Rae Grant, author of Crafting Fun and Cooking Fun has just published her 3rd book, Homemade Fun: 101 Crafts and Activities to do with Kids. When Rae sent me a complimentary copy, I couldn’t wait to dive in. I have so many fond memories of childhood crafting with simple things from around the house that I want to be able to share that with my kids. Rae’s put all of the classics together in this beautiful book, complete with vintage style illustrations. There are sections on:
- hand sewing and embroidery
- paper crafts
- making jewelry
- baking
- building things
- toys, games and pastimes
I have to say, I did wonder just a bit if the old-timey style might just be a little too sedate for my 8 and 10 year old boys. But I was pleasantly surprised when my youngest plopped down with the book and started flipping through without hesitation. This book is an easy read and perfect for older kids like mine to take initiative (yay!) and make the projects themselves. Parents will find it provides just enough inspiration to help them guide younger kids through the projects.
My son stopped abruptly on the page with the Friendship Pins. Armed with a bucket of beads and a handful of safety pins, he went to town creating a whole set of friendship pins. He’s planning a club of some sort and the pins will be awarded as “achievements”.
I love seeing the kids get inspired by a simple idea and then take off with it in their own direction. I think that’s just what Rae’s book is set up to do. It is simple text and illustration with no photography. Because the projects are so simple, I find that photos are not necessary. The imagination can take over where the text and illustrations leave off, making the project unique to the individual. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
Exhibit A: Friendship Pin turned hairy legged, winged, grasshopper pin!
Wouldn’t you like to have the opportunity to share this book with some kids this summer? Of course you would! Rae’s publisher has generously offered to give away a copy of her book to one of my commenters. To enter the giveaway, please:
- comment on this post before midnight EST, Sunday July 11th.
- be sure to leave your email address or another way for me to contact you if you win
- tell me about a favorite summer time craft you either did as a child or do with your kids
The winner will be randomly chosen and contacted on Monday the 12th! Good luck!
In the meantime, check out Rae’s blog, My Little Hen. And for extra bonus points, she’s hosting another little give-away (something from me!) on her blog. Good luck again!
**comments closed!**
Oh my goodness, friendship pins! I remember those! Do kids still wear them on their shoelaces?
My niece might be a little young for this book yet, but I can imagine how much fun it will be to share it with her when she’s a few years older.
ooohh! I know my 3 kids and I need this book for the summer!! I made those same bead pins and my girlfriends and I would give them to each other and we would hang them off our shoelaces. Which reminds me of the barrettes we used to make with woven 1/8″ satin ribbon with long tails hanging down over our feathered hair!! Guess I’m showing my age…
Just can’t get enough! I hope I win!
bridget
Favorite summertime craft…hmm, maybe making friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss as a kid. Also, not sure if it is considered a craft but making ice cream in a plastic bag by shaking ingredients in a larger bag of ice and salt (the kids I used to work with at a camp LOVED this).
Hi,
This book looks like so much fun. If I don’t win it is going on my wish list.
Have a super day! My e-mail is tthorme at yahoo.
I think it does look like a nice book. I find my kids flip through any craft books that are simple for them to flip through and understand.
You can contact me on twitter http://twitter.com/KirstenSkiles
My favourite craft as a kid were those braided bracelets made with that plastic lace stuff! oh I had so many!
Looks fab, please do enter me into you little comp. thanks
I have an art box for my daughter and each afternoon we pick two projects to do. Sometimes it’s watercoloring, others it’s making masks or collages or stamping. We’d love to win this book to add even more projects to our art box!
forddana [at] hotmail.com
I’ve been dying to get a look at this book! My six-year-old loves finding new crafts to make (especially during his younger siblings’ nap times). And although it can be messy with two little ones under four, painting is often the favorite crafting activity in our house!
my email is [email protected]
My girls love to craft with me but their favorite thing is cooking. Id love this book to take with us in our camper this summer. Then when we’re on trips we have something to pull out for those moments of “Im BoRED!”
