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(The Best Ideas For Kids) Fun, Easy, and FREE Crafts – with Kimberly McLeod

    If you want to make fun craft projects without breaking your pocketbook, tune in to today’s episode to learn how to do affordable (most of them are free!) craft projects with items you already have lying around your home!

    I have my good friend Kimberly McLeod on the show today. She is the author of a gorgeous, must-have book called Fun and Easy Crafting with Recycled Materials. She is also the creator of a super popular website Best Ideas for Kids. With over 2 million followers on social media and a feature in the Woman’s World Magazine, Kimberly is an authority on all things crafts.

    Tune in today to hear all about her favorite craft materials, storage tricks, and ideas to use recycled materials both inside and outside!

    How Kim Became the Crafts Master She Is Today

    Kim is a marketing graduate. She worked for a consumer products company and was involved in social media marketing in the corporate world.

    After her first son was born, she was off on maternity leave. Spending all the day with the baby, she soon started looking for something to do for herself too. She discovered Pinterest and was inspired by all the amazing things you could make.

    Soon she started coming up with her own ideas and sharing them on Pinterest. The rest is history. Her channel grew and she soon rebranded it to just focus on ideas for kids. 

    Last year she published a book with a focus on recycled materials. Today she enjoys her work because it’s fun, versatile, she gets to connect with moms and teachers all over the world, plus, she gets to spend time with her kids at home!

    For her, one of the biggest blessings of the work that she does is the fact that her kids get to participate. When she thinks of an idea, they test it out and make it together. It’s a fun job and Kim describes it as a dream come true. 

    Look Around the House: A List of Kim’s Favorite Materials

    Kim is convinced there’s a ton of materials just lying around your home you could use for crafts right now. One of the most versatile ones is cardboard. 

    With all the delivery boxes these days, we have an unending supply of cardboard. Kim advises saving the boxes and cut them into pieces. But, you could also save the whole box and use it as a fort, for example!

    Cardboard can be used to make different kinds of puzzles or memory games. You can make ornaments and all kinds of fun things. Cardboard is Kim’s favorite material.

    She also likes paper rolls. You can cut them into different sizes, make different characters out of them, turn them into pencil organizers or even stamps for painting.

    Egg cartons are also super fun to create characters out of. Kim also likes to paint with bubble wrap to achieve a fun new texture. 

    In the summer, you can save popsicle sticks and use them for any number of things. Kim also likes to save plastic that comes from packages. That can be used for laminating things or turned into suncatchers. 

    There’s also brown paper bags, rubber bands, bottles, jars… 

    Kim also loves scrap paper and newspapers. Whenever you’re cutting something and have paper leftover, save it and use it for mosaic and other types of art. 

    You could also take bottle caps and use them as sensory bins. You can also put them in ice trays and have kids melt them out. They can also be sorted by color as a fun game.

    Favorite Outdoor Materials

    Rocks are great and versatile. From rock painting to creating different art mosaics, kids can spend a whole day playing with rocks.

    Kim also likes sticks and leaves as art crafts, but flowers are her favorite. You can paint with flowers or press and preserve them for beautiful scrapbooks. 

    There’s also snow painting and making your own spray snow paint!

    Pine cones are another versatile material that can be used to make characters. You can also turn pine cones into flowers, by painting them in a certain way. Kim and her kids made a pine cone wreath for Christmas which was amazingly beautiful. In general, you can use pine cones to make pretty much anything!

    Storage Tips and Tricks

    Because there’s such a wide variety of recycled materials, I wanted to get Kim’s best tips and tricks for storage. She advises breaking down cardboard, keeping it flat, and storing it behind the closets or under the bed. 

    Bottle caps can be stored in Ziploc bags, egg cartons can be stacked on top of each other. 

    Recycled jars can be used as storage for other materials, like popsicle sticks for example. 

    Probably the simplest tip is to get big Tupperware bins and organize your materials with them. Just make sure to label everything clearly! That way, you can stack up bins on top of each other, but you’ll always know which is which. Kim believes labeling is the best way to go when organizing her materials.

    Which Paint to Use?

    In a school setting, you would probably want washable paint. It’s easier to clean and much more kid-friendly, especially with younger preschoolers. Crayola is usually the best in school settings and you can also buy bulk washable paint.

    At home, Kim prefers non-toxic acrylic paint because it has better coverage than washable paint. It gives kids a faster path to amazing results and it looks great painted on just about anything (pine cones!). 

    The best thing about recycled materials is that you don’t even need to have an end goal in mind. When using them with kids, you can just rely on them to pick and choose what textures and shapes they want to create something with. It’s a great set of diverse materials that can inspire and engage kids like nothing else. Plus – they’re free!

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