6 Mom-Tested Mess-Free Crafts
October 27, 2020
Crafting is a fun activity for children and moms of any age, but many of your child’s favorite crafts are a pain to clean up. Painting, slime making, and even at-home pottery kits are great, but not fun when it’s time to clean up the mess. Getting your kids involved with crafts and artistic endeavors is important for their creativity and mental development, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend hours cleaning up after them. We guarantee your kids will love trying something new—and you’ll love the easy cleanup.
The Benefits of Crafting Activities for Kids
You don’t need a reason to enjoy crafting—it’s just plain fun! But, interestingly enough, there are a lot of benefits associated with arts and crafts. Both children and moms can reap the rewards of finding an activity that they really love and work on progressively getting better.
Crafting is one way to take our minds off everyday stress. As a mom, you can understand why coming home from work and spending an hour or so on a hobby that you enjoy can be useful and reduce some of that work-related stress. But, children have sources of stress, too. Sometimes, school work or the prospect of making new friends can feel overwhelming, which is why kids need a break, too. Using crafts as a way to calm your mind is very beneficial, but artistic projects can also stimulate the mind, building up your creativity and fine-tuning critical thinking skills. So, not only are crafts fun, but they really provide an educational service as well.
Also, teaching your kid easy crafts that they can later do on their own gives them the opportunity to make gifts in the future. Whether it’s for your birthday, Christmas or Mother’s Day, you’ll be receiving home-made presents crafted with love. And who knows, maybe they’ll come up with their own craft ideas in the future!
Our Favorite Mess-Free Craft Activities for Kids
Diamond Painting
One of our favorite mess-free crafts, diamond painting is a relatively new type of art that uses small, faceted beads called diamonds or drills to create a large, mosaic image. Each project comes with a pre-designed pattern that has been printed onto a canvas. The canvas itself has an adhesive substance to help the drills stick to the pattern. Using a placer pen, the artist follows the pattern, placing colored drills into the proper places designated on the pattern. This craft takes a bit of patience, but the reward is great. For younger children, it can also help further develop their fine motor skills. Look for a project and work on it together.
Get Creative with Pasta
Almost everyone has a few extra boxes of pasta lying around the house and, oddly enough, this dinnertime ingredient actually makes for the perfect crafting object. If you want to use more colorful objects, you can head to a nearby store to look for colored pasta that adds a little something extra to your craft–or try dyeing them yourself with food coloring. There are dozens of fun pasta crafts, but we particularly enjoy using them to make your own leis you can wear around your neck or even design a funky garland to display in the kitchen. Young children will love using colorful pasta to build houses and structures that you can hot glue together to create a little village.
Iron-On Designs
Kids love a day of tie-dyeing, but this can get really messy, really quick. As an alternative, let your kids make their own unique clothing and accessory designs by creating iron-on images or sayings. You can buy iron-on paper and print your own designs or shop for iron-on patches or vinyl that you can simply add to any fabric you’d like. This is also a great way to upcycle old clothing.
Friendship Bracelets
A classic crafting activity, friendship bracelets have so many different styles and projects. Simple beads are always easiest, but you can get really creative by adding charms and different sized or shaped beads to create something totally unique. Help your child decide who they’re planning to make a bracelet for (even if it’s just for themselves!) and work out a design beforehand. You can also experiment with weaving bracelets from embroidery floss or hemp string. If your child enjoys weaving over beading, you can also try some gimp activities to create keychains and other accessories.
Collages
Making a collage is one of the easiest crafts you can do—and you probably have all of the materials around your house. Using printer paper, construction paper or cardboard, glue and cut out pictures from magazines and newspapers, you can create a totally new piece of art. Sit with your child as you flip through old magazines and newspapers to find images or words that are interesting to them. Cut out the pieces, organize them onto your medium of choice, and start gluing! You can even integrate this type of craft into their educational learning by coming up with themes or topics for the collages that coincide with their school work.
Origami
The ancient art of origami has fascinated people for centuries, and while some of the techniques can get quite complicated, there are plenty of basic origami projects for kids. This is a fun way to play with papers and shapes while creating something really unique that your child can display in his or her bedroom. If you want to take your crafting decorations to the next level, you and your child can make several origami animals or shapes and hang them from a string like a garland.
Keep Clean and Craft On
Crafting with your child can be a very rewarding activity as you see their creativity expand and their skills become sharper. Plus, everyone loves a good, fun craft. Try working together on a diamond painting or creating new household decorations from origami and pasta garlands. The options are endless when it comes to crafting. Just check out some of our mess-free ideas and you can craft all day long without worrying about the mess.
Vanessa Adams serves as the marketing coordinator for Diamond Art Club, which offers the highest quality diamond art kits on the market. She oversees all content creation from their West Hollywood, California Headquarters. In her spare time, she enjoys true-crime podcasts and pilates.
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