Sarah
esgutierrez4(at)msn(dot)com
i’m the education manager at a children’s museum and am always looking for new inspiring craft books! my favorite one as a kid was string art–although i was never especially successful at it.
-jessie
[email protected]
Looks like a fun book. We like to get large-ish rocks and paint them and then put them out in the yard between teh bedding plants.
If I am lucky adn you need to contact me you should be able to click on my name and tgo to my blog. 🙂
My little brother and I were always in need of toilet paper rolls for our crafts. We’d anxiously await the end of the roll and fight over whose turn it was to get the roll! A big day was the end of the paper towel roll or- egad- a wrapping paper roll!
I was not really that into crafts before I went to camp, but I came home from that first summer thinking that making yarn pom poms was my life’s work. I made tiny ones, big ones, ones from my grandma’s old acrylic yarn stash, and even convinced my mom to buy me some yarn to make my own.
Oooh! I want one of these books and I love the grasshopper pin creation! Please ask him if girls will be invited to the club too ; )
This looks like the perfect book of ideas for me. I teach summer art and craft classes for young kids and I volunteer the same for my 11 year olds class at school. To see a kid leave with a finished piece and the pride of having made something is priceless. I always tell the kids that it would be great if they taught a family member how to do the project! ……and have heard good reports. Pass it on I say!
Thank you so much for the chance.
I didn’t have a particular summer craft but everytime I was sick my mother would get me finger paint.
Jessabells
[email protected]
I wouuld love to win this book!
My daughters and I love to make friendship bracelets as a summer time craft. But this idea for friendship pins we are sure gonna use
My email:[email protected]
Looks like a great book! Recently we have been putting the stand-up easel out on the back deck and painting together, mostly in the morning since it is really hot here lately. That way the drips stay outside. We are going through the colors one at a time, learning to hold a brush, playing with different color intensities.
jenna [dot] knits [at] gmail [dot] com
awesome looking book!
katilady1 @ yahoo dot com
That book looks like fun.
Becky
rlavalleur(at)comcast.net
Oops, I forgot to mention a craft I do with my kid. Right now we are really into making signs, I think we might stamp some fabric paint onto felt for the next one.
this summer my younger kids are enjoying play-do & bubbles
as a summer craft its nice just to go out side with some chalk and drew on the side walk
other then that mobiles are a;lways cool to make and creat to hang out side
thanks!
Looks like a jam packed book! My favorite craft used to be making the gimp whistle necklace and painting plaster of paris molds. We used to have an arts and crafts program at the elementary school on summer mornings. Lots of fun!
I loved making friendship bracelets from embroidery floss. So many lovely colors!
Looks like fun for the grandkids! count me in. [email protected]
OMG, I want this book! I have two sons, 4 and 5 years old, and this book would give a lot of ideas of crafts we could make together. I love sewing, but my kids are still too young to use the sewing machine, so we don’t make any crafts together…
[email protected]
My favorite craft as a kid was cutting the top end off a carrot and hollowing it out like a bowl (so it would hold water. Then you stick toothpics in it so you can tie string to it and hang it like a hanging basket. The greens would grow!
aggieterpkatie at yahoo dot com
The grasshopper is awesome! I used to love making daisy and clover chains to wear myself and to decorate things with. Spending summers on Gramma’s farm usually meant there was no shortage of daisies and clovers, too!
Right now a favorite around here is making ice blocks layering with different drops of food coloring and cracking them open for outside fun. Add some buckets fo water and depending on how hot it is outside will keep the kiddos busy for a while 🙂
I need something like this to help me remember all those great things we did at camp and with scouts!
I have a fond place in my heart for making silly-putty (Elmer’s glue, liquid starch, food coloring).
What a fabulous book!
I love doing nature rubbings with the kids. So many things out there and the textures are really cool.
You can reach me at: [email protected]
I’ve been wanting this book! :]
This book looks wonderful. We would love to have it as an addition to our library. When I was younger I loved to make lavender wands from lavender in our garden.
