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If you are more interested in subtractive sculpting (removing material rather than adding it like clay), I spent my earliest sculpting days carving bars of Ivory soap. There may be softer brands, but you know Ivory soap is 99-44/100% pure <grin>. How to Make a Soap Carving A sharp knife is not necessary. Plastic knives, spoons, or Popsicle sticks could ...

In short Yellow carpenters/wood glue or white craft glue should both work fine for kids projects. I found yellow glue to be a little stronger. I think it is important to give the glue time to cure / dry. Following the instructions on the bottle would be important to ensure you are using the glue properly. When gluing macaroni make sure the entire surface,...

You can buy non-toxic "face paints" or "body paints" specifically made for this purpose. Product Search: Face Paint You can also make them yourself. Face paints (typically) are not a "type of paint" per se, but a mixture of food coloring or other non-toxic dye mixed with a base material to give it opacity. A lot of costume makers, face and body painters ...

Kits in general are good because they tend to be self-contained with all the materials, and tell you what else to bring - forgetting a key item is frustrating for everyone. There are various sewing craft kits, often using a plastic needle and pre-punched holes at least for younger ones. Faux stained glass kits are tidy but might need too much of a steady ...

I've glued strong magnets to various other things in an industrial context, and even fairly rigid substrates have a tendency to peal off the magnets. Hot glue is good if it sticks well to both surfaces, and it often doesn't stick very well to things like metal. It's easy to use too -- try it out on scrap materials and you'll be fine. A much better option ...

If you want to make something your kids could color with pencils, crayons, or maybe markers, get tracing paper and draw stained-glass designs on it with a black permanent marker. (If you do the coloring with markers, either wait several days between doing the black parts and coloring them in, or flip the tracing paper around: do the black "leading" on one ...

While the answer of Robert Cartaino is probably the best, I think that another alternative could be candle carving. Besides the loop tools proposed by @Matt, that are apparently also used to carve candles, I would consider using different types metallic spoons: Note that you can use both sides of the spoon, and although they are metallic, they are ...

For children in the range of 10 years old, Macrame can make a good time-killer in the car. I like it because: Supplies are generally cheap and not messy Crafts can take a long time, so a single craft can make time fly There are very basic knots to very complicated knots, so kids can grow at a skill For children as young as 4, you can try out origami. ...

Regardless of what you intend to decorate the inside of your tubes with, I think the solution is to apply the adhesive on the inside first and then decorate. I was looking at a way to get paint brush bristles angled at 90 degrees either via a kludge, like an elastic, or a commercial product but I had issues searching for "90 degree brush head". What little ...

What about those small plastic clear round takeaway restaurant containers? Image from AliExpress They are clear. Have a lid (also clear) Are wedge shaped (making it easier to insert into the end of the tube) With the lid accessed from the outside you could then change what's in the kaleidoscope. Or you could pre-make different containers with different ...

Depending on how realistic some people would like faux stained glass windows to be and what one's budget is, there are several solutions. One idea is to buy some clear plastic form any arts and crafts store or fabric store. With scissors, one can cut out the size of your desired false window pane. Then with a pencil one could measure out or trace the ...

The easiest way is to use old fashioned "transparancies" - thin clear plastic sheets that used to be ubiquitous in schools and universities a decade or two ago, used with tri-projectors. Use the ones that can be printed on using laser printers/copiers. Some printing shops still do them. Print or photocopy your outline onto the transparancy, then ...

When I was a kid, Elmer's glue came out with a colored glue product intended to create window clings, which had a pleasing stained-glass effect. While I'm not sure that the product is made anymore, as it's simply colored white (PVA) glue applied to a surface from which it can be peeled away (plastic sheet or wax paper), it's quite simple to make at home, if ...

I've also achieved a simple stained glass look with tissue paper glued onto something clear. Modge-Podge or elmer's glue your cut shapes onto glass, "transparency sheets" or even clear plastic bottles, then brush another coat or two over the top of the project. You can either glue black strips over the edges, or use a black permanent marker when completely ...

