It’s been raining for a week and the kids and bored and restless. How do you cure those rainy day blahs? Try some of these parent tested and kid approved ideas and your children will be hoping for another rainy day when the sun finally peaks through.

1. Share a book. Pick an action packed, funny book and take turns reading aloud. Some great choices are My Brother Louis Measures Worms : And Other Louis Stories by Barbara Robinson, The Great Brain by John Fitzgerald or Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parrish. For more great reads, check with your local library. Your librarian should have reading lists available.

2. Put on a play. Your children can write their own play and act it out or make paper bag puppets for additional fun. A great book for quick and easy skit ideas is The Skit Book: 101 Skits from Kids by Margaret Read MacDonald.

3. Go on an indoor picnic. Put out a blanket and pack a basket full of goodies. For a quick but special picnic lunch, jazz up ordinary sandwiches with cookie cutters in animal shapes.

4. Hold rainy day Olympics. Make the events things that can be done in the house, such as standing on one leg or seeing who can make his bed the fastest. Give the winners chocolate coins instead of medals.

5. Learn a new craft or hobby. Check your local library for instructional videos that will tell you how to knit, crochet or paint and buy enough supplies for everyone to give it a try. If you decide to learn to knit or crochet, your children can make scarves or blankets to donate to a local shelter.

6. Hold a fancy dress party. Put together a trunk of old cocktail dresses, suits, fancy hats, and costume jewelry. Have everyone dress up and give prizes for the most creative and fancy costumes.

7. Go on safari. Make an indoor tent by draping a blanket over a table or several chairs. Serve trail mix as a snack and provide binoculars for hunting wild animals. Then pull up a cushion and read Maurice Sendek’s Where the Wild Things Are or play a video or DVD about wild baby animals.

8. Get ready for a yard sale. Work with your children to clean out the attic, garage and bedrooms. Clean and price all the items and box them up by category so that you can quickly set up your sale on the next sunny weekend.

9. Have an indoor market. Buy snacks, activities, and other inexpensive items and set up a store table for each child. Provide market baskets and spare change so they can buy from each other and make sure you stop by the shops, too. For additional fun, let them keep their profits to restock their shops for the next rainy day.

10. Make portrait cookies. Buy a sugar cookie mix, a gingerbread cookie cutter, colored icing and sprinkles. Roll out the sugar cookies and help the kids cut out their people and then let them decorate the gingerbread men to look like themselves, friends and family. For additional fun, find dog or cat cookie cutters so your children can include the family pet.

About the Author
Katelyn Thomas is the editor of Cecil Child, an online parenting magazine filled with parenting articles and kids’ stories and games, as well as local resources for Cecil County residents. Visit Cecil Child at http://cecilchild.com for more family fun.

There are many things around the house that you wouldn’t think of as crafty. There are also several things you can buy. You should always keep a few “staples” on hand to help you in your various art projects with your toddler.

• crayons
• kids scissors
• glue
• paint
• markers
• construction paper

When you are going about your normal everyday life, think about items that you are throwing away and consider if you could save it to use for crafts. Good items to save are toilet paper and paper towel rolls, empty metal cans, and boxes that your dried foods, like cereal and instant mashed potatoes come in.

The toilet paper and paper towel rolls can be used to make various things your child can play with including “people”. Your toddler can color the entire roll, with your help cover it in construction paper, or just leave it as it comes. They can draw eyes and clothes on it. With your help and a little yarn they could glue “hair to the top of it. They can also decorate the outside of the roll, you can help them glue paper on the ends and put some rice or beads inside that they can then shake, creating their own little noise maker. For some reason it is always the toys that make noise that kids love.

Once you clean them out and remove any sharp edges, you can teach your child how to make an old “phone” with two empty cans and a string. You can also let your child decorate cans, buy some soil and seeds for them and let them plant their own plants. This is a good gift idea for holidays to relatives and friends from your child as well.

You can take empty boxes, and let your toddler decorate them, help them write their name on them and use them as storage for the various supplies you have bought and keep on hand for their crafts. Having their own special place to keep their supplies, that THEY made themselves, may encourage even the shyest of toddler into doing crafts with you.

One last idea is to get some paint sticks like the ones they give you at Home Depot or Walmart when you buy paint that helps you mix it up at home, and some narrow crepe paper. If you can’t find the narrow you can always buy the wider ones and cut them in half. 1-2 inches wide is perfect. You can help your toddler glue one end of crepe paper about 2-3 feet long onto one end of the stick. Your toddler will love this craft as they can run around, holding the opposite end of the stick, and the crepe paper will fly behind them in the air.

Don’t forget about finger painting for your toddler! It is easy and quick and can often be a sanity saver when you are busy cleaning the house or doing other chores. Unlike when we were kids, they now have easily washable paints for finger painting and crafts.

Making your own wrapping paper is a fun activity that children or adults can do. With some creativity you can create gift wrap that is unique and different – everyone will know the gift is from you!

