My daughter is our resident craft expert. She is currently focused on creating conceptual sculptures. At the moment, her sculptures seem to revolve around the use of drinking straws and painter’s tape. I am not entirely sure what these sculptures mean, but I’m sure that it’s something far beyond my adult understanding.
Now, it’s not like she doesn’t have a whole box of art supplies to choose from. In fact, she has several large boxes of art supplies. Preschoolers love to use unorthodox materials for their art, and it’s always interesting to see what my daughter chooses to create and what materials she decides to use. For those who are stocking up on cheap art supplies, here are a few ideas you may not have considered:
If you get free address labels in the mail, keep them! My daughter uses them as stickers, as tape, and to mail pretend letters. She uses plain labels with paint to create tags for everything. Her desk is currently covered with rainbow-hued tags.
We have an entire roll of green painter’s tape that is dedicated to craft use. It comes off things really easily – things like walls. And clothes. And almost everything except paper. Duct tape is also very fun and comes in numerous colors, but it’s better for sticking pieces of cloth together – and it does leave marks on walls.
Straws – these can be fantastic building materials – who knew? Roll them together with some tape and you can build entire castles of the things.
Scrap pieces of cloth and yarn make fantastic clothes for dolls, and pieces of string and yarn are essential for tying toys together and making them bump into each other, thereby frustrating your mother when she tries to clean the house.
Packing bubbles and packing paper are really fun to craft with. I love those little popping plastic bubbles. The best thing we’ve made? A tongue! The bumpy brown packing paper with small holes in it makes a good blanket for a paper doll, and it can be scrunched and twisted into wreathes and hammocks.
What weird and inexpensive items does your child craft with?