Do you do crafts with kids?

I’m not one to do crafts. I have friends who are crafty, my MIL is crafty and my sister can hold her own in a DIY situation. Me, not so much.

The photo above is a creation that involved a pinecone, glitter paint, pipe cleaners, and random miniatures to make a crown, head and vail. We call her the “Pinecone Princess”. I had no hand in any of it.

I went to a maker space event with my sister for Christmas one year and they had a make-your-own ornament station with sewing tools. There were 8 and 9 year-olds that were breezing through it. I sewed the ornament onto itself without adding any of the cotton stuffing or attaching the back. *Heavy sigh*

But I have kids. My kids like to do crafts. Crafts gives us the opportunity to do something together, work on some motor skills, and pass the time. So I do crafts from time to time.

While I am grateful that the kids were able to go to school and make their standard holiday-themed crafts, my daughter was missing some of it and wanted to do some at home. I put some googly eyes and colored pipe cleaners in her stocking as a reminder to myself to have these on hand.

She’s been saving toilet paper rolls for “projects”. We’ve used a total of 3 for Halloween projects. I cringe when my daughter asks me to look up a project online because 90% of the time it’s one that requires way more skill and patience than I can afford.

So with the cold weather around us, crafts are happening. We’ve done the tube reindeer craft that my MIL helped with, but we recently did one that was not only adorable but so easy to make and took a total of 5 minutes. The snowy owl.

My daughter LOVES picking up sticks, rocks, leaves, pinecones, and all sorts of outside things. We have a collection of random stuff on our front porch that a bird family could easily pick up and make a nest out of.

ANYWAYS, back to the snowy owl. All you need is a pinecone, cotton balls, glue, scissors, and construction paper. Sure, you can get fancy with googly eyes and felt, but I’m not crafty.

Take the pinecone and stuff the torn cotton balls inside to make the “feathers”. Then cut two wings, eyes, and a nose out of construction paper (or felt, or whatever you have). Glue everything on and BOOM, craft is done.

Want more ideas? Head over to the Zulily blog and check out my post for some pretty creative winter crafts. From Olaf toilet paper tubes to pebble penguins (so cute), they are all easy for any person to do- crafty or not.