Family Fun Crafts by Family Fun Magazine

Family Fun Crafts by Family Fun Magazine is a collection of crafts put together by Family Fun Magazine.

6 out of 10 stars.  There are some pretty cool, tried and true, crafts in here.  Recipes for window paint, tub paint, and homemade chalk, along with cute little projects, but much of what’s in here is geared toward kids ages 2-6.  I was hoping for a wider range.  There were also pages and pages of things my kids would never go for.

My favorite recipes and crafts from this book:

• Window paint (p 19): Easy to make and it washes off easily enough.
• Marble paint (p 19): This is a winner.  When you see these at the carnival they are really really expensive.
• Coffee filter butterflies (p 20): This is one of my kids’ favorite summer activities.  We usually tie-dye t-shirts with Procion dye and soda ash, then use the leftover dyes for making coffee filter butterflies with clothespins.
• Tub paint (p 23):  Easy to make and it washes off easily.  (I have not tested whether or not this stains cloth shower curtains.)
• Melted crayon paintings (p 32):  I’ve melted pieces of crayons to make rainbow crayons in Dixie cups before, but I’ve never painted with melted crayon.  Very cool.  My kids loved it.
• Homemade chalk (p 34):  Does anyone still have sidewalks in front of their house?  We don’t, but we made some of these and took them to the park.  I kept waiting to get arrested, so unless you have your own sidewalk, maybe save this for another day so you don’t give yourself a heart attack.
• Cardboard castle (p 45):  My daughter is totally into fairies right now.  I got a copy of Fairy Garden Party by Molly MacKenna before she took them off B&N and we’ve been going through the party themes one at a time.  One of the themed parties in Fairy Garden Party has a castle cake.  I wasn’t sure how to translate this to a non-cake, but here it was done for me.  Our first one turned out a little disappointing, but once you get the hang of getting the tubes to stand up, it’s a very cool project.  Take lots of pictures because when it’s over your little girl will want them.
• Denim jean pocket purses (p 50):  We did this at a sleepover.  It was very popular and the purses turned out to be adorable.  I waited until the girls were asleep and reinforced some of the seams on my sewing machine so in the morning when they took their purses home they were stronger than if they were just hand-sewn.  Sneaky me. 🙂

There are more cool projects.  It’s a big book.  I would say about half of the good enough to try projects are already on Pinterest, but I’ve also found that the recipes on Pinterest (and sometimes the instructions) are often wrong.  I’ve wasted enough money on Pinterest versions to feel buying the book is worth it.  It’s one thing to try something on Pinterest and have it fail for me as an adult, but when that happens with the kidlings, it’s a total disaster.

6 out of 10 stars.  I wish more of what was actually in this book was usable.  There’s a lot of fluff, but I still think it’s worth purchasing.  I did.