Kitchen Crafts To Do With Your Kids

After a long day in the classroom, what could be more fun for kids than getting crafty? Here are 10 creative ways to keep them occupied once they've finished their after-school snacks. So turn off the TV and get your kids into the kitchen for a couple of hours of crafting—you'll find all the supplies are already on hand.

Click here for 10 easy, inexpensive craft ideas to make with items you already have in your kitchen!

All of these crafts use ingredients, objects, and tools that we bet you already have in your kitchen pantry, like paper plates, egg cartons, and corks — which means they're inexpensive and won't require a run to the craft store. They're also all easy enough for little hands to do. With only a bit of prep help from an adult, your kids will have an afternoon's worth of entertainment and imaginative play.

Not only do these crafts promise hours of fun, but many of them are also educational, especially for younger children who are strengthening their motor skills and learning colors, numbers, and patterns — not to mention developing a sense of creativity.

Help build up your children's fine motor skills with cutting, stamping, and painting crafts, as with homemade stamps made from old wine bottle corks you have lying around, or with place cards made from cookie cutters and cinnamon dough. Or spur your children's imaginations by using paper plates or egg cartons to turn them into birds, bears, foxes, and crocodiles. Teach them their colors with brightly hued dried pasta and homemade Play-Doh.

And the best part of all? These crafts are so cute that you'll actually be excited for your kids to wear their finished products and to hang up their bigger masterpieces... and you might even be inspired to join in the crafting fun yourself.

Open up your kitchen cupboards and get started on these frame-worthy crafts!