When I started blogging waaaaay back in 2010, Make and Takes, a crafty blog run by former kindergarten teacher Marie LeBaron, was one the first amazing kid craft blogs to enter my radar. One of my favorite things about Marie’s site is a section called Spotlight, a collection of the best food and crafts submitted by readers. The photography makes me drool (not a pretty image, I know) and she does a great job curating the best ideas for us all to pick and choose from.
Well guess what? Marie just wrote a book, and we can all have Make and Takes on our shelves for the holidays.
Here’s a little blurb from the publisher (Wiley):
“Highlighting the best of each month of the year, Make and Takes for Kids offers 50 projects to make with kids, each centered around an upcoming holiday or season. The ideas are unique and simple to produce, and each project is thoughtfully constructed and designed to create an ideal environment and setting for crafting. Each craft requires little preparation, few supplies, and almost everything can be readily found at home or at a local craft supply store.”
In the same spirit as Marie’s blog, the photography in the book (by Nicole Gerulat of A Little Sussy) is gorgeous. As my 3-year old flipped through our copy she kept saying, “I want to make that! And that! And that!”
N finally settled on making a craft foam bracelet (the one in the book falls under February: Valentine’s Day). She selected the ribbon, a few sheets of craft foam, and then started cutting away. I was directed to punch holes and cut a heart (to match the one in the book, above). N wanted to wear it right away, but then complained of it scratching her wrist after a few minutes, at which point she proclaimed that it would be “a decoration.”
Kudos to Marie on writing her first book!! If you’re looking for more craft books like this, or more inspiration from the publisher, you can click over to Wiley’s craft page: http://www.wileycraft.com/ or follow Wiley on twitter: http://www.wileycraft.com/ @wileycraft
Make and Takes should be available at all major book stores and online at Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Wiley.com
GIVEAWAY
If you’d like a chance to win your very own copy of Make and Takes for Kids, please leave a comment and share your child’s favorite art or craft project. The winner will be selected at random, and must have a U.S. shipping address. Deadline to enter: Wednesday, November 23 at 9 pm PST. Comments are now closed.
For an extra entry, tweet about this and add my handle @tinkerlabtweets and the hashtag #mtbook
hi, really love to have this! my child’s favorite craft project is cutting newspaper into different shapes. 🙂
Another great blog to add to my subscription! Thank you for being an inspiration for the sudden surge in craft projects at our house! My 2.5 year old son is currently fascinated with watercolor painting – moving the brush in long strokes over the page. I also busted out the “moon dough” activity you posted a few days ago in an attempt to have 5 minutes to finish dinner the other night thinking it would be an instant hit. My 13 month old daughter must have thought we were eating dinner on the floor from a storage box that night and immediately started scooping handfuls of flour into her mouth as if she had been starved her entire life. Let’s just say she’s more into eating than crafting right now. 🙂
I follow your blog and love it! This book is so neat! My daughter loves anything with paint, scissors, and glue. It gets messy at my house. 🙂
My son loves glue, glitter, paint, scissors, chalk… all of it. I picked up a craft foam/glitter glue/sequin Christmas ornament kit that I opened up for him yesterday. He wouldn’t stop until he finished 22 of them… I was instructed to do 2. 🙂
we will love to win this book!!
My people *love* beads. Beads beads beads beads.
My grandson and I LOVE to do crafts together! I think his favorite thing right now is messy painting and making monsters with toilet paper rolls. He’s 3. I really hope to win this book and the crafts sound wonderful and perfect for our little guy!
My daughter is only 20 months, but she loves drawing and painting with everything she can get her hands on. Right now she’s obsessed with pens at home. She’s at the easel at least once every single day at her Montessori daycare (where they choose their own activities). She’s going to be so excited to find her very own easel under the tree at Christmas! I’d love this book for more craft ideas as she grows. and to share with her daycare teachers. They’re always looking for new crafts to try.
