Category

6 + years
The kids and I found a cool how-to pop-up card book at the library. So this Father’s Day, we’re making animated fire breathing dragon cards for the grandpas! I drew a dragon out and the kids wrote on it, then tomorrow they’re going to color it in. Sweet! If you want to get in on the action,...
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My five year old daughter has recently discovered the fun of catapulting things with her spoon. To bring the action a bit further away from the table, I decided to make some very simple catapults out of scrap wood. After dinner we spent the entire evening catapulting Star Wars Lego figures outdoors. It was super...
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Happy spring everyone! Here is a new Easter coloring sheet! There are a couple more crafts below too, if you need more Easter activities. I hope you all have a great weekend! Click here or on the image below to print. More Easter crafts below! Make tumbling paper bunnies with printable template and two marbles!...
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My daughter has been doing a little stitching at school, so I asked her if she’d like to do some embroidery at home. (I’ve been meaning to do this with her for months.) She was very excited and wanted to get started right then. For this first project, I told her to stitch wherever she...
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I had so much fun making the Travel Sized Paper City Paris, and couldn’t wait to make more mini toys for on the go. I was getting ready to miniaturize the Dressy Cats, but decided that I was in the mood to create something a little different. So here are the Modern Mini Cats! (I’ll...
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I thought of this little circus unicycle rider awhile back. It’s easy to make, but requires pretty good motor control to wheel around, which is great for kids. If you want to try it out, watch the one minute video to see how to make them. There’s also a template below, but I encourage you...
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I’ve been getting requests for a printable Valentine’s Day project. And I thought it would be cool to make a card that was also a toy. So here are some funny little Valentine’s card creatures. There is a small flap on the back so you can write a secret Valentine’s note underneath. We’ve been having...
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Today it was decided that we needed more people for the dollhouse, so I got out some scrap wood and had the kids draw figures on the pieces. Then I took my woodburner and traced over their drawings and made some “doll blocks”. It was so fast and fun that I had to try making...
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Last night I got out my paper scraps and glue to make a collage gift card for my friend’s birthday party. (He loves Datsun 510 wagons.) And once my kids saw what I was doing, they wanted to join in, too. So I gave them a piece of paper and let them dig through my...
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My son is really enjoying dinosaurs these days, so in case you have any dino-fans around, I thought I’d share some of the activities we’ve been doing – paper clip cutout toys, building dino skeletons in the yard, a pretty awesome interactive dinosaur book on the iPad, and jurassic artwork. This first one is some...
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My kids love wrapping and decorating presents. So in preparation for the winter holidays, I thought it would be fun to make some gift tags that they could cut out or color. Happy wrapping! Click on the image below, then print.
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Come join a pretty great discussion, here on the Facebook Page, for some wonderful methods and ideas on teaching your kids to read. There are some really great comments coming in, and we’d love to hear any of your ideas, too. Happy reading!
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Voilà, Paper City Paris! I’ve been working on this for a very long time now and had so much fun creating it. My kids have been watching me draw and sketch for two months, and they’re now huge fans of the city. They kept asking me, “When are the buildings going to stand up, Daddy?”...
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I just created this coloring sheet for a wonder project, Community & Parents for Public Schools, a national organization with a portland chapter. They’ve been working to make schools better for over 10 years. Every year they hold an annual Parent Leadership & Engagement Conference ( Oct. 22nd, 2011) . This coloring sheet will be...
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Disney FamilyFun Magazine asked me to create a design for their Badges of Fun summer activity game. I did the road trip badge, which just came out in their August issue. Below is a printout for the interactive version of the badge. You can also add it to the rest of Paper City Road Trip...
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I came up with some simple modern dollhouse designs for my book, Made to Play. This is one design that didn’t make it in the book, so I thought I’d share it here. It’s very fast and easy to make. All you need is a board, (any length is fine) and two small strips of wood...
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I’ve made a couple of match games in the past, but now that my kids are getting a little older, I’m having to come up with slightly more difficult versions. Here is a doctor’s office theme, where you have to draw a line to connect the medical tools on the top row to their related...
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Here is a simple poetry river craft that I made for the newest Issue of LMNOP Magazine, which is all about books. We’ve been enjoying the book, A River of Words, which is a brilliant introduction to the poet William Carlos Williams. This book contains many of his wonderful poems and talks about beautiful things...
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I made a fireworks coloring sheet last night, in case you want to get in the mood for 4th of July! I haven’t had a chance to color it in yet, but it looks like it could be a tricky one. Click on the image below, then print.
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Many people have been asking me about crafts and activities for the beach, so I thought I’d do a little beach roundup post. Below are three crafts, as well as a couple of beach inspired coloring sheets. And we would love to hear about your favorite beach activities too, so feel free to share them...
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