These crafting tips and tricks will save you time and money. Not only that, we will also help add longevity to your crafting supplies.
With these hints you will also have less mess and a much easier clean up!
Crafting with children is a great hobby to start with them at a very young age. It is much more beneficial than television or video games.
Here are some great craft tips and tricks when crafting with little ones.
Crafting Tips to Save Time & Money
- Keep trash you can re-use for crafts, like toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, tin cans, bubble wrap. If you can think of a craft to do, keep it! Even if you cannot still keep it. I have lost count of the number of times I have binned something and had to go into my recycle bin to get it out. If you see how many cool toilet paper roll crafts I have you will never through another one of these out again.
- You can sharpen dull scissors by simply cutting some sand paper.
- Buy bulk crafting kits with a variety of supplies so you always have tons of stuff on hand for spur of the moment ideas. This is also cheaper than individually buying supplies.
- Use old clothes as painting smocks. All you need to do is cut down the center of the back to make a smock. Great clothes to use for this are mom or dad’s old t-shirts. If you don’t want to cut the clothes up just use some old button up dress shirts.
- Shop online and in bulk to save on the cost of crafting supplies. See our recommended craft supplies for kids
Tips to Add Longevity to Your Supplies
- Add some petroleum jelly around the edges of your glue containers to stop them from gluing themselves shut.
- Keep your glue from drying out by squeezing all the air out before closing and storing.
Tips When Crafting
- When using hot glue, avoid the stringy mess it causes by storing the glue sticks in the freezer prior to using them.
- Store your markers horizontally, this way the ink will not fall to the tip and cause blotting and smudging.
- Have a plan and instructions, but allow for individual creativity too!
- When working with pine cones, first bake them for 1 hour at 200 degrees to kill any bugs or mites, as well as dry out the sap.
Tips to Ensure Less Mess & Easy Clean Up
- Before cleaning paint brushes let them soak in some hair conditioner, this will make for easier cleaning and softer brushes.
- Save a mess by wrapping the work area in plastic wrap.
- Keep baby wipes near by for quick clean up.
Tricks for Fixing Uh-Oh’s and Ooop’s
- You can remove crayon stains with a bit of WD-40 or baby oil – from clothes, walls, doors, tables, etc.
Become an Organized Crafter
- Organize small craft supplies with baby food jars and pickle jars.
- Add dates on creations, this way you know when your keepsakes were made. You can also take pictures and upload those to your computer and store the images on a CD so you can keep them forever!
Enjoy some of Our Crafts!
These are just some of the many, MANY tips when crafting. You usually make a mistake or a mess once and find a way to avoid it every again!
I will say I’ve only even spilt a tin of sparkles once – not an easy mess to clean, there are STILL sparkles everywhere!
Do you have any Crafting Tips and Tricks to share?
Hi there, I’m Laura an avid kids crafter with two little ones of my own to keep entertained! I have been doing kids crafts since 2018! Here at Easy Crafts for Kids you can find seasonal crafts for all age groups, as well as drawing tutorials, coloring pages and some other fun printables!