It’s almost here! That exciting Back-to School time! Your children may be getting restless these days, ready to run off to school. Here are a few crafts you can make with them to help passing the time before the exciting new school year starts. These crafts are easy to make and you can have your children make extras for their friends or as a gift to their teachers!
Easy Back to School Crafts
Foam Pencil Toppers
Making these cute pencil toppers will allow your children to use their imagination without limit! You will be surprise at their creativity as they make their favourite topper. Suggest that they make unique toppers for their friends and as a gift for their teacher as well!
You will need:
- Foam sheets or shapes
- White craft glue
- Scissors
- Wiggle eyes
- Pom-poms
- Pencils
Directions:
- Start with 2 identical shapes – for example circles or hearts.
- Put glue around the edges of one shape, leaving about ¾” without glue – that is where you will insert the pencil.
- Press second shape onto the first one
- The glue will need to dry for couple of hours, but you can start decorating the outside at this point
- Decorate using wiggly eyes, pom-poms, glitter glue – whatever the imagination calls for.
- You can also make flowers using several pom-poms
- Once the glue dried completely, carefully insert the eraser end of a pencil into the opening.
Tie-Dye Book Cover
Letting your child create this book cover will make it his or her own – reflecting individual tastes.
You will need:
- Large brown paper bag or brown craft paper
- Fabric pieces
- White craft glue
- Small bowl
- Water
- Paintbrush
- Wax paper
- Scissors
- Textbook
Directions:
- Make a shell for the book cover. After it is made, remove it and start doing the decorating.
- Start by cutting the paper bag open – cut from the top of the bag to the bottom at one of the corner creases. Cut the bottom off the bag – you should have a long rectangle when you are done this step.
- Lay the textbook in centre of the rectangle and fold top and bottom up so that the height is equal to the height of the textbook. Crease the folds using your fingers. Next – bring the left side of the paper over the book and line up ends with the right side of the paper cover. Then open the book and left side of the paper around the cover of the book. Repeat this process on the other side of the book as well.
- Open the cover and trim the paper to about half the width of the actual book’s cover. Use pencil to make the paper inside cover where you will trim it and repeat on the other side of the book as well.
- Remove the cover from the book and trim off excess paper with scissors.
- Carefully slide the front and back cover of the textbook into the temporary paper cover to make sure it fits well – you can adjust the height if the cover feels too snug or too loose. When youa re satisfied, remove the cover and put the textbook aside.
- Line surface with was paper
- Then mix together 2/3 of glue and 1/3 of water in a bowl with your paintbrush.
- Cut fabric pieces into shapes – best to work with are 2” x 2” pieces.
- Open paper book cover and place it good side up onto the wax paper.
- Start by painting a 2” section in a top corner with glue mixture. Place fabric piece onto the glue painted part. Add more glue mixture to your paintbrush and paint over the top of fabric – smoothing with the paintbrush as you are working on it. The fabric piece should be saturated but not dripping.
- Repeat these steps, until paper is covered completely and make sure you overlap fabric pieces to create a tie-dye effect.
- When paper is totally covered with fabric, open the book cover and carefully place textbook inside. Close the book carefully and place a piece of wax paper in between the front cover and front page, as well as the back cover and back page. This will keep the wet covers from sticking to the actually textbook as the cover dries. Let dry overnight.
Apple Core Magnet
This cute magnet can be used to hold pieces of special artwork, schedules, school projects or even the grocery list.
What you will need:
- Red craft foam
- White craft foam
- Green craft foam
- Brown chenille stick
- Brown marker
- Round magnet
- Hot glue gun
- Scissors
Directions:
- Trace the pattern onto red foam and cut pieces out, then repeat with white foam.
- Glue red foam to the white with the red on top
- Cut out two leaves from the green foam and use white glue to attached the leaves to the top os the apple – behind the red foam.
- Let dry.
- Cut a two inch piece off the chenille stick and hot glue it to the back of the apple, leaving about one inch showing. Bend the stem slightly.
- Then use brown marker to draw a few seeds.
- Use hot glue to attach the magnet to the back of the apple and you are done!
Hope you have enjoyed these crafts – please send in your comments, suggestions and experiences, your imput is always welcomed and very much appreciated
