This craft is a fun way to let your kids' imaginations go wild and it's a great activity on a rainy or snowy day. And it's practically free!
​Materials needed: 

• A large piece of paper as long as your child is tall (I actually used the back of a large picture frame paper, the kind that comes with the frame)
• Pencil and eraser
• Markers or crayons
• Glue (optional)
• Any decorations you want from pom poms to stickers

​Step 1:
Put your paper on the floor and have your child lay down on top of it in whatever position they want their figure to be in.

My son is standing on his "sister" (at left) who chose a bent leg, while he chose a kind of "jumping" look.

Use a pencil or marker or crayon to trace an outline around your child. If you have another kid, let them do it - it's very entertaining to watch!

​This is my son's completed outline.

As you can see between this and the above picture, you can choose various poses.

You might also have noticed that I taped two pieces of paper together, which you can do if you don't have a long length of paper.

​Step 2:
Decorate however you want!! Get out the glitter glue and pom poms! Use up all those stickers that have been laying around.

​Kids can add hair, make up and even color in their outline.

​Crayons, pom poms and google eyes can all be used to decorate your figure.

​Step 3:
Find a place to display your child's work. I chose the door to my basement and bathroom - both off my kitchen. 

My kids loved seeing "themselves" every day and these pictures stayed up for months!

My daughter even chose to paint the toenails of her figure

Fairly easy craft for a preschooler or older child and not a lot of materials. This was inspired by one of the many Usborne drawing and craft books.

1. Have your child draw a large circle in crayon (brown or orange are best for more realistic lion but any color is fine) on the paper. This will be the face of your lion.
2. Then draw semi-circles at the top (or as close as possible) for the ears.
3. Draw the mane by having your child draw lines out from the circle's edge (the way one would make sun and its rays, just a lot more lines).
4. Draw a loose upside triangle in black for the nose and "U" shapes for the mouth. Add whiskers with quick lines.
5. Draw circles for the eyes.

Supplies Needed:

• Crayons of assorted colors
• White paper

I was inspired by some of the crayon crafts in The Usborne Big Book of Playtime Activities and Usborne's I Can Draw Animals. I did this with my preschooler (4-5 yrs old), basically guiding her but she drew everything in this picture herself. Depending on your child's ability and attention span, it may take a few practices to get a picture like this. That's ok.

1. I asked my daughter to draw circles to make the faces first. Then I suggested she make ovals for the ears and for the inside of the ears.
2. For the bodies, I suggested circles or ovals. As you can see the purple bunny isn't really either shape, but it still looks cute. We kept it simple by adding a circle for the tail.
3. Then she added grass by scribbling in green.
4. Then she made shrubs by drawing swirls in green and yellow. There is a great app called Squiggles (from Lazoo) for teaching young kids to draw swirls and other shapes. 

Materials needed:
* card stock paper
* colored paper
* template (or use mine below)
* scissors
* crayons or markers
* craft glue
* stickers or glitter (optional)

This craft was inspired by The Paper Princess by Elisa Kleven. You can see the finished product below the templates.

This is a great, simple craft to do with your princess. You could also modify the figure for a boy.

Draw an outline of a princess (to make a fairy simply add wings) on your card stock paper. You can use my template (see below) or search online for something to print and trace over (searching for princess silhouette gives some decent results). If you're drawing your own princess, don't worry if you make mistakes.

Once you've drawn the outline, cut it out. This card stock princess will be your template if you ever want to do this project again.

Place the template on a sheet of paper (it can be white or colored, depending on how your child wants to decorate it).

Trace around your template on the new sheet of paper. Then cut it out. Let your child decorate the princess however she wants. When your child is done decorating, glue the paper princess to a new sheet of paper in a color of your choice. Once the glue dries, you can proudly display.

Templates below: These are my crude attempts to draw paper princess templates. The one on the right is my version of Elisa Klevin's Paper Princess. You also can draw your own or find others online. If you use my template on the left, just be careful not to cut off her head when cutting her out; her neck is a little thin!

The finished versions done by my 3 1/2 year old. After coloring and gluing she decided she wanted to add stickers.

Materials needed:
* Crayons or markers
* paper - two different colors
* craft glue
* scissors
* decorative stickers or gems (optional)

This idea came from the Middlesex Library's storytime, with a little embellishment from me. If your child is old enough to draw, have them draw an outline of their hands or feet; otherwise, draw an outline or your child's hands. The outline would be best on white paper but the choice is yours.

Then cut out the hands.

Let your child decorate the hands. They can use paint or crayons or markers - or a little bit of everything.

If you've decided to use some kind of decorative gems or stickers, help your child apply them to the hands.

If you used paint to decorate, wait until it dries. Then take glue and apply the hands to the second sheet of paper, which will be your background.

And you're done!