A selection of craft items can be a great and inexpensive gift that will keep kids busy on rainy days. For kids aged 3 to 6, I like putting together gift boxes or bags with a mix of marking pens, pencils, crayons, stamps, coloured paper, modelling clay/Play-Doh and other craft items like pipe cleaners, stickers and googly eyes. I do tend to steer clear of glitter – a parent’s worst cleaning nightmare (along with Play-Doh stuck in carpet – that’s another story).
I also like to include pictures for colouring-in. There are some great colouring-in books out there but there are also awesome free printables on the web to download – if you know where to look.
Craft gifts have always been popular with Miss TT. She is a little obsessed with colouring-in and insists on displaying everything she colours on her “gallery wall” (a spare wall in my kitchen next to her drawing table).
The gallery pictured at the top of this post is a week’s worth of work – one week. The volume of artwork was getting ridiculous so I spoke with the fairies who visit our house through the ‘lil Fairy Door in Miss TT’s bedroom. I discovered that they were in desperate need of artwork to decorate Fairyland. Now they visit at night when Miss TT is asleep and collect pieces from her gallery wall each week. Seems to be working…..
At the rate that Miss TT colours, I visit the following websites regularly to choose from a selection of free colouring-in pages:
Coloring Book – huge selection of kids movie and TV characters plus holiday themes for Easter and Christmas
Made by Joel – a must visit! This guy is so creative. Some beautiful designs to choose from including these three below:
Favourite TV character colouring-in sheets can also be found at:
I’ve also discovered some great free craft printables on the lovely blog A Little Delightful. If you are after some last minute Father’s Day kids craft before Sunday, head over there now!
Gifts don’t have to be expensive. Putting together some printables with a bundle of craft items can make for an inexpensive, colourful, creative, fun and practical gift.
What craft items are on your must-give list?
Which marking pens do you think are the best for colouring-in? (we’re dealing with the big issues here!)
Have I missed any other great websites with free printables? Please share!
