Fun Family Crafts: Awesome Stuff Adults & Kids Can Create Together

When it comes to creativity, the more the merrier! Call the kids, parents, and even grandparents, and get ready for fun family crafts. DIY projects let you get a little messy and give the whole gang a great way to bond with each other The big bonus is that you end up with super cool stuff when you’re done. So bring out the art supplies and grab those odds and ends lying around the house, just waiting to be repurposed. We’re giving you 8 kid-friendly ideas to make simple crafts and keepsakes that you’ll cherish.

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We’ve Been Crafting Up Some Adventures

Let’s Roam is your source for fun ways to bond with loved ones. We’ve been hard at work coming up with activities for you to enjoy and we’ve compiled them into one big fantastic book. Now, Adventures from Scratch: Family Edition is ready for you to explore. This compilation of challenges will beat boredom any day of the week. Scratch the surface of over 50 unique ideas. Use the handy key to help you decide which one to do next! With 5 different types of adventures, including tear-out tasks to share with others, you’ll be occupied for hours on end.

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Let the Fun Family Projects Begin

Our art projects can be done with kids from preschoolers to tweens and we’ll give you step-by-step instructions to keep you on track. And remember—these make great gift ideas for those near and dear. If family members can’t participate, they can still enjoy the results!

1. Handmade Beaded Jewelry

This family craft is fun, easy, and everyone gets their own pieces of customized jewelry!

What you need:

• Polymer clay
• Clay tools—This is where the adults come in!
• Thin string or cord—Elasticized works well.
• Toothpicks, drink stirrers, or straws—These should be wider in diameter than your string or cord.
• Mod Podge Gloss (optional)

How to make:

• Cut small bits of clay for each bead.
• Mold each piece of clay in your hands until it is soft enough to roll into balls or form into any shape you choose. Combine colors for a marbling effect. Get creative!
• Poke a toothpick, drink stirrer, or straw through the beads to make a hole for the string or cord to go through.
• Bake the clay according to the package instructions. (Typically, beads are baked at about 275° F for 10-15 minutes, but check to be sure!)
• After the beads have cooled, add a layer of Mod Podge Gloss if desired. 
• Once the beads are fully baked, cooled, and gloss is dry, string the beads onto your cord and make a knot to close the piece.

2. 3D Painting

Kristine Daub sent us instructions on making 3D paintings, which are a favorite craft she recommends for families.

My 4 y/o nephew and I spent a weekend painting a 3D sunflower for his mom’s birthday last year and not only was it a major hit, we had an amazing time bonding over the process. If you are happy to jump into a craft project with both feet and to help the kids get involved, this is something that has no age requirement (so long as they can hold a paintbrush or tear paper) and will keep the entire family entertained for a whole day!

—Kristine Daub, Founding Editor of byCurated

What you need:

• Canvas
• Glue gun (and glue sticks) – wood glue works if you don’t have a glue gun
• Acrylic paints
• Pencil
• Paintbrush(es)
• Newspaper

How to make:

• Start by drawing an outline of the subject that you would like to paint. A really easy subject to achieve is a flower, though any subject can be used.
• Next, tear your newspaper into little pieces. A variety of sizes and shapes is best, so let your kids go crazy tearing the paper up. Keep a few whole pieces aside, in case you need specific size or shape later.
• Apply the glue to the back of each piece of paper. Parents be warned, if you are using a glue gun, fingers can get burned, so assist your kids with this part.
• Continue to apply paper to the inside of your subject’s shape until you have achieved an ideal structure. Depth is the aim of the pasted paper, so be sure to apply more paper to areas of your subject that would be more raised than others.
• Once the paper and glue have dried, you can begin painting. This is one of the steps that your kids can really get involved in, so be sure to have sufficient paintbrushes on hand.
• Allow the painting to dry and hang it up in your home!

3. DIY Stickers

It is no secret that children love collecting stickers. The only thing more addictive than collecting them is making them!