This summer, my kids made handprint eagles on t-shirts for the 4th of July.
Sherry
[email protected]
Friendship pens take me straight back to 5th grade!
This looks great…I was just thinking that I really need to step up my game when it comes to entertaining my son!
forgot to leave my contact info..my mom use to have all the neighborhood kids make a quilt square and the put together an entire quilt!
[email protected]
I’d love to get my hands on a copy of this book.
As a little girl, I went on a big yarn doll craze one summer. Lots of fun.
My brother and I used to make egg carton caterpillars, and drag them about with us everywhere! We also made refrigerator box space ships (my dad helped with those)!
Love your blog! Susie
[email protected]
my mom was great about finding crafts for us to do each week. one of my faves was painting pillowcases for family members. we learned (a bit late) that puff paint is not the nicest to lay your head on.
this looks like a great book!
I showed my girls how to make pom poms and they have been making them all week. Looks like a cute book I would love to win!
My favorite summer time craft when I was a child was daisy chain necklaces. My kids’ favorite summer time craft would be playing in the sandbox or making mud pies. My email is [email protected]
This looks like a well thought out book with a very good balance of techniques. I particularly like the ‘old-homey style’ illustrations.
I would love to share these projects with my grandson.
[email protected]
Of course I must take the chance to get my hands on such a wonderful book full of inspiration. One of my best summer memories was when my grandmother and I where sitting in the shade on their porch and my grandmother tought med how to sew clothes for my dolls. I was 5-6 years old then.
I hope you bring some kid-crafts to the lake. Olive loves crafting w/ you guys.
Cool! My email is [email protected]
I am a child and one of the fun crafts I like to do is sew. I sew my little sister dresses (my first one did not fit =D)and I am planning on making a cool blue floral dress. That’s the only real craft I do…Other than make movies….
Love your blog and good luck to all those waiting to win!
my 3 kids love to paint and glue and cut! and we also use washable markers a lot…even my 18 month old loves them! and my 5 year old is starting to enjoy sewing….she calls it needling!…so we sew together a little.
[email protected]
This looks like a great little book. I would love to try it with my girls 🙂 I was in Girl Scouts when I was younger, and the one craft I always loved was making little rope coasters/ doll rugs. I plan on trying it with my girls this summer 🙂
We always loved making friendship bracelets- I even still have a few that I made at summer camp! Ah, nostalgia! carolina stamper at g mail dot com.
Oh…I would love this book.
This isn’t exactly crafty, but the kids are really enjoying drawing outside. So simple, but a nice twist on an old favorite!
I really want this book. It looks amazing. I would love to share it with my girls.
On of our favorite summertime crafts is making smoothies….grab whatever fruit are in the freezer, some juice/milk/or yogurt, and blend. We even give them all funny names.
andrea.mulholland at gmail dot com
We would love to win this book! Right now my girls and I are having some homemade fun making some cute mice from your PDF pattern. We are making 5 mice and one hedgehog – one for the girls and each of their cousins.
I really, really want to get my hands on this book! It looks wonderful! Our favorite summer craft has been paper mache — the kids love the goo and the painting — and I love that we can do it outside!
Thanks for the chance to win
The book sounds exactly like something I would enjoy. I haven’t seen friendship pins in about 26 years!! My daughter would love those.
My 4 kiddos like to do homemade playdough.
What a beautiful book!
I remember watercolors.
Hanging paintings on the clothesline to dry. 🙂
It’s been raining a lot this summer, so we’ve needed to do stuff inside, like playdough and drawing. This might have some ideas we need!
This looks like a great book! I can remember painting pecans with green stripes to look like watermelons! My friend and I made a ton of them! 5th grade…the good old days!
My boys would LOVE this book! We are always doing crafts in our home. My boys love to take pipe cleaners, beads and whatever else is lying around to create super heros, lasers, and whatever happens to make them happy.
