25 Indoor Arts & Crafts Projects for Kids - 100 Things With Kids (2024)

Here are 25 easy-to-implement indoor arts and crafts projects for kids.

1. Make Cardboard Box Creations

What You’ll Need:

• Assorted cardboard boxes
• Crayons, markers, chalk, and/or colored pencils
• Scissors

Make it Happen:

1. Use scissors to cut doors, windows, etc.
2. Use markers and/or crayons to decorate.
3. Play with the creations for hours!

Other Thoughts: Large boxes make great rocket ships, airplanes, and puppet theaters. Smaller boxes can easily be turned into houses or music instruments.

2. Finger Painting

What You’ll Need:

• Finger paints
• Construction paper
• Newspaper or plastic tablecloth
• Cleaning supplies (wipes, paper towels, washcloths, cleaning spray, etc.)
• Smocks (old t-shirts work great)

Make it Happen:

1. Put kids in smocks.
2. Lay newspaper or plastic tablecloth on table.
3. Get cleaning supplies ready for post painting clean-up.
4. Add globs of finger paint to the construction paper.
5. Let kids free paint.

Other Thoughts: When we did this activity I had Andy paint with baby food to avoid the “don’t let the baby eat the paint” battle.

3. Make a Homemade Card for a Soldier

What You’ll Need:

• Construction paper
• Glitter
• Crayons, markers, chalk, and/or colored pencils
• Stickers
• Etc.

Make it Happen:

1. Use art supplies to create a thank you card for a soldier.
2. A Million Thanks is an organization that collects messages of appreciation and distributes them to our military, past and present.

Other Thoughts: The best part about this project?Your child can have fun and be doing something nice for someone else.

Supplemental Resources: Visit A Million Thanks here:

Send a Letter – A Million Thanks

4. Learn to Draw

What You’ll Need:

• Printer paper
• Pencils
• Crayons, markers, chalk, and/or colored pencils
• How to draw book with step-by-step directions or how to draw videos on YouTube

Make it Happen:

1. Follow the directions in your book/video. Be prepared to encourage through any “my drawing doesn’t look as good as the one in the video” frustrations.

Supplemental Resources:

5. Write a Book Together

What You’ll Need:

• 4-8 pieces of printer paper
• Pencils
• Crayons, markers, chalk, and/or colored pencils

Make it Happen:

1. Make sure printer paper is in an even stack.
2. Fold stack of paper in half.
3. Staple at spine.
4. Let children create their own stories. Offer assistance as needed.

Other Thoughts: If your children aren’t yet fluent writers, have them tell the story while you write. Then they can illustrate.

6. Have a Color-a-Thon

What You’ll Need:

• Printer paper
• Crayons, markers, chalk, and/or colored pencils

Make it Happen:

1. Supply kids with supplies and let their creativity run rampant.

Other Thoughts: Be sure to always buy washable, and I always recommend that you go with Crayola.

7. Playdough!

What You’ll Need:

• Store-bought or homemade playdough
• Cookie cutters
• Rolling pins
• Playdough scissors
• Etc.

Make it Happen:

1. Set up playdough on a hard surface; the kitchen table works perfectly.
2. Let children create.

Other Thoughts: Do this activity in a room with no rugs or carpeting, if possible.

Home Made Playdough Recipe:

1. Combine 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup salt, and 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar (find it in the spice aisle) to a medium saucepan.
2. Mix in 1 cup water, 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, and a few drops of food coloring.
3. Heat over low heat until mixture just stats to thicken (about a minute).
4. Remove from heat and continue to stir until mixture comes together like playdough.
5. Allow to cool completely before children play.

8. Make a Magazine Collage

What You’ll Need:

• Old magazines
• Scissors
• Construction paper
• Glue

Make it Happen:

1. Use the scissors to cut a bunch of pictures out of your old magazines.
2. Glue the pictures onto the construction paper to create a work of art.

9. Make Your Own Puffy Paint

What You’ll Need:

• Shaving cream
• Elmer’s school glue
• Construction paper(dark colors work best for this project)
• Paint brush

Make it Happen:

1. Mix equal parts shaving cream and Elmer’s school glue.
2. Paint on construction paper

Other Thoughts: The perfect paint for clouds, snowmen, or anything else that you can imagine. When it dries the texture is really cool. If you want to get really creative, you can mix small amounts of the puffy paint with different colors of tempera paint for variety.

10. Make a Noodle Necklace

What You’ll Need:

• Yarn
• Noodles (Penne, Rigatoni, Rotelle, and Ziti noodles tend to work best)

Make it Happen:

1. Cut yarn into 1 1/2′ – 2′ long segment.
2. Tie a noodle onto one end (so that the other noodles don’t fall off).
3. String noodles onto yarn.
4. Tie the string to create a necklace.

Other Thoughts: To turn this into an educational activity, encourage kids to string the noodles to form a pattern (Penne, Rotelle, Penne, Rotelle, etc.). Also, if you have some extra time, consider dying the noodles with kool-aid

Kool-Aid Colored Noodles:

1. Add around 2 cups of noodles to a gallon sized Ziplock bag.
2. Mix 1 packet of kool-aid with 1/8 cup of hot water.
3. Seal bags and shake to mix.
4. Poor noodles onto paper plate to dry.

11. Paper Airplanes

What You’ll Need:

• Printer paper
• Directions (See Supplemental Resources for links to resources)

Make it Happen:

1. Follow directions in book or on website.

Supplemental Resources:

12. Make Glitter Art

What You’ll Need:

• Old newspaper
• Construction paper
• Glitter
• Glue

Make it Happen:

1. Cover work surface with newspaper.
2. Pour some glue on paper. Kids can pour glue into shapes (flowers, houses, etc.), or just squiggles.
3. Pour a small amount of glitter onto paper and wiggle back and forth until all glue is covered with glitter.
4. Pour remaining glitter back into the glitter container or into the garbage.

