Now That's Thrifty!

Sometimes it’s hard to find fun crafts for younger children. Making things out of shoe boxes can be easy. I’m going to talk about two different shoe box ideas that I made as a kid. These are easy crafts for kids to make that don’t cost very much money.

 

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Shoe Box House

The first craft is a house made out of a shoe box.

 

Materials:

• shoe box
• wax paper
• glue or glue stick or tape
• newspaper ads, catalogs, or magazines that show furniture
• scissors

 

Instructions

Follow these easy steps to create your shoe box house. You can help your child, but your kid should be able to do most of the craft on their own.

 

Step 1: Cut Out Furniture

Look through your newspaper ads, catalogs, and magazines to find pictures of furniture. Cut out different rooms of furniture. You will use these clippings inside the shoe box, so they can’t be taller than the height of your shoe box.

 

Step 2: Cut Shoe Box

Next, cut a large rectangular hole in the lid of the shoe box. This is going to allow light into the box.

 

Step 3: Attach Wax Paper

Cut a piece of wax paper that is bigger than the opening you cut into the shoe box lid. Glue or tape wax paper to the underside of lid. This will let light into your box.

 

Step 4: Cut Holes Into Box

Cut a small hole at the edge of the top of your box on both short sides. This will allow you to look inside your box even when the box is closed.

 

Step 5: Glue Pictures

Glue your pictures of furniture on the sides of the inside of your shoe box. You can also put rugs, carpet, or other flooring on the inside bottom.

If you would like, you can decorate the outside of the box.

 

Playing with Your Shoe Box House

When you peek inside the hole, you will be able to see half of the rooms. You will have to turn it around and look in the other hole to see the other half of the rooms.

 

Shoe Box Diorama

Another great craft for young children using a shoe box is to make a diorama.

For this craft, I’m going to make a beach scene. You could make something else if you didn’t want a beach scene.

 

Materials:

• shoe box (or any similar sized box)
• different colors of paper
• magazines if you want pictures for the background
• pipe cleaners
• Cheerios
• cotton balls
• glue
• tape
• scissors

 

Instructions

To make this diorama, you can use a lot of different materials. You can customize it to look however you would like.

 

Step 1: Cut the Box

You will not need the lid of your shoe box for this craft. First, you need to cut one of the long sides of your box off.

 

Step 2: Cut Out Paper

Depending on what kind of diorama you want to create, you will need to find paper to cover the inside of the box.

For mine, I used some scrapbook paper for the background and cut the rest out of colored paper.

Since I wanted it to look like a beach, I cut paper for the sand and water. I also cut out a picture of a cruise ship from a magazine to put in the background.

 

Step 3: Create 3D Objects

I decided to create palm trees since mine was a beach scene. A fun way to create palm trees is to make them out of Cheerios, pipe cleaners, and paper.

First, you take one end of a pipe cleaner and create a base. It should be big enough to keep your tree standing upright.

Next, you put Cheerios on the pipe cleaner to create the trunk. At the top, you will create another smaller loop.

For the leaves, you will cut leaves out of paper and glue them to the small loop on top.

 

Step 4: Attach Objects to Box

Glue the paper to the sides and bottom of the inside of the box. Then, attach other items you want in your diorama such as trees, animals, people, etc.

I glued some cotton balls to the background to create clouds. You can add whatever you like.

 

Playing with your diorama

You could create all sorts of scenes to play with. Use these scenes for any small toys or dolls.

 

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What are your favorite crafts for kids?

Comment down below any crafts for kids that you like to make.

 

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