Posted By Laura in #New!, Crafty Stuff, Education, For Mums | 2 comments

Spending time with the kids and doing something together is great for relationship building. Sharing a DIY project is known to be one of the most effective ways to get children more engaged and open minded while training their motor skills.

There is no shortage of things to try and DIY projects to do either. To help you pick a project to share with the entire family, here are some DIY craft ideas you can look into, particularly ideas you can try right away.

Happy mother and two kids painting in the park stock image By Iryna Inshyna | Shutterstock

T-Shirt Painting

T-shirt painting is one of the most popular pastime activities today. There are a lot of art programmes for children that include painting on a T-shirt or a tote bag. Since the T-shirt can be worn once the project is completed, the entire DIY craft is more exciting for kids.

Thanks to arts and crafts sites like https://www.raaaft.com/, T-shirt painting is now something you can do from home on weekends. You can pick up plain T-shirts from Amazon (we’re big fans of these plain Fruit of the Loom t shirts, even the adult sizes are £2) and get paints designed for fabrics from Raaft.

That’s all you need to get started. You can take it a step further by getting the kids involved in making stamps and creating patterns for the T-shirt rather than drawing on it directly. You can each make a T-shirt and wear it on your next family trip.

Garden in a Pot

Gardening is another great hobby that today’s kids will enjoy so much. After spending a lot of time in front of an iPad, actually playing outside and giving gardening a try are good for their growth as well as their mind.

Even better, kids can now have their own garden. You can pick up a pot large enough for a mini garden and let kids decorate the pot, plant flowers or other seeds in it, and even create an entire landscape for the mini garden.

The relatively small size of the garden will keep mess at minimum, so you don’t have to worry about cleaning up afterwards. The garden-in-a-pot concept is also much more manageable, especially for kids who are giving gardening a try.

There is another benefit of getting kids excited about owning their own garden: it teaches them how to be responsible. You’ll be surprised by how serious your children can be when it comes to keeping their garden well-maintained and very beautiful.

Miniature Garden Bowl stock image By Cartunegraphy | Shutterstock

Recycled Items from Around the House

Don’t forget that there are a lot of things you and the kids can do with items already in the house. Old egg cartons, those large boxes that come with your new TV or refrigerator, and even cardboard tubes used by toilet papers are all great materials to use in DIY projects.

You can find fun craft ideas to try with these materials, including complex projects that require several weekends to complete; building a castle from an old refrigerator box is a good example. That said, a good DIY project can also be as simple as colouring egg cartons and using them as decorative items.

You will not only be getting the kids involved in fun projects, but you will also be recycling unused materials you already have lying around the house in the process. All you need to do now is decide on a project and get started.