Other Thoughts: Glitter and glue are fun… as long as you can stand the stray sparkles that you’ll still be finding weeks later. If glitter drives you crazy, try glitter pens.

13. Create Duct Tape Masterpieces

What You’ll Need:

• Duct tape art kit or multiple colors/widths of colorful duct tape.

Make it Happen:

1. Follow the directions included in the kit. Or use your own creativity to create a picture, purse, belt, or whatever else you can come up with.

Supplemental Resources:

14. Ripped Construction Paper Art

What You’ll Need:

• Construction paper
• Glue

Make it Happen:

1. Rip up several colors of construction paper into small pieces.
2. Glue pieces onto another piece of construction paper.

Other Thoughts: You can either create a mosaic-type picture, or a random color collage.

15. Face Painting

What You’ll Need:

• Face paint kit

Make it Happen:

1. Follow the directions in the kit or visit see Supplemental Resources for design ideas.

Supplemental Resources:

16. Fun with Stickers

What You’ll Need:

• Printer paperor construction paper
• Sticker assortment

Make it Happen:

1. Supply kids with paper and stickers and let them peel and stick to their heart’s content.

Other Thoughts: You may want to stay close by in case little ones need help getting the stickers off the sheets.

17. Make Friendship Bracelets

What You’ll Need:

• Craft thread
• Directions (find them in the Supplemental Resources section below)

or

• Friendship bracelet kit

Make it Happen:

1. Follow directions in kit or on website.

Other Thoughts: A great craft for a sleepover!

Supplemental Resources:

18. Make Rubber Band Bracelets

What You’ll Need:

• Rainbow loom kit

Make it Happen:

1. Follow the directions in the kit.

Supplemental Resources:

19. Make Moon Sand

What You’ll Need:

• 8 cups of flour
• 1 cup of baby oil

Make it Happen:

1. Mix together flour and baby oil.
2. Let kids play using beach toys, kid-safe kitchen utensils, or their hands.

Other Thoughts: *Warning* be sure to supervise this activity, especially if you have pets. My dog had no qualms about eating a huge mountain of this stuff as soon as I turned my back. Now that was an interesting call to the vet…

20. Tie Dye Shirts

What You’ll Need:

• Tie dye kit (find it on Amazon)
• White t-shirts

Make it Happen:

1. Follow the directions in the kit.

Other Thoughts: Make sure to prep your craft area before you get started with this project to avoid a mess.

Supplemental Resources:

21. Writing with Magazines

What You’ll Need:

• Old magazines
• Scissors
• Construction paper
• Glue

Make it Happen:

1. Use the scissors to cut letters and words out of your old magazines.
2. Glue the letters and words onto construction paper to assemble stories, poems, names, whatever.

22. Papier Mâché

What You’ll Need:

• Balloons
• Old newspaper
• Scissors
• Papier mâché glue (see recipe in the Supplemental Resources section)
• Tempera paint

Make it Happen:

1. Cut old newspaper into squares (2″ x 2″ work well, but adjust size as you see fit).
2. Inflate balloons to desired size.
3. Prep glue according to directions.
4. Dip a piece of paper into the glue, allowing excess to drip off.
5. Place paper onto the balloon and smooth out.
6. Repeat until balloon is covered.
7. Leave to dry overnight.
8. Repeat steps 3-6 several times until the balloon is covered with desired number of layers of leaves.
9. Once the last layer has dried completely, pop the balloon and take it out, leaving the shell.

Other Thoughts: This project will take around a week to complete.

Supplemental Resources:

Papier Mâché Glue Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of white flour
• 1 ½ cup of room temperature water
• ½ tablespoon salt

Mix the flour, water, and salt in a small saucepan. Whisk until lump-free. Bring mixture to just boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. Be sure to watch carefully as it begins to thicken, and keep stirring to make sure that the glue doesn’t burn. As soon as mixture starts to bubble, immediately remove the pan from the heat and allow the paste to cool, stirring frequently to speed the cooling process and ensure smoothness of glue.

CAUTION: Glue will be extremely hot. Allow to cool completely before proceeding.

23. Fun with Tubes

What You’ll Need:

• Tubes (paper towel, toilet paper, wrapping paper, etc.)
• Glue
• Crayons, markers, chalk, and/or colored pencils
• Other craft supplies (string, ribbons, etc.)

Make it Happen:

1. Use gathered supplies to build whatever kids can think up.

24. Create a Flip-Book

What You’ll Need:

• Mini notebooks
• Crayons, markers, chalk, and/or colored pencils

Make it Happen:

1. Choose your subject and the action to be performed (ball bouncing, man biking, girl jumping rope, etc.)
2. Start drawing on the last page of the notebook.
3. Flip forward to the next page and draw the next frame of your show.
4. Repeat until the notebook is filled.
5. Flip through to see the scene that you’ve created.

25. Paint with Marbles

What You’ll Need:

• Printer paper
• Marbles
• Tempera paint
• Plastic bowls
• Plastic spoons
• Lid of a box (must be larger than sheet of paper)

Make it Happen:

1. Place a piece of paper into the box lid.
2. Pour different colors of tempera paint into 2-3 plastic bowls.
3. Add 2-3 marbles to each bowl. Use plastic spoon to make sure that each marble is thoroughly covered with paint.
4. Use spoon to drop marbles from one color into box.
5. Tip the box lid from side to side to roll paint-covered marbles around.
6. Repeat with remaining colors.

Also See:

25 Indoor Active Play Ideas for Kids

25 Indoor Learning Activities for Kids

25 More Indoor Fun Ideas for Kids