What you need:

• Contact paper or sheets cut from thick wrapping paper
• Washable glue
• White vinegar
• Small paintbrush
• Scissors and/or craft punches in various shapes
• Thin markers for adding text

How to make:

• In a bowl, combine equal parts washable glue and white vinegar to make a thin liquid.
• Use a small paintbrush to very lightly paint the back of a paper with the glue mixture. You don’t want to soak it. It will warp.
• When dry, apply a second coat.
• When the second coat is dry, cut shapes using scissors or patterned craft punches.
• Use scissors or a craft punch to cut out the shapes you want.
• Add text with markers, if desired.
• To apply the stickers to notebooks, cards, envelopes, etc. simply moisten the backs with a dampened sponge.

4. Yarn Flower Greeting Cards

Yarn flower greeting cards are a fun family craft project that can be used any day or for holidays year-round. Consider homemade cards for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Christmas, or birthdays. Dads could even help the kiddos create the most fantabulous Mother’s Day card ever! This kids’ craft is a classic and everyone knows that hand-crafted cards are way better than store-bought.

Who doesn’t love handcrafted cards? These are not just lovely but also act as a bit of surprise for your loved ones and family members.

—Miranda Yan, Co-Founder, VinPit

What you need:

• Cardstock (individual sheets)
• Scissors
• Yarn (in flowery colors, including green for the stems)
• Craft glue

How to make:

• Spread a light coating of glue on the cardstock, where you would like to place the first flower top.
• Coil the yarn in a circular pattern. Take care to press the yarn spiral firmly into the glue. Use any color or get extra fancy and combine multiple options. You could also create a layered effect by completing a yarn flower background first, topping portions with glue, and adding smaller yarn spirals on top.
• When the flowers are done, move on to the stems. Cut the green yarn into stem lengths and tie a bow in the center of each to create the effect of leaves. (Note: You could use pipe cleaners, instead.)
• Place a stem under each flower and glue firmly into place.

5. Animal Masks

Younger kids can have lots of fun making and masks and acting like their favorite animals. This paper craft is fairly easy and requires basic art supplies and household materials. When they’re done making their masterpieces, have them put on a fun show for the whole family! This could also be a fun craft for a Halloween or birthday party—and the kids get to take their masks home with them.

What you need:

• Paper plates—Colorful ones work great!
• Crayons, markers, or paints
• Construction paper
• Cardboard tube left from wrapping paper, toilet paper, or rolls of paper towels
• Scissors
• Adjustable elastic cords
• Stapler
• Embellishments like pom-poms, mini coffee filters, cotton balls, yarn, etc.
• Glue

How to make:

• Use the end of the paper roll to trace circles where the eye holes will need to be cut into each paper plate.
• Cut the eye holes and hand the plates over to the kids, for decorating.
• Kids can use crayons, markers, or paints to create an animal face on each plate.
• Some details can be cut from construction paper and attached with a simple glue stick or craft glue.
• Glue embellishments on the masks to give them fluff, fur, scales, etc.
• When the animal face is complete, measure the elastic cord the width of each plate and allow some “give.”
• Cut the elastic cord and attach one piece to each mask with staples.

6. Decoupage Bowl

Give boring bowls a colorful makeover! This is a lovely and fun way to customize bowls. Then, use them to store trinkets and treats.

What you need:

• Bowl
• Plastic wrap
• Scissors or circle punch
• Colorful tissue, crepe, or lightweight construction paper (Alternatively, you can tear sheets from magazines.)
• Decoupage medium
• Paintbrush

How to make: 

• Choose a bowl that you want to decorate and wrap it in plastic wrap.
• After that, using scissors or a circle punch, make several cuts from different colored sheets of paper and place them around the bowl using decoupage medium and a paintbrush. 
• Let it dry, and put it to good use!

