Easy Upcycled Craft Ideas for Children

I started crafting as a child - I was never happier than with a pile of colourful papers and some glitter! One thing I remember loving to do was collect lots of bits and pieces that would have been thrown away but were far too pretty or useful to do so. I collected all these to use for crafty purposes to use with the basics like glue and scissors to create tags, cards, pictures and decorations.

Of course at that time I didn't know I was upcycling; I'd never heard of the term until a few months ago! Now I know I'm upcycling and love to find ideas from around the internet. I think it's particularly great to get children involved to develop their imagination and creativity.

I still collect bits and pieces and here I'll share these with you as well as some ideas about what to collect and how children can use them.

Obviously children should have adult supervision when doing these activities. Make sure all found objects are suitable; don't let young children use anything with small pieces; supervise use of scissors and adhesives.

My upcycling craft box!

 

Ideas of items to collect

Things I collect:

• used birthday and other cards and tags
• foil sweet wrappers
• decorative panels from boxes - eg, from cakes, toiletries, chocolates
• ribbons from gifts and clothes
• used postage stamps
• interesting images from magazines and old books
• empty boxes 
• inside of used kitchen and toilet rolls

A couple of craft ideas from me

Use plain pieces of card to make gift tags. Cut them to shape and punch a hole in the top then decorate it with whatever you have on hand. On this one I used a strip of flowery card from an empty tissue box and foil from a sweet wrapper. The ribbon had been wrapped around a gift I'd received.

Let children make their own party invites. I used a new piece of card as the base then used sweet wrapper and pieces of card from old birthday cards to create a little boat. Be creative deciding which picture to include - something that would match the party or a favourite animal maybe. Just write the details of date, time and place on the back. 

Of course, crafting offers lots of possibilities to be creative so encourage your children to try lots of different ideas! By having a selection of objects it lets the imagination develop as you have to think of new uses for them and also to plan and gain a sense of achievement at the end.

For some other ideas take at look at my Pinterest boards:

Pink Flamingo Handcrafting's board - Upcycle Recycle Repurpose

Pink Flamingo Handcrafting's board - Children's Inspirations