Baby Matters Blog

Crafts Category

Butterfly Gardens, Crafts and Activites for Kids

March 16, 2012 1 Comment

Spring gives ample opportunities for you to get outdoors with your kids to have fun and learn! In Chicago we are fortunate to have a butterfly garden right in our city! We brought our Kolcraft kids there for a field trip and completed the day with crafts and building our own butterfly garden. Today’s post is all about the butterfly fun you can have with your children!

Butterfly Garden Experience:

  1. Google butterfly gardens in your area. Many zoos or nature centers have them.
  2. Prep your children by talking about butterflys – how they start as a little caterpillar, build a cocoon for a nice nap and when it’s time come out as a beautiful butterfly.
  3. Research butterflys online & assign each child a certain butterfly or certain color butterfly to look for.
  4. Read about what they eat, how they migrate, etc. Tell the kids to see if they observe the butterflys eating, etc. (Most gardens have fruit open where the butterflys will land & eat.)
  5. Bring your children of all ages, even babies. They will love the colors and activity of the butterflys.

Butterfly Craft

Make Your Own Butterfly Garden:

  1. Butterflys love a mix of bright, colorful, strong scented wildflowers and other planted flowers. They especially love day lilies, marigolds, daisies and butterfly bushes. Be kind to caterpillars who will be butterflys and include milkweed and hawthorn.
  2. Butterflys need to drink. Put a shallow pan or birdbath in with your flowers. Soak red or orange sponges in a solution of sugar and water to refresh your little butterfly friends.
  3. Make a little colorful butterfly house where they can hibernate. You can paint and decorate a wood birdhouse with your kids and put it among the flowers.
  4. Spend some time with your kids in your butterfly garden, watching, listening and making friends with your butterflys.

Butterfly Craft:

  1. Grab some colorful tissue and a black pipe cleaner.
  2. Fold the tissue back & forth like an accordion.
  3. Wrap the pipe cleaner around the mid point of the tissue leaving about 2 inches of pipe cleaner on either side forming the body of the butterfly.
  4. Curl the remainder of the pipe cleaner into an antenna.
  5. Fan out the the tissue paper to make the butterfly wings.

Butterflys can be a great way to teach your kids about nature, colors, life cycles and more!

Celebrate Dr Seuss’ Birthday with Your Kids

March 2, 2012 3 Comments

Today is Dr. Seuss’ birthday and what better way to celebrate than through a party and reading to your child? We have a few ideas for making your Dr. Seuss birthday celebration fun and educational!

Dr. Seuss Party Decorations

  • Make Cat in the Hat party hats
  • Decorate your wall with trees from the Lorax. Just take this finger paint art craft and make it on poster board.
  • Make a Dr. Seuss themed birthday cake. We love these ideas inspired by his books! Be sure to sing happy birthday!
  • Have green eggs and ham for breakfast with this easy recipe.

Dr. Seuss Party Activities and Crafts

  • Play pin the green eggs and ham on the plate. Simply cut out a plate, green eggs and green ham from construction paper and hang on wall like pin the tail on the donkey.
  • Do a Dr. Seuss word search with your children or make your own!
  • Have kids sit in a circle, read words from One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and see how many words they can come up with that rhyme. i.e. – Cat, Fish, Dog, etc.
  • Color Dr. Seuss coloring pages and talk about which character is your favorite and why.
  • Make bookmarks with Dr. Seuss characters. Encourage your kids to draw their favorite character. It doesn’t have to be perfect!

Make sure you have storytime and read your kids’ favorite Dr. Seuss books. Have fun celebrating the author who has taught thousands of kids how to read!

Fun Finger Paint Craft for Kids

February 29, 2012 No Comments

Finger painting can be fun for kids and babies. It allows babies to begin to create art – always a plus for imagination and creativity – and the symmetrical designs helps children learn about mirror images.

What you need:

  1. Non-toxic finger paint
  2. Construction paper
  3. Newspaper or drop cloth to cover painting surface

What you do:

  1. Squeeze various colors of finger paint in different sizes on one side of construction paper
  2. Fold the paper in half
  3. Have your child press down on the paper with her foot or hand. She can rub across the paper to spread the paint. If you are doing this with a baby, just have baby sit on the folded piece of paper to spread the paint.
  4. Open the paper to see the symmetrical designs
  5. Allow paint to dry

We love how your baby can create art that will be a wonderful keepsake for years to come.

