It’s summer, and you know what that means…KIDS CRAFT CAMP!! This is the third year I have done Craft Camp with my kids, and it has become one of our favorite summer traditions! If you haven’t followed along in the past, here is a little breakdown of the why and what of Craft Camp: when my kids are out of school and home all the time, they want to craft. I love that they want to craft, but they usually want to do big projects that require my help. In an effort to make life a little easier, I decided to hold a Craft Camp for them once a week during the summer where I do a bigger craft with them. When they know that they will have the one day of crafting with me, they find other crafts that they can do on their own on the other days. It isn’t supposed to add stress though! If there is a week when we are busy, and I can’t fit it in, we skip it! I don’t want it to overwhelm me or the kids, so we only have camp when it works for all of us.

With the Coronavirus this year, I wanted to try to pick crafts where the materials could be purchased online. We are still trying to be careful and avoid busy places, so you’ll be seeing a lot of online materials this year.

For this first project, I actually was inspired by one of the stay home projects that have been popping up on social media. You’ve probably seen the mosaic chalk art patterns on driveways all over the world. My kids made one on our driveway too! For this project, we used the same technique of taping off sections to make geometric designs, then coloring the sections before removing the tape. This is an easy project that all of my kids really enjoyed!

Materials

Pencil bags or any other type of bag or material with a nice, clean surface. I bought a pack of ten zippered pouches from Amazon. This pack was about $11 for all ten, and we ended up with a few extra for another project.
Paint. I just used the paint I had on hand for this. Water based Acrylic paints work great.
Paint Brush and Paint Tray. I bought a pack of these paint trays last year, and they are so handy to have. We use them for beading projects and painting projects. I wash them after each use, and we reuse them again and again.
Fabric Painting Medium (optional). I really like to use a little fabric painting medium when using acrylic paints on fabrics because it makes the paint less thick and clumpy. It also helps if you want to wash your fabric. I had this on hand already as well, but you can find this from any craft store.
Yarn or Omegacryl. You only need a little yarn for this project, so use up those scraps! I got my Omegacryl from The Neon Tea Party, where there is an amazing selection of colors.
Pom Pom Makers. I actually used some very tiny pom pom makers for this project. This set from Amazon comes with the tiny pom pom makers. You can make your pom poms in any size.
Washi Tape. I used what I had at home, and you can even use painters tape or masking tape if you have that. Different widths of tape will give you different sized stripes on your bag.
Hot glue gun.

How To:

Begin by using washi tape to block off your mosaic. Make sure you press it down firmly so that the least amount of paint possible gets in your lines.

Paint your bag. To help keep paint from getting in your washi tape lines, it helps to begin your paint strokes on the tape then sweeping away from the tape. Some paint will probably sneak under the tape, but it makes for cleaner lines if you gently paint over the tape.

Once your paint has dried a bit, carefully peel your tape away. The paint doesn’t need to be completely dry, but if it is too wet, the paint could still bleed. I love this part when you get to see your finished design!

Make some pom poms and hot glue them to your bag. Two of my daughters wanted to tie their pom poms to the zipper instead of gluing them to the bag. You can glue, tie, or do both!

Now you have a little bag to store some of your markers or crayons for your summer projects! And if we ever go back to school, the kiddos can use these in their backpacks!

I hope you’ll join us for other craft camp projects this summer. We have more fun up our sleeves!