Toddler Craft Swap

Yesterday morning, after dropping the kids off at school, I went next door to my neighbor Vicki's house.

She was serving homemade pumpkin spiced lattes, cinnamon strudel, and hosting a "Toddler Craft Swap".

This is an idea she got from another blog, the rigneys.  

Each activity needed to meet the following criteria:

• Self-contained.  This way, you can just grab a bag and GO! (without having to add a number of supplies to the bag in order to make it useful.)

• Transportable.  Yes, they will definitely be used at home, but I want to be able to grab a few bags to take to a restaurant, a waiting room, plane trips, car rides, etc.

• Convenient.  None of the bags will have supplies that require major set-up or clean-up: (no paint, watercolors, liquids, sand, dirt, etc.)

• Inexpensive. I didn’t want anyone spending too much money on this project!

• Easy to Make: I didn’t want anyone spending hours and hours and hours making their activity.

• Re-usable. I want these activities to last a while so that our other children can use them in the future.  Therefore, I avoided activities where you would have to buy new supplies to re-stock the bag.  This is why lamination is important for some of the activities.

These are the crafts we swapped yesterday...

Felt Shapes, practice button

Design your own mask

Match the colors

Picture puzzle

Foam Lace Craft - this is the one I made

This was such a fun idea!  We are going to do it again in January, when the kids really need some new things to do!  And hopefully we get some more ladies to join us the next time!!

Let me know if you decide to do a party like this...I would love to hear & see some new ideas!