When making gift wrap with children you will probably want to use either craft white paper or craft brown paper (like the grocery bags). You could even use the inside of a grocery bag if the gift is small enough.

At several points depending on your child’s age – they may need help. If your child is not ready to cut with scissors, then manage all of the scissor work and let them have fun gluing everything. Remember to select non-toxic materials. Consider all art materials toxic unless they say they are non-toxic.

Stamping Shapes Paper: To make this you can use either sponges or potatoes. The ease with potatoes is they give children (and adults) a “handle” to hold onto. Sponges are a little harder to hold onto once they get wet, and your designs may not get as clean and clear results.

Use tempura or acrylic paint. Be sure with children to use non-toxic paint. Remember with art materials that if they do not say they are non-toxic, chances are they are toxic – so be aware and stay safe.

Select your paint colors and cut simple designs in your potatoes or sponges. Great shapes include stars, hearts, arrows, lightning bolts, circles, triangles, letters, numbers and smiley faces. Help your children cut the designs depending on their age level.

Lay the paper flat on a dry and protected surface and stamp away with your potatoes or sponges! Remember to put your design all over the paper so that it shows all over your gift, not just one area of the paper. Let it dry overnight before wrapping gifts.

Names or Shapes Paper: To make this paper you will need several sheets of fluorescent paper (8 ½ x 11”) is fine. You will also need glue sticks and scissors.

Select a name or a shape that you wish to do for your paper. Think about the size of your gift, is it big? Is your gift small? If your gift is big, then your letters or shapes can be bigger. If your gift is small then your letters or shapes need to be smaller.

If you are giving a birthday gift it could be fun to write the birthday child’s name. If it is a gift for Mom then you could write Mom. Or consider writing a short message like “Happy Birthday” if you have enough room.

Write boxy letters or cut out shapes and glue them onto the paper. Write the name and glue it onto the paper several times. Allow it to dry overnight. Then wrap gift.

Picture Paper:
To make this paper you will need magazines or newspapers. Catalogs such a flower catalogs or children’s catalogs are also good. Comic books are good for this also. You will need scissors and glue stick.

Select a theme for your paper. Are you going to cut out pictures of animals? Cartoon characters? Flowers? Home images? Or are you going to cut out words? Find the images and cut them out. Glue them onto the paper. Allow it to dry and then wrap your gift.

Special Message Paper:
This is good for most children of any age. First select how large the gift will be and cut the gift paper to size.

Select markers or crayons. You are going to write a special message to the friend or loved one to wish them a Happy Birthday or other good wishes. Help your child select their message.

Write the message on the paper. Now write the message again in other line with a different color marker or crayon. Continue until the paper is full. You can use medium to large handwriting – actually any size handwriting is fine. Just continue until the paper is completely filled. Let this paper dry before wrapping the gift.

When you give the gift remind the birthday child they need to read the Special Message on the wrapping paper.

Feminine Doily Paper:
This is a cute gift wrapping paper for a girl’s gift. This is also an easy project to do with even most young children because it only involves glue sticks.

To make this paper you will need paper doilies, either white or metallic (your choice). This project works best with the small doilies. You will also need a glue stick.

Glue the doilies onto the paper. Glue them in an even pattern all over the paper. The doilies will give the gift wrapping a feminine look. Once the doilies are dried, wrap the gift.

There are many other ideas for gift wrap that are in your home and right in front of your nose. Just use your imagination and you will find many other ideas to use with your children. Happy wrapping!

About The Author
Abigail Beal © 2004 Abigail Beal a.k.a. “the Gift-wrap Goddess” teaches gift wrap in suburban New York. She is the author of 2 ezines: GiftWrapGoddessWraps and CreativeCraftsTeachers. To subscribe: groups.yahoo.com/group/CreativeCraftsTeachers/ groups.yahoocom/group/GiftWrapGoddessWraps/ contact: creativecraftsteachers@yahoo.com or giftwrapgoddess@yahoo.com

Chances are at the holidays you’ve been tempted to make holiday wrapping paper. But you may have heard too many stories about needing to use potatoes and tempura paint that bring you back to your grade school days. Have no fear – you do have options! Here are some suggestions to get your creative juices flowing.

Okay this one does involve a potato….. but it’s good:

For this one you need to get some supplies. Yes you do need a potato. I prefer using a potato for stamping rather than a sponge because the potato gives you something to hold onto, and more importantly you can create your own customized look. So keep in mind that if you find a rubber stamp you fall in love with – the potato is optional.

You will need: acrylic paint in one or two colors, metallic pens in one or two colors, paper (can use traditional butcher block paper, white craft paper, or fancy paper from the art store).

In terms of paper – think of the background color you would like to have. Your local art store will often carry many beautiful colors of handmade gift paper. Select a paper that has a porous and fiber-y texture to it – you want to be sure that the paint soaks into the paper. If you select a paper that has a shiny side to it, the paint will not set well.