Hats are big at my house. Paper bag hats, paper plate hats, empty tub hats – mostly decorated with drawings because all the glued parts end up getting picked off one by one! The book looks great!
My daughter’s favorite craft project is making homemade play dough and then creating cookies from it. She would love to look through this book and pick projects. Everyday she says, “Do you want to do an art project with me?”
My little guy loves stickers, he puts them on everything!
My son’s favorite craft project is anything having to do with paint.
Our favorite craft so far with the grandkids was when we made the silly snakes out of tie dye fleece and filled them with gumballs…we have craft day a few times a year and it would be wonderful to have a book like yours, thanks
I would love to win this book, I love to do craft projects but am not very creative. My kids love drawing pictures of cars and cats
What a great opportunity for parents and children to work together and bond with each other. My nine year old daughter really likes to make cards for others with anything we have around the house from string to buttons to glitter and anything in between. This book would be great for new ideas.
I’m not sure my daughter has a favorite. She can color or draw for hours and any time I bring out something new she LOVES it. I’m trying to do more ‘projects’ with her because she just loves to do them.
My children love crepe paper stainglass designs. They also love mini pinata’s (water balloon size), filling them and smashing them for their prizes. Hope I win your book. I also run a preschool and am always looking for new ideas and crafts to make out of recycle material.
Hello::: My boy is 2 yrs (turned 2 in June) and he loves playing with play-doh and we recently made a batch of your could dough and as soon as he wakes up in the morning, he runs to get his little orange home-depot apron and want to play with cloud dough. It’s so much fun!
-Via 🙂
Would love to win this! Kids love to make things from playdough, let them dry, they make “sugar” cookies “pizza” –we have endless collections of these things.
hi there,
we love to put food coloring into oil and water. can’t wait to try some of these projects!
This book looks great. My son has recently fallen in love with bubble wrap – painting on it, with it, popping it, you name it . . .
Looks like a great book to get inspired by – hopefully I’ll win a copy. Currently my 4 year old daughter is all about fish – this week we turned a box into an aquarium by hanging paper fish on strings and adding paper seaweed and coral. My 2 year old daughter is really in to any kind of dough right now. We tried the cloud dough last night and it was a big hit.
My little ones favorite thing is to cut images off magazines and glue them onto paper to make collages. Thanks for the give away
Gosh, I don’t know if she has a favorite! But since it’s nap time, and I can’t ask, I’d say she is most intrigued by paint. Although right now she is enthralled with a new set of dough tools and some new stamps. It’s too hard to choose!
Simone’s favorite project is “do it yourself.” She has her own table and supplies and does her best, most creative and thoughtful work when i am no where in sight. If i may boast, she made an awesome birthday card for brother yesterday. it was half puppet, half card.
And I am definately stealing Elizabeth’s mini piniata idea. brilliant.
I would love to win this book! I am always looking for new things to try and I always find great things on your blog! I am a preschool teacher and my students love to do anything with glue and glitter! Also, just today we did Tissue paper color mixing with tissue paper and water. They really enjoyed it!
My daugthers favorite art projects involve paint usually! She also loves to work with beads to make sun catchers 🙂
Um, I can’t think of an arts and crafts project my 5 year old hasn’t loved, but a recent favorite was decorating our pumpkin with foam stickers for Halloween 🙂 I’d love to win this!
My kids latest favorite craft is fuse beads. I have lots of fuse bead shapes on my fridge right now!
Both of my girls love to paint. You give them a paint brush and they’re as happy as can be!
Just checked out your book this evening! This craft foam bracelet was one of my favorite crafts featured in the book. My daughter is only 16 months, but she loves to use glue sticks and coloring with crayons. She was very proud of her “Thankful Turkey” she made last Sunday at the library.
My 4 year old loves making collages right now. Really, anything that involves glue. My 2 year old is big into painting…mostly herself.
any project with paper scrunching or snipping paper
Currently, my 3-year-old’s favorite art project is to glue sprinkles on to pieces of paper or other art supplies. Granted, I know there is the alterior motive of eating the glue and sprinkles, but we have a lot of fun getting messy and using fun kitchen items for exploration! (The other day we used dried organic Israeli cous cous for gluing…not as tasty or colorful as the sprinkles!)
