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When the weather starts to cool off, and the sun goes down before the children's bedtime, our thoughts turn to activities to keep them occupied. Crafts can be a fun way to spend an evening. Try some of the following for family fun:
Save your empty bleach bottles, and turn them into attractive covers for plain plant pots. Simply cut off the top (save the handle and top for a disposable funnel) and decorate the bottom using scraps of material, or construction paper.
Make a doll using an empty detergent bottle. Most have the same general shape as a doll. Decorate a styrofoam ball for the head, adding eyes, nose, lips, hair and maybe a hat, push the detergent cap into the head and screw on to the bottle. Make arms from pipcleaners and dress with material scraps.
How about making a bowling game? Save detergent bottles, rinse out, half fill with sand, and glue the lids on. arrange at the end of a hallway and you have a bowling alley.
For older children, they could try their hands at a mosaic from broken plates, cups etc. Use a small wooden picture frame with a heavy piece of cardboard on the back, and glue the broken pieces in place, fill the spaces in with grout and you have an attractive trivet, or cup rest.
Children usually enjoy making collages. Collect some dried leaves, and weeds, glue on a heavy piece of cardboard for an attractive collage. If you cover the collage with heavy contact paper, they make nice placemats.
If your children enjoy growing plants, have them plant a few herb seeds in a clay pot that has been decorated with water based paints. They can grow them in a window for winter color, and enjoy watching them grow as everything else turns brown and dies.
If your children are old enough to write neatly, or type, then have them copy favorite recipes and put them in a binder, or on 3 X 5 cards in a pretty box. They can either keep them for thier first home, or give them as a gift to someone they know.
With a little bit of imagination and effort you can keep your children amused and foster new skills this fall. Enjoy, and who knows you may discover a talent you never new you had.
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