Kids' Crafts: Make Your Own Place Mats
It's fun, it's art, and it's something you and your kids can admire each and every day
ADDED June 10, 2009
Length: A couple of hours
Parental Involvement: Supervision and assistance with art materials. Driving the kids' work to Kinkos to be laminated.
Kids Should Be Able to: Make art (draw, cut pictures a bit, etc.)
Honestly, people, this just might be the most expensive activity we'veever suggested here on Today Is Fun. Before you get all riled up andstart throwing things, hear us out. This activity might just cost fouror five dollars.
You'll need some old magazines for the kids tosnip up. Or, if you don't have those handy, you could have the kidsdraw with markers or crayons.
Take two blank pieces of paper and tape them together, side by side. You'll now have a nice canvas for your kid that is 11 x 17. (You canput a lot of tape on the back side, because your kids won't really beaffecting that side.)
OR,instead of two pieces of paper, you could use a brown paper grocery bag(or wrapping paper, if you save that from gifts.) Either way, it's anopportunity to recycle paper here.
Have the kids find picturesthey like in magazines and then glue them to the "canvas." Have themdraw pictures with crayons, or they could affix stickers.
When we did this activity with our kids, we supplied them with some old National Geographicmagazines, and they created place mats for themselves that featuredvarious dangerous animals. The collage work took them most of anafternoon, and our two boys were very proud of the finished product.
Insteadof magazine pictures, you could also use family photos. (Such as yourchild with your family pet.) In case you haven't noticed, there are alot of options here and a lot of room for creativity.
When theart is done, and your kids have signed off on the beauty, the placemats are ready to take to finish. Drive the place mats to your localFed Ex Kinko's Office (or whatever those places are called) and havethem laminated. It doesn't take long, and it doesn't cost much atall. And your kids get to enjoy their masterpieces at each familymeal! Everybody wins!
We'd be delighted to see your kids' place mat art. If it's not too much trouble, please email us a photo. We will post everyone's efforts on our Facebook page.
| art supplies needed, |
Comments
librarian-moms 06-10-2009 12:36Great craft! So easy, so practical. Thanks :)
laura, shayla, and anna! 06-10-2009 12:37
Yes, this is terrific. You KNOW we're gonna be doing this when the girls are on summer break . . . BIG thank you for this one!
lynn 06-10-2009 01:43
love this - and i love that you used recycled things.
David 06-10-2009 04:10
Great idea. A good way to recycle some paper, give the kids something fun to do, end up with something cool and useful, and it costs very little.
Christi Bender 06-11-2009 08:32
I think you can also put the paper between two pieces of wax paper and iron it together. I've not tried that, but remember reading it someplace. Great idea though! We're doing it tonight. But with wax paper.
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