7. Kindness Rocks

We love the idea of painting rocks and using them to spread joyful messages to others! In fact, this popular activity was recommended to us by several sources. Lauren Tingley, Creator at Simply Well Balanced, said that, during the COVID-19 lockdown, her daughter would leave rocks painted with inspirational quotes and positive images at their community mailbox. What a nice surprise that would be for a neighbor, especially during a universally tough time!

We have a pretty wide age gap in our family, with our oldest kids being 14 and 12 and our youngest being 3 and 1. Yet, making kindness rocks has been a fun craft that all of us have enjoyed doing together, and is easy enough to take on without a lot of prep or special materials … Not only is it a fun family activity, but a great way to encourage kids to take on simple acts of kindness in their day-to-day lives.

—Alexandra Fung, Co-Founder, Upparent

What you need:

• Rocks or stones with enough surface area to add drawings and/or messages
• Acrylic paint
• Permanent markers

How to make:

• Clean the stones, ensuring you’ve removed any dirt and debris or living material like moss.
• Once the rocks are completely clean and dry, set out paint supplies and let the kids create.
• After the paint has dried, help children add quotes or special messages to the decorated rocks.

8. Macrame Wall-Hanging

Macrame wall-hangings are a popular home decor item that might seem too complicated to make, with all those knots. You’re in luck! There are easy macrame projects that the whole family can do together. They take a little bit of work but are truly worth it.

What you need: 

• 12-inch wood slat or dowel
• Thin t-shirt strips or ready-made t-shirt “yarn” in 2 colors
• Scissors
• Ruler

How to make:

• Measure and cut five 5-foot pieces of t-shirt yarn in one color (color A) and four 5-foot fragments from another color (color B).
• Fold a piece of color A yarn in half and place the fold behind the wood slat. You can bring the ends of the yarn up and slip them through the folded loop. What you’re actually making is a “cow hitch” or “lark’s head” knot.
• Tighten the yarn, so the folded loop is on the bottom. Flip the wood slat over so the loops show on the front.
• Repeat this cow hitch process with a strip in color B.
• Keep repeating this process with all the pieces of yarn, alternating between the colors. You will end up with 9 knots and 18 hanging strips.
• Now it’s time to get even more creative. You’re going to divide and arrange the 18 hanging strips into three equal sections and create a pattern. To finish the project, see this original idea with a picture-by-picture tutorial of macrame wall art by Handmade Charlotte.

9. Rainbow in a Jar

This fun family craft idea came to us from Mark Coster, who remarked that kids will find this so fascinating they’ll request to do it again and again! It’s science coming to life in a colorful display. Your little ones can even change the number and order of the colors.

There’s only one thing that’s more fun than family crafts: educational family crafts! Or, as I like to call them, kitchen experiments. One of my family’s all-time favorites is the “rainbow in a jar” activity. We’ve done it dozens of times, especially when our three kids were younger.

—Mark Coster, Founder, STEM Geek

What you need:

• Mason jar
• Food coloring
• As many different liquids as you have at home: water, syrups, dish soap, honey, sunflower and olive oils, alcohol.
  If you want, you may also throw in a bunch of items of different weights that will sink or float: marbles or pebbles, peanuts, sawdust, or even a flower or two.

How to make:

• Mix every liquid with a different food coloring.
• Slowly pour liquids, one by one (order doesn’t matter!) into the jar.
• Watch as your beautiful rainbow comes into being!

Mark added that “kids will likely want to keep this jar on their nightstand, which can make for a beautiful light show when put next to a lamp. Just be sure to close it—there’s organic matter in there that might spill or go bad! But as a chemist, I especially appreciate that this activity can teach kids about liquid density, the amount of molecules, why they mix or don’t mix together.”

10. Personalized “Rocks” Paperweight

This fun project makes an adorable Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gift or a present for any occasion. Ask the kids to go out in the yard and collect some tiny pebbles while you prepare the other ingredients or collect small stones on nature walks with your children.