Those flexible sheet or strip magnets are made from magnetizable metal particles in a rubbery binder. The mixture is melted and extruded. After it's cooled down, it's magnetized. Since the leather and the magnets can both bend, the adhesive should be something that remains flexible, and bonds with both a porous material like leather, and the rubbery binder ...

Looks like it might have been a cat toy... I originally found it in this online shop: www.catsnus.com, but they're available in many shops. They even have a picture of a comparison of a regular, soft crafting pompom and their dense cat pompom.

If they wear clothes you don't mind ruining (good quality acrylic paint will not wash out of cloth completely, ever) and you supervise and help them wash off the paint afterward and put down a large drop cloth to protect carpet/wooden floors (tile is cleanable), or do it outside, student grade acrylics should be fine. At those ages they are unlikely to try ...

For this particular project the consistency of the paint is the most important. It must be a soft paste that sticks to the hand and to the canvas. If the paint is too thick, just add a drop of water at a time. If the paint is too liquid, you'll end up with splashes and incomplete handprints. With children that age you can use almost any type of paint, like: ...

The solution we used was unexpectedly simple, but not truly satisfactory: We placed short branches with leaves in the freezer and took them out just two hours later. To my surprise, they already started to change color. They didn’t develop the deep reds they would normally have, but had a distinctive reddish hue. I suppose repeated freezing/thawing cycles ...

If the size of the mirrors is such, that it's already (sort-of) tight fitting in the tube, then you don't need much force to keep things in place. You may consider a kneadable adhesive like blu-tack. An Internet search also leads to someone mentioning dimensional glue dots. Glue Dots are a name brand adhesive, sort of like stickers except the stickers are ...

When I was a kid, we would make a type of suncatcher using wax paper, crayons, random colored paper/fabric, dried flowers & leaves, and whatever else looked cool. We'd usually go outside a few days beforehand and look for cool leaves & flowers and then press them between the pages of a book until dry. Then we would lay down a towel. On top of that, ...

This might seem very odd... like very odd... but I tried doing the same thing, and how I got it to work was, glue and water solution.. like 80% glue and 20% water, then you apply it to one side of the pasta, you lay the paper flat onto the ground/table and then leave it to dry, as I live in a fairly hot country so it dried up pretty fast, but as impatient as ...

I bought a brush years ago that has a bend in the handle (about 45 degrees) that might work for toilet paper tubes (not long enough for paper towel tubes), but it'd be very, very difficult to use with any precision. I'd recommend one of two things: Use construction paper or other relatively stiff paper, and curl it up to place inside. You don't need to ...

Plasticine or molding clay would be a great material for something like this. They are not expensive and either would compliment nicely with the wood tools that Robert Cartaino suggests as well. If cared for properly you should be able to put it all away and use it again given that it is a forgiving medium (Assuming you don't want to keep the treasures!). ...

I've successfully painted the inside of tubes by pulling sponges through them on strings. Saturating the sponge with slightly thinned paint worked best for me, but I needed a matte black finish and it took several coats drying in between. It strikes me that a slightly oversized round piece of sponge with poster paint of different colours applied to it ...

You can use gelatin, just prepare it to be more durable. I would suggest using this recipe for Knox Blox from the Knox website, and just leave out the "fruit flavor jelly powder." Or search for DIY gummy bears--probably any of those recipes will work. If you use a recipe that calls for fruit juice as a flavoring, leave the juice out and replace it with ...

Gummy bears! Stronger than gelatin, yet "flexible" to handle the other requirements. Various colors for those willing to sort an entire bag. One heats the gummy bears in a double boiler to avoid burning them and when liquid, pours the goop into the mold. You could use plastic strip material taped into the desired shapes, perhaps held on the outside by ...

If your current system fails but you still have the parts, undo the stitching, re-glue the magnets and add a liner layer of fabric before re-stitching the outside of the leather. Then, you can do a second row of stitching just around the magnets, making it impossible for them to move as long as the liner layer is whole.