Right now, we are doing day camp, so our crafts are related to our theme: CSI Cub Scout Investigation. We have a notebook for them to write down their answers to the codes they break. We have investigated solar systems, chemistry and a bunch of other stuff.
Forgot to say a favorite activity – mud pies!
This looks like such a fun book and something my kids would really enjoy.
One summer craft we are enjoying this year that works with my 8 yr old as well as 3 year old is going on nature walks and filling little bags with interesting leaves, twigs, etc. and then gluing them on cardboard to make collages. We we visit the woods we also like to make fairy houses from things we find there.
Very happy with the book! I was a kindergarten teacher for 21 years and now also deal with children …
This summer we are making batik wind socks…using glue, paint and some white material. We also spend a lot of time in our sand box with some great sand creations….
We would love this book. Thank you for your give away.
[email protected]
What an amazing book! With an 8, 6 and 4 year old at home this summer this would be fabulous!
My favorite craft from my childhood had to be painting. Especially finger painting! 🙂
Seeing the cover of this book brought me back in time, big time!
Once as a child I collected popsicle sticks throughout the summer (back then, you couldn’t buy batches of clean popsicle sticks sealed in a plastic bag!). By the end of the summer I had enough sticks to make a jewelry box — talk about a “green” project!
I love your photo of all the colorful friendship pins your son made, laid out on the table in front of the open book!
Thanks for the inspiration…
patricia.carney(at)verizon(dot)net
Oh WOW, those safety pin beads take me right back to summer camp!
What a fun book!
By the way, I featured your 4th of July pendant in my column.
http://www.examiner.com/x-54915-Fiber-Arts-Examiner~y2010m6d29-Make-a-festive-pin-for-the-4th-of-July
Great looking book. Thanks for the opportunity to win. My favorite summertime craft was to glue seashells onto everything! Hey wait — maybe it still is . . . . . .
Nancy
[email protected]
I always looked forward to Vacation Bible School week and the painted macaroni masterpieces we made. My five-year-old was reading over my sholder and spied the friendship pins. Inspiration struck and we’re about to make a craft store run!
[email protected]
What a great book, would love a chance to own it!
Looks like a wonderful book – thanks for the chance! My sisters and I used to enjoy making tiny clothes and “food” for the wee dolls in our dollhouse. Learning to knit with our grandmother when she came to visit. Collecting shells, pebbles, and sea glass at the beach for elaborate sand castles, and bringing the items home for later use in crafty constructions. Two sticks and some leftover yarn = “God’s eye” weaving. Oh, those summer days seemed endless and lovely…
The friendship pins look so fun to make. My daughter will enjoy making these. Right now her favorite craft is making things out of paper….so, I have been saving our junk mail, drying marigolds and I will be teaching her how to make some of her own special papers.
email me at [email protected]
My favorite summer time craft I love to do with my kids is make fairy houses – we take pine cones, acorns, mushrooms, pine needles, and basically anything that is found in the woods and hot glue them together to make houses – then we leave them in the woods for the fairies and gnomes to live in. The kids love to check on the houses they built 🙂
http://www.itchinstitchin.blogspot.com
[email protected]
Looks like a wonderful book! Count me in! My email is jbirse(at)shaw(dot)ca
This book looks awesome! One of my favorite summer crafts was spray painting. we hung old white sheets on the clothesline and spray painted with diluted tempera paint. we even did a onesie when my middle son was just a newborn.
monica
mehartman at gmail dot com
Looks like a great book for ideas and inspiration. As a child, I used to make friendship bracelets with embroidery floss and gymp.
[email protected]
I’d love to win this book to help me with my grandkids. I have always loved crafts and I hope to instill this in them also. One of my favorite things I remember making was in Bible School one summer. We covered cigar boxes with some type of doughy stuff (probably made from flour, water, etc.). Before it hardened we applied seashells all over. It was to be a jewelry box for our mothers. I remember I was soooo proud of that box!
