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Crafts Your Family Can Afford To Make

© Teresa Higginbotham

Want to make seasonal crafts but not sure where to start? Do you have a large family and think the idea of buying expensive premade craft kits for each child is too costly? Here is the Frugal Homeschooler list of sites that give you cheap and easy, oops, quick and easy crafts. Many of the crafts tend to go toward elementary students but some sites offer art instruction through grade twelve. We find making crafts offer a break from academics and a fun way to celebrate a holiday. We're a little small for the class party thing so we will often make a craft and play family games instead. I have also printed out various craft pages and filed them month by month so I always had a craft idea on hand. My favorite kinds of crafts are the ones that don't take several trips to the craft store and use everyday household items.
Making Friends
This site is great for simple crafts for homeschoolers, boy and girl scouts, Sunday school and more. Most crafts simple and inexpensive supplies. I especially loved the little paper dolls the kids could make themselves.
http://www.makingfriends.com

Free Kids Crafts
This site consolidates other projects from other craft sites including Making friends.com, and DLTK crafts. Included are scout, Bible School, and other crafts.
http://www.freekidscrafts.com

Child Fun
This site lists crafts, coloring pages and activities for the kids. One of my favorite parts of Childfun is it's overall organization. If I am looking for a pilgrim craft for Thanksgiving, it takes only a minute to find as the categories are listed by holiday and by subject.
http://www.childfun.com

Kinderart
Even though you might think this site is for Kindergarten art it is really for art Grades k-12. You can click on the big list button and see their complete list of lesson plans. I clicked on W and found listings from Warhol to Woven Heart Baskets. They also have an excellent recyling section where you can make something from nothing. How frugal! There is much more to this site so check it out!
http://www.kinderart.com

Crafts for Kids at About.com
As always About.com has an extensive site on yet another subject. Crafts for kids lists homemade craft and art supply recipes, techniques in crafting, seasonal and subject area crafts. The pop up ads can get irritating but once you plow through those there are some great crafts and many frugal ideas on the family crafts boards. I read about how to reuse tissue boxes, what to do with old water bottles, and even more in the sites "Trash to Treasure" section.