Think of the design you would like to do. For this gift wrapping paper design you are going to stamp a design with your potato and then embellish it and add some writing to the paper. A good choice for Valentine’s Day would be to cut a heart stamp in your potato and then to write the word “love” or “I love you” on different parts of your paper. Or you could write a special message to the person you are giving the gift to. You could embellish the hearts with little arrows.

Good designs for your potato could be hearts, stars, lightning bolts, letters, numbers, arrows and basic shapes. Stamp your gift wrapping paper first with your acrylic paint and then allow this to dry for at least three hours.

Once the paper is dry then return to add your embellishments with your metallic pens.

Special Memories Paper:
For this paper you will use photographs that you like and visit your local copy center that does color copies.

Before you go to the copy center, think if you want to include any special messages on this paper. Such as wishing the person you are giving the gift a “Happy Birthday” or wishing your mother “Happy Mother’s Day”. If you would like to do so, then type these messages out on a word document – select a basic typeface such as Times New Roman but italicize it and enlarge it to 18 or even 24 points. See how large you like the typeface. Bring a number of copies of this message with you, and a glue stick.

Lay your photographs out on the largest paper they have. This is usually a tabloid size of paper 11” x 17”. Scatter your photographs, do not center them on any one part of the paper – remember that your gift will cover most of the paper. Once you have scattered your photos, add your special message to the gift wrapping paper.

Depending on how large your gift is, you may need to ask for several sheets of this paper. You may also choose to use larger photographs, or ask the clerk at the copy center to enlarge your photographs when they make the color copies. Also ask if they can make you a copy that is really shrunken down so that you can use this for the gift card.

S-E-C-R-E-T M-E-S-S-A-G-E P-A-P-E-R:
This paper is good for a humorous occasion. Probably not the best choice for a wedding gift, then again I’m not invited so what do I know?

We’ve all seen those movies where characters get a spooky ransom note made out of cut out magazines and newspapers. Why not create a special birthday wish or holiday greeting to a friend or a loved one? It will be something different and this is great for someone you have traded nicknames with and share a lot of jokes with.

Select newspapers and magazines. Tabloids are great because their letters are very large and clear. Magazines are nice too because they often use artistic looking typefaces, and this can add some variety to your message.

You will be doing this on 11” x 17” paper, so visit your local copy center and pick up several sheets of this paper. You will need this first to begin the project.

Now choose your message. Go through your newspapers and magazines and obtain the letters. Keep them in a pile.

Once you have your letters, line them up as you wish them to appear on the paper. Remember to space them out so they cover a lot of the paper and not just the middle. Use your glue stick and glue them down.

After your message is glued down, return to the copy shop and have them run your masterpiece off on the copy Xerox (if you did the other project they already know what you are up to….). Have them make you several sheets if your gift is big. Then have them make you a sheet that is very shrunken down for the gift card. As small as possible.

Leaf Rubbings Paper:
Do you remember grade school? Did you like it? One of the things I liked was doing leaf rubbings. We would pick up leaves and bring them inside and put them under pieces of paper, rubbing crayons over the paper to get an impression of the leaf.

Okay, stroll down memory lane over. I was just beginning to remember what the lunch room smelled like……

For this project that is exactly what you are going to do. Select some leaves. Get a box of crayons. I would suggest buying a box of crayons with a wide variety of colors because the more variety of colors you have in front of you, the more colorful your paper can be. Once you get started you may want to create several sheets of this paper. You will also probably want to test this technique so that you fully understand how it works on a small piece of paper and then do it on your gift wrap paper (just the way the hair dye companies remind us to do a test strip…..).

A good leaf tip: Select leaves that have good “skeletons” – that have stems and all sorts of edges to them. It will give your crayons more edges to pick up on. Small wide leaves won’t give much of an impression. But also try to select a variety of leaves. Take a nice walk through your community, picking up leaves on the way. You will be surprised by how many leaves are actually available.

Do this also one leaf at a time. Put the leaf under the paper and take your crayon and peel your crayon completely and break it in half. Then put the crayon wide side down on the paper, rubbing side to side while exerting pressure onto it. You will quickly see how much pressure it takes to get a good impression of the leaf.

There may be other items that you can use for this project. What else leaves an impression? You can do office items like paper clips – paper clips come in a number of shapes and sizes.

Well, these are just some ideas for your inspiration. As you can see, gift wrapping ideas are often right at your fingertips. You can create gift wrap out of something that is probably right in your home, office or backyard! Happy wrapping!

About The Author
Abigail Beal is the author of two zines Creative Crafts Teacher – for crafts teachers and Gift Wrap Goddess Wraps – all about gift wrap. To subscribe: groups.yahoocom/group/GiftWrapGoddessWraps/ or groups.yahoo.com/group/CreativeCraftsTeachers/. giftwrapgoddess@yahoo.com