Parenting Tips: Cheap Crafts You Can Do with Your Child

Anyone who has children knows how fun they can be. But they also know that it can take a lot of money to entertain your children. Just going to the movies with your kids can cost you thirty to forty dollars. But there are fun things that you can do with your kids that don't cost a lot of money. They're called crafts. Not naturally gifted with working with your hands? You don't have to be. Your children will have fun and that's all that matters. Here are three children's crafts that will help you get started.

Salt Dough
You can make just about anything with salt dough. Salt dough is basically inedible cookie dough. You make it by combining 4 cups of flour with 1 cup of salt. You will also need 1-1 ½ cup of water. You want to add the water slowly as to not make your dough to watery. Once you have your dough formed you can add food coloring to make different colors.

Flour the surface that you are going to work on. Then roll out the dough with a rolling pin. You kids can make pretty much anything they want to. You can make Christmas ornaments, napkin rings, magnets or anything your child can think of. Once you are done you can let your project air dry or you can bake it in the oven at 50- 70 degrees for about two hours. If you bake the dough on to high of a temperature the dough will burn just like it would with edible cookies. Trust me I know from experience.

Printable
If you do a Google search of any of your children's favorite movies or favorite children's characters you are sure to find a plethora of coloring pages that you can print out and color.

Homemade Goodie Bags
These are really cute and super fun to make and almost completely free. Next time you are at the grocery store ask for paper bags instead of plastic. When at home flatten out bags and draw the head of a rabbit. What you will be drawing will just be the ears and the top of the head. Start at the corner of the bag and draw a curved line in a downward slope. The make a small bump for the top of the head. Next you'll draw a curve line in an upward slope for the other ear. Draw eyes a mouth and whiskers and have your child color it in. Open the bag and fill with goodies.