kid crafts

I've been babysitting this summer to help earn my keep (aka money for grad school) and I like to do paper crafts with the kids. The other day we made paper cities, a craft inspired both by my brownstones book and by a craft in Esther K. Smith's Magic Books and Paper Toys. The kids had a really good time with it and got really creative!

Lindsey made this one. She colored the buildings and then made a road and little cut-out cars to go on it. Amazing!

This is a mini-city that I made.

You can see how small it is when compared to Little Matthew's normal-sized city here. Matthew didn't want to color his city, so we just made it really, really, really long. He seriously loves playing with it, folding it and un-folding it, shaping it into a circle to make a cage for his plastic tigers, etc.

With some of the paper scraps from Lindsey's cars we made letter books. (Books in the shape of the first letter of the kids' names, then on each page we wrote something that started with that letter that the kids came up with themselves. If your book was big enough you could maybe have them draw a picture, too.)

In classic, Lindsey form, she colored hers. I loved it.

This was Daniel's. My favorite part was the words he picked to go inside.
(see below)

Dexter? Really? Awesome.
Here you can also see how the book is structured. I made each book by folding 3 or 4 pages in half, then lining one side of the letter up against the fold. Next, staple them together on the fold, cut the letter out and violá! Instant letter book.

Here was Little Matthew's book. I really liked the shape of the M and also how the book still looks cool even with only 4 pages.

Earlier in the week we also made paper wallets, a craft Lindsey LOVED. (I wanted to take some pictures of her credit card that she made to go inside it but of course the wallet was MIA and is now probably lost forever.) You can find the tutorial online at Instructables.com (though I altered the pattern so you don't need any tape to make it). I made one of my own to use as packaging for a gift card present to make it less lame.