Craft Stick Easel

Make a craft stick easel for your child's small paintings or drawings.  Find the Tiny Easel instructions on Family Fun.

Make a Boat and Watch it Float!

In July we made craft stick boats after I saw a cool bamboo boat on Childhood Magic (blog is no longer public).  I used hot glue and they fell apart shortly after getting wet.  I think I should tie the sticks together with twine.  This is a fun craft for anytime of year since you can float them in the tub or sink just for fun!

Easy boats that float:

Made by Joel Walnut Boats

Wabi-Sabi Wanderings Driftwood Sailboats

Ziggity Zoom Milk Carton Boats

Stick Card Puzzles

This post is similar to my Stick Puzzle post.  I found the original idea on makingfriends.com.  You REUSE a greeting card front to make a card puzzle for a holiday or just for fun.  I used my own paper creation and made a Valentine card puzzle to give to my kids at breakfast.  This would be a fun idea for a kid birthday card too.  I used Mod Podge instead of tacky glue and I covered the top of the card as well.  If you make your own card be sure to use stamp pads or markers that won't smear when you put the Mod Podge on.

Instructions: Tape the back of the big woodsie sticks, cut card to size, paint a thin layer of mod podge on the sticks where the card will be, place card on top and smooth down really good (important- let this step dry first with a book on top of it to keep it flat), mod podge top of card and smooth down well, let dry a little and then place heavy objects on sides of sticks while drying so it doesn't curl (I used my metal crafting tool tin so it wouldn't stick to any mod podge), dry for a long time (overnight is best), untape sticks, use another stick as your guide to cut card with exacto knife very slowly and carefully

Stick Card Puzzle Gallery:

▬ linked to Fireflies and Jellybeans Strut Your Stuff Party ▬

Stick Puzzles

I babysat a lot as a teenager and had a fun bag that the kids enjoyed.  In my bag was videos, puzzles, treats, books and games.  My senior year of high school I was a preschool teacher and more good things were added to my fun bag like file folder games and popsicle stick puzzles.  My little sis was my artist back then and did the cute elmo and worm puzzle. Stick puzzles are a simple and fun craft!

•Tape, number/add a symbol, draw/color, untape/stick in labeled baggie•

I like big Woodsie craft sticks for these puzzles much better than popsicle sticks. My daughter's the artist of this robot puzzle.  She sometimes 'cheats' when putting the puzzles together by looking at the numbers on the back.  The numbers/symbols are also good to keep track of which sticks belong where if you get more than one puzzle out at a time.

▬ linked to Kiddos Create and Friday's Showcase ▬