I challenged myself last week to put together a craft project for 6 girls for my 7 year-old's b-day party using materials only from my artroom. I realize this room is already like a craft store in many ways, so it wasn't too challenging, just a matter of finding everything I have squirreled away. I hide a lot from the small people for gifts/surprises, but then of course, I can't find these items later. Or worse, forget I have them—like the 6 lockets, 8 key chains, 3 packs of shrinky-dink film, and unused rubber stamps I found all when I was looking around for the 6 packs of wooden coins I had bought about 2 years ago for another project.
I had a 1" paper punch on hand, the wood coins were 1 1/2", which was handy, because it meant the kids didn't have to worry about gluing the papers on perfectly. We came up with some fortunes ahead of time, I printed these out, then when the guests came they got to choose a little bag (sewn ahead of time), the fortunes they wanted, and decorative paper to punch and glue on the backs. My original fortunes were much more out there, but that was shot down. Then everyone got a glue stick and there was no problem sharing the one punch between the 6 kids. It worked out great. A little easier than the sketchbook project from the month before.
When they were finished, they used these two ways—either pulling them out of the bag direct, or laying them all out, face down, and turning one over. That's why it's a good idea to have all the back papers identical within each set. I'm sure I got the wood coins and punch at Jo-ann's or Michaels. Now that I am all out of coins, I might have to make a seasonal order over at Casey's, the mecca of woodcraft shapes and fun. That site makes me so happy. I get so many ideas clicking around over there.
