Time spent inside on a rainy or cold day can quickly become very frustrating especially if you have bored children in the house. Fortunately there are a wide variety of crafts and activities that you can do with your children that are a guaranteed great time. If you’ve got both a willingness to try something new and some common food ingredients, you’re ready to go!
Heating Pad
What better way to banish cold, rainy weather than with a cozy heating pad? Heating pads are very easy to make and great for extra warmth or soothing sore muscles. In fact, if you know how to make a bean bag, you can certainly make a heating pad. You’ll need a sewing machine, some fabric, straight pins and dried beans or rice for filler. Sew the material, pattern side down, on 3 sides, assuming you’re making a square or rectangle, making sure that you leave a small opening for the filler. Turn the bag right side out and fill it about 2/3 full with dried beans or rice. Hand sew the opening closed. Give the bag a shake to make sure that you have not left any openings from which filler might escape. Next, microwave your bag to your desired temperature and enjoy it by placing it on tight muscles or underneath a blanket to keep you warm. NOTE: Times will vary depending on your microwave and the amount and type of filler that you used so start out with 15 seconds and then add more time,as needed, until your desired level of warmth is achieved.
In The Kitchen…Cookie Ingredient Jars, Play Dough, Finger Paints
Nothing warms the heart quite like homemade goodies. Turn some of your favorite recipes into fun, rainy day crafts. Layer the dry ingredients for your favorite cookie recipe into a jar and then decorate the lid; jar cookies make great gifts. Remember to include directions along with which wet ingredients are needed. You can also make play dough and finger paints using common ingredients such as pudding and flour.
Puppet Show With Flashlights
Since rainy nights can be spooky to begin with, why not take advantage of the darkness by putting on a puppet show by flashlight. First, make paper sack or sock puppets. Next, have the kids and adults take turns putting on a puppet show, using a flashlight as the spotlight on the puppet performers. Puppet shows by flashlight are an excellent way to turn crafts into family activities.
Paper Mache
Few things are as exciting as paper mache, a technique used to shape paper into three dimensional forms, using diluted glue, 1 part water to 2 parts glue, and newspaper cut into strips. Dip strips of newspaper into the paste and cover a blown up balloon with the strips. As you add newspaper layers you can shape the object into anything that you like; it doesn’t have to be round. You can even make a piñata that you can fill and take outside to break when the weather improves. Let the paste dry for at least 24 hours then pop the balloon and decorate it.
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