry plastic lids (sturdier plastic works better than flimsier plastic)
- Mod Podge
- foam brush
- different colored cellophane (you could probably substitute colored tissue paper too)
- clear tape

Directions:
1.  Cut out your six house pieces. (I cut them out of paper first to make sure everything fit and then traced my paper shapes onto plastic lids.)  You'll need two same-sized "house" shaped pieces for the front and back, two rectangles for the roof,  and two rectangles for the side of your house.  (I ended up making the two side and two roof pieces four identical squares so that I wouldn't have to worry too much about measuring.)

2.  Cut out random small pieces of cellophane.  I chose to cut out hearts and rectangles.

3.  Cover your work area.  Use your foam brush and Mod Podge the cellophane onto your house pieces.  Don't worry if the cellophane dangles off the edges.

 4. After the Mod Podge dries, trim any excess hanging cellophane pieces.  Your cellophane will dry crinkled, but that's ok.

 5.  Tape your pieces together to create a house.  (I first taped the pieces into the flat arrangement below.  Then, I bent and taped the pieces into their final 3D house shape.  I also made sure that the Mod Podged cellophane pieces were facing inside my stained glass house.  I figured this way the cellophane wouldn't rub off as easily.)

 Voila!  Done.  I think this would be a really fun craft to do with kids.  It's a different take on the traditional stained glass or sun catcher craft.    Let me know if you try it out!