There are activities for all tastes and ages, from helping us with our own projects by delegating simple tasks to them to making their own photo albums (or drawings if we don't have any photos at home right now!).
Before starting, we want to warn you about the importance of adapting the following ideas and tips to your children's ages and capacities. If you let them use scissors, make sure they are safety scissors designed to be used by kids or, in case theyāre using ordinary scissors, please, only under adult supervision. Also, remember that itās better to avoid using small parts such as charmsĀ (especially if theyāre very young) and quick-drying glues to avoid their fingers to be sticked.
Amy Tangerine, the famous American scraper and designer, claims that she encourage her son since he was about four years old to do some scrap. She says that by doing so, her child sees the photosĀ in a hasty mannerĀ and not only on a computer or a mobile screen. In addition, this activity will allow us to share interests with our children and spend time together.
Amy Tangerine
Of course, scrap is something that develops our childrenās creativity and makes them express their feelings, stimulates their imagination,Ā favoursĀ their concentration without realizing it and develops their own personality. The problem-solving ability will be improved as well, as each new page they face is a challenge that they will try to solve in the best possible way.Ā
How to get ready and tips
- Prepare the workplace. Place on a table (if you are going to use inks or glue, you can cover it with an old tablecloth if you think that's necessary, so as not to spoil the surface) all the materials so that children know what are materials they have to work with.
- Inspire them. They may not know what to do first, so you should guide them and show them pictures from the Internet or your own projects.
- Don't force them. It may not be the right timing for them to start scrapping or to do a specific project. Wait until they feel inspired and they actually want to do it. Just think about how we feel when we start a new project, sometimes we feel overwhelmed, so they will too, especially if the activity is completely new to them.
- Make them pick up the space theyāre working in. The scrap is about organizing and having everything collected, from organizing moments and memories to the materials weāre working with. Give them a drawer so they can store their materials there and know where to look for them when they want to start other projects on their own.
How to scrap with kids
Oddly enough, scrap is an activity in which children can also participate. There are tons of different projects and different techniques you can choose to find the perfect for your children. They can do many things, from the simplest tasks with our help such as stamping to making their own albums. Now, weāre going to give you several ideas with different degrees of difficulty for your children to be entertained hours at home.
Help with our projects
This activity is aimed especially for the little ones or if we want to spend quality time with our children working in the same project. Itās also ideal for children to make their first little steps in this world and start little by little. If we ask them to help us with different tasks theyāll feel very useful, and theyāll love to be part of our activities. Some of the simplest things they can do are helping us to choose the papers, stamps and other materials for our project. The next ideas arenāt necessarily more complicated but require them to be a little bit more independent. One thing is sure, they will love all of them and we will be delighted with our little helpers :)
-Die-Cuts: kids love to use Sizzix. Just help them place the die in the right place, choose for them the right pads and let them do the rest. You will see how, from now on, theyāll always want to make your dies.
-Punch: actually these tools are one of their favourites. They will have fun making different shapes on different colours sheets and they will even make their own collages with the cut pieces.
-Enamel Dots: they will have fun making little droplets and we can even ask them to make small drawings with them, like little hearts.
-Another interesting option is to give them a blank card to make their own Mixed Media project and play with watercolours, inks, and different textures. We can insert the sheet in one of our projects or we can keep it for an exclusive project made by our kids. We can do anything on them, from the simplest things, such as painting with watercolours or stamping, to making a marble effect on our sheets, the difficulty of techniques will completely depend on the children age.
Gifts to their friends
During these days away from their friends without being able to see them, children can have a hard time. One way to ease this feeling a bit is to encourage them to do something to give to their friends when they see them again. From something as simple as a bookmark (weāre also encouraging them to read) to postcards or a beautiful snail mail. They can also create a box using chipboard and then decorating it and fill it with little treats that they friends might like (sweets or nice stationery, for example).
How to create our own games
This is a great idea, we have our children entertained while they "make" their own game and then while they play with it, which, besides, theyāll love to because itās their own creation.
-Tic Tac Toe: this game is a classic and it is very easy to do. Youāll only need a cardboard, a nice piece of paper, a bit of washi tape and some bottle caps, and we already have our own Tic Tac Toe.
Anita y su mundo
-Matching Game: something as simple as cutting some cardboard and decorating it a little with scrap paper or washitape (remember that all the cards must look alike on the back). We will make the drawings to match with stamps. Let the children choose the stamps they like the most and make them stamp the same stamp twice. And that's it, you have your own Matching Game.
Anita y su mundo
Sketch Album
Children love to paint and like scrap activities, painting and drawing has many benefits for them as it stimulates their creativity. Sometimes we don't let our children get down to work with watercolours for fear of the dirty staff, but these days at home can be a good opportunity to let our children do activities that they don't normally do, it takes them out of the routine and makes them have a good time while forgetting everything.
An ordinary notebook that we have at home can be turned into a drawing pad for them to make their own designs. Give them cardstock and materials to decorate the cover and let them make different tags to stick either on the cover or inside the pad. Invite them to paint with inks or watercolours the sheets of their new sketch notebook.
@lydiacastroguttierez.Ā Ā /Ā Ā @charityweaverling
Scrap Album
Making an album is the scraperās number one project. Well, children can also make them. We have prepared a selection for you that ranges from the simplest to the most complex.
- Decorate an album
You can prepare the album structure, which is the most complicated part for the little ones, and after guiding them a little about the steps they have to follow, let them create their own story with the photographs and materials they choose.
@me_gusta_crearĀ /Ā @paperstrencats
- Project Life
If we donāt have the time or we want our children to be independent with the project, we can prepare something similar to a Project Life. We have two options, either we can do a traditional Project Life and let the children choose the photos and decorate it or, if we do not have the materials at the moment, we can make one a little more rustic. We'll simply need some sheet protectors (the kind that we all have around the house to store our sheets in a filing cabinet), some cardboard and ornaments. With only these materials, our kids will make some very beautiful albums.
- Smash Book
If we have a blank notebook at home we can reuse it to make a Smash Book. We will simply provide the kids with the materials they need to start designing. In the Smash Book they can write, paste photos, decorations ... anything they can think of.
- An album made with paper bags or envelopes
As we have already said, the structure is the most complicated part for children to do, thatās why weāre giving you different ideas so that they can do it by themselves. This idea is very easy. With paper bags or envelopes that we have at home, we cut the sides and open them. In this simple way we've made the covers of our album. To make the inner sheets we can use the same technique or use normal sheets or scrapbook paper cut to the size of our covers. To bind and join all our sheets together, we can go back to the simplest option. Pass a loop or twine through two holes that we have made on the side of the spine.
Of course, you can modify any of these ideas and adapt them to your children, these are just a few ideas to inspire you in case you run out of ideas after so many days managing to keep your kids entertained.
Postcards and tags
If you don't want them to start with something as complicated as an album, a simple tag can be a much more accessible task. With a simple piece of cardboard you will see how they do real tag wonders.
If you want to keep it simple but to give it a twist, you can make original cards or postcards.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Martha StewartĀ /Ā Ā @anna_ilina_aralovec
As you can see scrapbooking is an activity accessible to everyone that offers infinite possibilities. We hope this ideas will help you to handle better this situation we're living due to coronavirus. Tell us what are you doing during this quarantine and what are your favourite activities to do at home with your children. And, if you and your children put in practice any of these ideas, we'll love to see them, so tag us in the photos :)