I love the foam heart bracelet. We love foam shape projects in our house. I’ll be getting out the snowflakes soon! I would love to own this book.
My boys like all projects… especially messy ones. Here is one of our recent favorites.
http://eastcoastmommyblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/make-your-own-bird-feeders.html
I have 1.5 and 3 year old boys…they’re only showing a slight interest in crafts, but they love holiday decorations. I think with this book we could merge the two. Looks like some great ideas!
I love this book and love Make and Takes! Our favorite craft/activity this week is is our number turkeys http://toddlerapproved.blogspot.com/2011/11/number-turkeys.html
This book would be a great source of new ideas which we would love to have!! My son likes to do anything which involves painting! He is naturally curious and likes to do any activity or craft I come up with, but he will actually ask if he can paint at least once a day!
What an adorable blog! Thanks for sharing! My toddler loves anything she can mold into a shape, her fave right now being playdoh projects. But she is very fond of any kind of painting, too! We love to swirl around pudding on paper (as it doubles as a snack, too!) 🙂
My little one is into painting right now, and play dough. Would love this book to add to our adventures 🙂
My daughter’s favorite craft is crocheting. However, I have never come across a craft that she didn’t like. She learned how to crochet over the summer making wash cloths for the domestic violence shelter and hats for the local cancer care branch of the hospital. She recently made a diary out of cardboard that has a tab and “hook” to keep the diary closed.
Household favorite craft: making necklaces and bracelets out of pipe cleaners and beads…and yes I do have 2 boys! I also can’t keep them out of the moon sandbox we made from your post. The flour gets awfully messy, but sugar and cornstarch with oil also make a good indoor sandbox that is easier to brush off! Thanks for all of your tips, definitely brightens our house with creativity.
We love homemade playdough a lot!
Love Make & Takes too. My 4yo DS gets excited about the idea of crafting, but his short attention span means projects aren’t always completed. Hoping the crafts in the book with help with ideas.
My son loved building a popsicle stick house last week.
Anything that involves glue and paint is a huge hit! Thanks for the opportunity to win this great book!
Construction is the current favorite around our house. Taping together boxes, toilet paper rolls, lids, egg cartons, and whatever else they can find to create all sorts of things.
What a terrific book! My children LOVE to use recycled products in craft projects. They make marble runs, race tracks, fairy houses, etc… We would love to own this book 🙂
This book looks like fun. My boys favorite art project is painting. They love to paint holiday decorations to hang up on a wall.
Just started following Makes and Takes and love the blog – would be really excited to receive the book! My daughter loves anything that she can paint, cut or glue. That’s not very narrow or specific, but she just loves it all!
I just found your blog. I am in heaven. I work at home and have my daughter with me for 1/2 the day. I need things to keep her busy while I work. You have so much on your bog that I am so excited to look thru them all. One of the first things I am going to try is the waterbeads. I have seen them so many times at Jo Anns but never ever thought of letting her play with them… I am also thinking of getting a package of them for her PS class to play with. WE would ove the book “Make and Take for Kids” to help keep us busy.
We’ve been making our own cards for Grandmas & Grandpa for the past year, first with pens, then adding some stickers, now stamps & ink & pens (watching a 4-year “huff” on a colored stamps is hilarious), moving on soon to rhinestones & googly eyes. Her favorite “tools” are scissors and tape. Every card has to have some decorative cuts and have some tape showing. She has managed to open my eyes more than I’ve opened hers. The book would open up whole new vistas for both of us. Thanks for letting us play along.
Right now, I would say it has to be that Cloud Dough stuff. Keeps her entertained indoors when the weather isn’t too grand outside! And for a three year old with no siblings (yet!), it’s sometimes difficult to keep her distracted for longer periods of time!