16
votes
Accepted
Is there a kid-safe carving material?
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 ...
- 1,334
10
votes
Accepted
Gluing pasta to paper?
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 /...
- 10.9k
8
votes
Accepted
Paint for kids' skin: what is suitable?
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 ...
- 1,334
8
votes
Accepted
What are some good car-crafts for long trips?
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 ...
- 4,899
7
votes
Accepted
Money clip rubber cement/hot glue?
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 ...
- 4,899
6
votes
Accepted
What materials can I use for faux stained glass?
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 ...
- 1,798
6
votes
Is there a kid-safe carving material?
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 ...
- 1,195
6
votes
What are some good car-crafts for long trips?
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 ...
- 161
5
votes
Accepted
Decorate the inside of a tube?
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 ...
- 10.9k
5
votes
Accepted
How to make the end of a kaleidoscope?
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 ...
- 2,936
5
votes
What materials can I use for faux stained glass?
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 ...
- 944
5
votes
What materials can I use for faux stained glass?
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 ...
- 603
4
votes
What materials can I use for faux stained glass?
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 ...
- 3,318
4
votes
Money clip rubber cement/hot glue?
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 ...
- 9,685
4
votes
Artificially accelerating the discolouration of leaves
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 ...
- 1,156
4
votes
What materials can I use for faux stained glass?
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 ...
- 91
4
votes
Accepted
What's the name of this specific style of craft ball?
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 ...
Elmy♦
- 8,535
4
votes
Types of paint safe for children to make handprints out of, on canvas
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 ...
- 603
4
votes
Accepted
Types of paint safe for children to make handprints out of, on canvas
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 ...
Elmy♦
- 8,535
3
votes
How to fix glass kaleidoscope inside cardboard tube
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.
...
- 1,961
3
votes
What materials can I use for faux stained glass?
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 ...
- 111
3
votes
Gluing pasta to paper?
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 ...
3
votes
Decorate the inside of a tube?
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 ...
- 231
2
votes
Is there a kid-safe carving material?
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 ...
- 10.9k
2
votes
Decorate the inside of a tube?
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 ...
- 4,899
2
votes
What materials can I use in a kids project to simulate simple cell biology?
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 ...
- 1,556
2
votes
What materials can I use in a kids project to simulate simple cell biology?
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 ...
- 6,193
2
votes
Money clip rubber cement/hot glue?
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 ...
- 2,536
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible