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...Continue Reading
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!...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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.Continue Reading
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!Continue Reading
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?”...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
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.Continue Reading
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...Continue Reading
Here are the Duck and Goat coloring sheets that go along with the chicken! Also, many of you have have been turning Made by Joel coloring sheets into wonderful embroidery stitchings. I’d love to do a post to display them. So if you’d like to contribute, send me a photo of your stitching to joel...Continue Reading