What you need: 

• 1/4 cup salt
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup pebbles
• Cookie sheet

How to Make:

• Preheat the oven to 250° F.
• Mix the flour, salt, and water in a bowl to make the “dough.” If the dough feels too sticky or is too wet to shape, add flour until it feels like cookie dough. 
• Shape a piece of the dough into a ball in your hands. Place the ball on the cookie sheet and flatten it to about 1/2″ in thickness.
• Use rocks to spell out “Mom Rocks,” “Dad Rocks,” or use any name you’d like! Press the rocks firmly into the dough.
• Once satisfied with the design, bake for approximately 2 hours.
• Allow your paperweight to fully cool before gifting or using!

11. DIY Snow Globes

This suggestion came to us from Chis McGuire, Founder of Real Estate Exam Ninja. What a terrific way to make a fun craft from little figurines you might have lying around collecting dust!

What you’ll need:

• Big jar with lid
• Small figurines
• Super Glue or a hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Glitter
• Sequins
• Clear nail polish (optional)
• Glycerin, light corn syrup, mineral oil, baby oil, or clear cooking oil (optional)
• Distilled water

How to make:

• Waterproof figurines by covering in clear polish. Let them dry before doing the next steps.
• Before setting the figures, test to see if they need to be raised to see it when the jar is flipped upside down. If your figurines need a boost, you can use a bottlecap.
• Glue figures upside down in the middle of the underside of the jar lid.
• Fill the jar with distilled water. — Don’t fill it to the very top! Leave a small amount of room to allow for displacement.
• Add glitter and/or sequins.
  NOTE: Add a few drops of glycerin, mineral oil, baby oil, or clear cooking oil to help the sequins and glitter float. You can test different amounts of each to see what gives the best floating effect.
• When figurine glue is dry, twist the lid onto the jar and turn it upside down to see the magic inside your snow globe!

12. Hand Warmer or Reheatable Aromatherapy Pillow

These hand warmers make perfect gifts and are fantastic introductions to sewing. The concept can also be used to create larger reheatable, soothing pillows! A relaxing scent can be a nice added touch but can be left out if you prefer.

What you need:

• 1 piece of cardstock
• Cotton fabric
• Ruler
• Rotary cutter
• Large bag of white rice
• Funnel with a wide enough mouth for rice to flow through it
• Sewing machine or needle and thread
• Essential oils (for an adult to drop in, sparingly, at the end)

How to make:

• Measure and cut cardstock into rectangles 1/2 inch bigger (on all sides) than your desired hand warmer. If making a pillow, both sides should be 1/2 inch wider and longer than you want your finished pillow. The cardstock will act as a guide when measuring and cutting.
• Use the rotary cutter to cut the fabric to size by following the edges of the cardstock.
• If using a patterned fabric, place two pieces together with the right sides face-to-face and the wrong sides out. Otherwise, just place two pieces together. Pin them into place so that they remain edge-to-edge when sewing.
• Sew three sides on a machine or by hand. On the fourth side, leave at least a two-inch opening. Remove pins as you go.
• Carefully turn each little “pillowcase” right side out.
• Place the funnel into the hole you left and fill the case with rice.
• If using essential oils, add a few drops.
• Hand-sew to close the final seam. Reinforce if need be.

Note: If sewing’s not your thing, you may try using fusible webbing or hem tape instead. It’s important to note that the seal may fail, especially after a few uses.

To use, microwave for about 15-20 seconds. The hand warmer or pillow will retain heat for quite some time! You could also try freezing when you need a cold pack.

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Final Thoughts

We hope you enjoyed our list. Family crafts are so fun and offer the perfect opportunity to spend time with your little ones. Get the older siblings involved and share a few laughs with the entire family!

Have you made any of these crafts or do you have favorite art projects you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments!

When you’re all done crafting your hearts out, try these mom-approved activities for kids, or hop on over to check out our family adventure book! You won’t find yourself in need of activities for a while when you have over 50 unique ideas scratch-off challenges at your fingertips!

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Frequently Asked Questions