3 Kid-Approved Crafts for Non-Crafty Families

I am not a Crafty Mom.

Oh, I'd love to be one. I've tried to be one. My efforts, sadly, are in vain, and most of my attempted projects end in tears, explicit language, and/or blood. My house is littered with the ghosts of DIY projects that I have abandoned in frustration.

Honestly, DIY might as well stand for Don't Injure Yourself.

Unfortunately, my 6-year-old daughter takes after me. She also gets frustrated with crafts very quickly, especially if she runs into a difficult step early on. She's also a bit of a perfectionist, I think, and if her project doesn't turn out exactly like she pictured it would, she will often flee the room in a dramatic whirlwind.

Thankfully, she only gets like this over craft projects and having to wear underpants, so overall she's been a pretty easy kid thus far.

My friend Amanda is a Crafty Mom. Her Facebook newsfeed is constantly full of intricate, influencer-worthy DIY home projects perfectly executed, baking experiments worthy of French magazines, and themed kid-friendly crafts that she patiently explains to her utterly adorable grade-schooler.

...Amanda sounds like a nightmare to all of us who lack the Crafty gene, right?

Except Amanda is a completely normal human mom who lives on room-temperature coffee and adrenaline and loses her shit every now and then just like the rest of us hot messes. But what Amanda has that I lack is realistic expectations about her projects. She has a very deep understanding of her own strengths and weaknesses. She knows what will keep her kid's interest. She takes pride in her work and has the patience to see things through--even the things that don't come as naturally. Most importantly, bonding with her child and making sweet memories are the things that bring Amanda the most joy in life. This is why the projects she undertakes turn out so well.

So taking my cues from Amanda, I decided that there has got to be at least one crafty DIY thing that the Kid and I could complete together that wouldn't end in hurt feelings and slamming doors. And while I'm not crafty, I do have a few things going for me:

• I'm creative
• I'm lazy, which means I'm also pretty good at modifying things to make them as easy as possible
• I have a trusty pair of scissors that never lets me down

(Author’s note: These have been my go-to scissors for years. I've used them for a little of everything: opening Amazon deliveries, cutting school projects, stirring paint...they've even cut a fingernail or two from time to time. I’m not sure where they came from; I may have accidentally stolen them from a coworker’s desk or something. Doesn’t matter; they’re mine now, and they’re amazing.

...And that isn’t a shameless plug for the Fiskars company; it’s just a happy coincidence, I guess.)

Most importantly, having fun with my daughter brings me the most joy, too. Hanging out with her is everything; she's witty and imaginative, and she's ridiculously cool for a Kindergartener. But between work and school and activities and everything else that seems to come before family bonding time these days, we rarely get the chance to actually create together.

After a bit of quiet reflection and contemplation (read: Google search), I found some inspiration here and here. Over a rainy weekend in May, the Kid and I decided to tackle three simple craft projects, just to see if we could.

Guess what?! We did it!

Here's how.

Friendship Bracelets

The Kid is about to "graduate" from kindergarten because apparently, that's a thing in the 21st century (back in my day, it was a half-hearted 'good luck in first grade, kid' as they lit a cigarette and booted you out the Kindergarten classroom door on the last day), so she wanted to give all her classmates a parting gift. Her father suggested farts, but she ended up going with my suggestion of good old-fashioned friendship bracelets. I guess her farts are reserved just for us.

A few words of caution here: the cutting parts of this activity should be done by an adult, and the bead threading could get a bit difficult for tiny hands. Otherwise, this is a great way to have fun and practice knot-tying!

Homemade Soap

Once upon a time when we were young and kid-free, my husband and I went to a local fall festival and bought a bar of goat’s milk soap from a very friendly vendor. Turns out, this was the most amazing goat’s milk soap in the history of goat’s milk soap; it smelled like the earth, provided a rich and luxurious lather and left our skin pillowy-soft. It was everything that every soap commercial in history has promised but failed to deliver. This was the soap we would use for the rest of our lives.

Except we never got the name of the vendor.

I have searched for that soap (through some pretty impressive detective work, tbh) for a decade and have never found it or anything comparable. Finally last Christmas, I decided to try my hand at making it myself. I’m certainly not crafty, but I do know how to melt soap and pour it into a mold. It turned out okay; nothing even close to the original Holy Grail of Goat’s Milk Soap, but it was pleasant.

So the Kid and I decided to get a little fancy with it.

Also, it goes without saying that an adult should do all of the tasks here that involve heat. The Kid did all of the stirring and "ingredient" adding for this one.

One more thing! We both highly suggest the Etsy store where we got our fragrance oils. Her name is Cressida, and she has THE MOST true-to-description scents that I've ever smelled.

Yarn Kitties

My Nana was a crafty lady, and when I was a kid she was desperate to teach me how to knit and crochet. Since I could never figure it out (and usually fled the room in a dramatic whirlwind), the yarn kitties became our go-to project when Nana came for a visit. I loved making yarn kitties with my Nana; I amassed quite a collection, and each one was special and unique.

I know that there are probably much more structured and precise ways to make them, but I honestly couldn’t remember the specifics. I didn’t want to Google it and Nana has been dead for a decade, so I just sort of...made it up as we went. The most important part of this project is the yarn puff balls, after all.

Little hands came in handy (get it?!) here when making the small puff balls, and the Kid was able to make twice as many in half the time. I did all the cutting and tying, and we both had a blast with the silly eyes.

We actually made two kitties, but so far neither of them have names. I voted for Rags and Rich, but the Kid is leaning heavily on Bob Barker and Rod Roddy.