Storytime with the Lorax

February 22, 2012 1 Comment

We are very excited that The Lorax is coming to theaters, but nothing can capture imagination like reading Dr. Seuss’ original The Lorax book. We have often talked about the benefits of reading to your children and we love that Target Stores support this.

This Saturday all Target stores across the country are having a Dr Seuss Storytime reading of The Lorax. We applaud Target’s Read Across America program. Reading opens a child’s imagination and you can take that even further with these easy crafts & activities to go with a Lorax celebration. Get ready for a treeriffic (ok a little corny) fun with your kids.

Lorax Tree Art

What you need:

  1. Cotton balls
  2. Non-toxic paint
  3. Pipe Cleaners
  4. Non-toxic marker
  5. Non-toxic glue
  6. Construction Paper

What to do:

  1. Talk to your children about why trees are important, what they are used for & how important it is to take care of them.
  2. Have your child put his/her name at the beginning of this sentence on the construction paper, “(child’s name) listens to the trees.”
  3. Give your child several cotton balls & pipe cleaners cut into various lengths.
  4. Have them dip a cotton ball in the paint and then swirl it on the paper to form a tuff-top tree like in The Lorax.
  5. Glue pipe cleaners on paper to form the tree trunk.

Try these fun tree related activities from our friends at National Wildlife Federation to complete your Lorax celebration.

  1. Conifer Quest
  2. Make a Tree Journal
  3. Gathering Greens

What is your favorite part of The Lorax?

Easy Rainbow Crafts and Recipes for Kids

February 15, 2012 2 Comments

It may be cold and gloomy out, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have rainbows and fun indoors! We had a lot of fun with our Kolcraft Kids as we had an indoor rainbow day complete with rainbow crafts, food and fun!

Rainbow Crafts

Indoor Rainbow Rice Sandbox

Rice after it has had food coloring added

What you need:

  1. Rice
  2. Vinegar
  3. Food coloring
  4. Aluminum foil
  5. Containers
  6. Cookie sheet

What to do:

  1. Put 1.5 cups of rice in each container
  2. Add 1 – 2 tbsp of vinegar to each container
  3. Add a few drops of food coloring
  4. Shake, shake & shake the containers some more to fully coat the rice in food coloring
  5. Put aluminum foil on the cookie sheet
  6. Place rice on cookie sheet & put in oven at 150º for 10- 15 minutes
  7. Take out, place in large, wide container that isn’t too deep & let your kids have fun in their indoor “sandbox”!

Rainbow rice ready to dry in the oven

You can also put black, white & red beans in a container and have “bean sand”.

Other fun rainbow crafts, recipes and ideas that we did with our Kolcraft Kids ranging from 6 months to 7 years old!

  1. Rainbow finger painting – put hands in non-toxic finger paint, and place hand prints in semi-circle forming a rainbow. Alternate colors to make a rainbow. We love this as a keepsake of our child’s hand-prints.
  2. Rainbow crayons – this easy craft, recycles old crayons into rainbow crayons!
  3. Rainbow fruit cake – this yummy treat is a tasty way to teach your child about the rainbow.
  4. Rainbow outfits – let your child pick out his/her clothes for the day. We can guarantee it will be a rainbow sensation outfit.

Enjoy your rainbow filled day!

Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2012 No Comments

Wishing you and your families a very happy Valentine’s day! We will be spending Valentine’s day with our children making some treats and fun crafts.

How will you be spending Valentine’s Day?

3 Easy Valentine’s Day Crafts for Kids

February 10, 2012 2 Comments

Valentine’s day is a day of love and cuddles. We like these easy DIY valentine’s day crafts you can do with your children.


Valentine Photo Hearts

What you need:

  1. Red, white or pink foam
  2. Foam glue
  3. Photo of your baby
  4. Sharpie
  5. Scissors – adult use only
  6. String

What to do:

  1. Cut foam in shape of heart & cut out middle. We used a scrapbook die cut for the fancy edges.
  2. Cut photo in heart shape and glue to the foam for the frame.
  3. Write message to your child’s Valentine on the part you cut out of the frame heart.
  4. Glue to the photo frame.
  5. Put string through top to hang.
  6. Make someone smile when you give it to them. :)

Tissue Paper Valentine

What you need:

  1. Red & pink tissue
  2. White foam
  3. Scissors
  4. Sharpie
  5. Non-toxic Glue
  6. Photo
  7. Pencil

What to do:

  1. Cut foam in a heart shape.
  2. Write message on heart.
  3. Glue photo of your child on the foam (we embellished with scrapbook hearts).
  4. Cut tissue into squares.
  5. Put tissue square on end of pencil & dip into glue.
  6. Outline heart with tissue paper.
  7. Make someone’s day when you give them this cute Valentine.

New Spin on the Love Frame

What you need:

  1. Frame
  2. Background paper
  3. Window markers

What to do:

  1. Put background paper in frame with message “I love you because”
  2. Every day have all family members write in why they love a certain member of the family.
  3. Switch days for each member of the family to receive frame love.

Thanks to Happily Domestic for the Frame Love idea.

What are your favorite Valentine’s Day crafts?

3 Fun Super Bowl Activities for Kids

February 3, 2012 1 Comment

Your children don’t have to be bored during your Super Bowl party. These three games can make sure they have fun so you can enjoy the Super Bowl without the constant chorus of “I’m BORED” going on in the background.

  1. Pin the football – Instead of pin the tail on the donkey, each child has a football. They try to ‘pin the football through the uprights or get it in the receivers hands.
  2. Team hats – Have some construction paper or foam, non-toxic glue and a few other art supplies so they can a hat supporting their favorite team.
  3. Festive pom poms -Make your own pom-poms using whichever team’s colors you are cheering for by gluing streamers or tissue paper to a large popsicle stick which you can buy at a craft store.

What fun Super Bowl crafts or activities do you have for kids?

Fun Indoor Train Activity for Your Toddler

January 13, 2012 No Comments

Sometimes it’s hard to entertain your children when they (& you!) have cabin fever. One very creative mom sent us the perfect activity for indoor fun with your kids - Hop Aboard Your Personalized Choo Choo Train!

What you need:

  1. 2 Empty Boxes. One will have to be big enough to “fit” your toddler.
  2. Paper Plates
  3. Non-Toxic Marker
  4. Empty Paper Towel Tube
  5. Paper Cup
  6. Heavy Duty Tape

What to do:

  1. Cut a hole in the large box, big enough to fit your child.
  2. Tape the smaller box to the back of the larger box to make it look like a train.
  3. Put the paper cup on the paper towel roll to form a smoke stack.
  4. Cut out a circle for the bottom of the “smoke stack”.
  5. Tape the “smoke stack” to the top front of train.
  6. Draw spokes on paper plates to form wheels.
  7. Tape wheels onto sides of train.
  8. Have your child decorate the side of the train with a marker or crayon.
  9. Let your little one have fun being the conductor of her train!

We recommend creating a whole train experience. You can read books about trains, color train pages and  take a ride on your local train. You can talk about how people take trains to see family and friends,  to go to work or how trains transport goods. In simple ways you can teach your child about transportation while having fun!

Thank you to the Clark family for sharing their toddler train experience with us!

Creating New Years Eve Noise Makers

December 30, 2011 No Comments

Celebrating 2011 and the start to 2012 is a wonderful opportunity to spend time as a family. Your family can create homemade noisemakers to ring in the new year.

What You’ll Need:

  • White Paper Plates
  • Beans
  • Crayons and or markers for decorating
  • Streamers
  • Stapler

Let’s Get Started:

  1. Children can decorate the back of the paper plate. If you like, you can also use jewels or other decorating materials.

  2. Fold the paper plate in half
  3. Add beans to the inside of the plate, however not too full, this will help it make more noise.

  4. Staple the edges together to enclose all of the beans
  5. Glue, tape, or staple streamers to the sides
  6. Shake, shake, shake and ring in 2012!