[email protected]
My boys are 7 and 10–my older son got a friendship pin like one of those from a friend last year. I remember making ribbon barrettes (remember those!?) and friendship bracelets–the girls still make friendship bracelets, but the boys…comic books!
OOoo. Cool giveaway. I stopped at my local bookstore today and it wasn’t available-only online. I was so sad. It was nice to come home and see your post today. Thanks! 🙂
Love, love, love kids craft books. All four of my kids love to do any kind of craft project and ask daily to make things and do things. Lately “ugly” dolls have been a fun craft for the the boys and girls. The kids I teach will truly benefit from another craft book on my shelf too! 🙂 thanks so much for doing the review and offering the chance to win it. inspiredtosew@@yahoo.com Stacy
What a fun giveaway! I think my favorite craft that I did as a kid definitely would be making those Perler Bead Shapes thingies that you’d iron together to form a heart, star, etc. Those were SO cool. I think I still have some of the ones I made in a box somewhere… I definitely want to do that with my kids someday.
Thanks for the chance to win!
madebyjewls [at] gmail (dot) com
Looks like a lot of fun 🙂
What great projects! I tried friendship bracelets with my girls but it’s requiring a bit too much undistracted concentration for them yet. The friendship pins will be a perfect alternative! Our best project this summer has been a princess and the pea play set, made from fabric scraps and other repurposed goodies found in our craft closet. Thanks for the giveaway!
jennylink19(at)gmail(dot)com
My girls would love this! I did a lot of frienship bracelets, those pins with the beads & some knitting with my friend & her grandma!
I would love to win that book for Camp Aunt Sharon
This comment is for Betty Barrett who emaile me. Good luck!
What a Great Book to give away!! We used to decorate popsicle sticks into fairy wands. What a memory~
Nancy
http://www.coeurdalenegifts.com
coeurdalenegifts.blogspot.com
Oh I have such fond memories of learning to sew with CHRISTMAS ornaments in the summer! I also remember lacing the plastic cording into a square…and of course, the true favorite, Friendship bracelets! Oh, all those knots! So much fun!
I love new ideas, and being reminded of old ones too! We live by the beach so we do lots of things with seashells! My 4 yr old is very into using scissors these days so she is doing alot of cuting. Right now she is cuting out snowflakes (it is 102 F outside) 🙂
[email protected]
This book looks so inspiring, especially for those less creative Mamas, like me. 🙂
Well, this might sound a little strange but I have very fond memories of doing gravestone rubbings as a child. The mixture of family, history and the picture appearing on my paper was like magic to me.
Super cute book. I love what your son did with the friendship pins. No doubt that he has inherited your creativity.
I would love to win this book for my kiddos.
Kelly
Lovely giveaway>My favorite craft as kid was making friendship bracelets.
[email protected]
I’d love a chance to win that to do with my niece and nephew.
[email protected]
When I was a kid I loved to do crayon art. You shave your crayons down into little piles, put a layer of foil down, a layer of wax paper atop that (waxy side up)..Add your crayon shavings in any arrangement/design you like.. add another sheet of wax paper atop that carefully (waxy side down) and then put a cloth over it. Take a hot iron and carefully smooth over the protective cloth, checking to see if all the crayon shavings are melted.. once it’s melted you set the paper/crayon image aside to let it cool and reform into a flat wax sheet of art. Make sure it’s cooled and solidified before allowing little fingers to touch so you don’t burn anyone’s hands with hot wax.
Ooh I remember vividly how I use to sew up my own dolls as a child using scraps of fabric because we didn’t buy any toys at all. I lived with my grandparents who owned a sewing machine but I hand sewed instead as I was only 8 or 9. I hope to do that with my own kids too.
This sounds like such a fun book! My favorite crafts were making paper boxes and making homemade kites with my dad. My email is [email protected]
Thank you!
I would love to win this book. My favourite summer craft activity was to make christmas decorations (I live in Australia!).
[email protected]