Summer Crafts for Kids

Shell-abrate summer with my easy paper seashells craft idea for kids. My free printable paper shells open and close just like real seashells. Pretty cool, yes? ? 

Make my cute kids’ summer craft featuring cicadas! Yep, cute cicadas. This easy print, cut, and glue activity is a great summer craft idea for elementary-age and preschooler. Kids can make paper cicada friends, learn about their lifecycle, play pretend, make them into art, or hide them for an outdoor hide-and-seek scavenger hunt (our pick!).

Transform plain white cotton cloth napkins into cheerful DIY Tie-Dye Dinner Napkins. It’s so simple to do, tons of fun, and takes just a couple of craft supplies to make a whole bunch. Tie-dying is one of those magical crafts where you can be a total beginner and nail it. The key is to really …

Make an interactive pretend campfire and s’mores play set to bring camping fun indoors, rain or shine! This cute paper craft project features a toasty campfire with wood-grain logs surrounded by a stone ‘safety’ ring for kids to toast pretend marshmallows until they’re golden brown. Keep reading to see how to download the free printable …

Make these patriotic DIY 4th of July Party Decorations featuring America’s favorite classic popsicle, Rocket Pops! I’m sharing my hand-drawn free printable rocket pops template that you can use with my all-time favorite vibrant color paper, ASTROBRIGHTS® Papers. This free printable bomb pops template will put a little more KA-BOOM into your Fourth of July …

Make DIY ball markers for your favorite golfer! This golf gift DIY craft idea is quick and easy for the kids to make a DIY golf gift idea for dad or grandpa, and it’s lots of fun too. It’s a great DIY gift idea for Father’s Day and birthdays. See also: ‘Sharpie Golf Tees DIY …

Is your kid going to summer camp? Have your little camper make a personalized summer camp DIY luggage tag for less than $2 and under 30 minutes. This year was Elise’s first year of sleep away camp. Eek! I mean, it’s exciting, but it’s also crazy that my baby girl is old enough now to …

I made this printable summer camp activity book for Elise’s first year at summer sleep-away camp. She’ll be gone for five days and I thought it would be fun for her to have a booklet to journal all about camp. Keep reading for the free printable summer camp activity book (slash-journal-slash-memory-keeper). There’s a welcome page …

Make a DIY custom koozie drink holder to cool Dad’s bottles and cans. It’s an easy and useful DIY Father’s Day gift idea from the kids! I mean, look at this cute little drawing of daddy on his custom drink koozie… Elise and I made this DIY beer cozy together using a bit of foam, …

School’s out and it’s time to travel! The kids and I took a three-week road trip with several stops along the way. Packing for road trips can get tricky — especially choosing which toys and travel activities to take along for the kids. As a creative person, I think it’s important to bring some creativity-building, …

Today we had some time to kill before dinner so we made these easy DIY bracelets on the deck. This kid’s craft kept both my 5-year-old and my 3-year-old interested and occupied for a good 30 minutes with very little supervision which was exactly what momma needed after a super packed Memorial Day weekend.

Here’s a fresh and sun shiny DIY nursery wall art idea: Personalized sun prints made using sun paper and alphabet magnets. Liam’s room is getting a makeover so I decided to make a bit of DIY artwork for his room to keep company with his super adorable Minted monster artwork. Chicago has been sunny and …

This project is sponsored by Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores. Thanks for supporting the brands who support Merriment Design. This easy Fourth of July kids summer craft activity is so fun that the adults will want to join in too. And you can make these easy DIY Perler Bead coasters for your Fourth of July …

Cold tiny hands no more! Elise loves stick popsicles and frozen yogurt tubes. Truly, she’s a junkie. But she doesn’t like it when her hands get cold, which means I don’t like it when she sets the sticky treats on the table (or ick, on the floor) to take a temperature break. My short-term fix …

Sparklers are super pretty and fun but holy wow, do they ever get hot! Yeeowch. Help prevent accidental burns from used sparklers this 4th of July by making my DIY Sparkler Safety Holder Bucket. Just add water and place burnt sparklers inside the sparkler holder bucket for a safer way to dispose of hot metal …