Spontaneous, Simple Crafts

I think our cold weather months are going to be filled with quick posts on little craft projects we come up with as we hang out together during these long weekends mostly around the house.  Well, yesterday we got it off to a good start.  Koen had found a book at the library full of craft ideas.  Unfortunately most of them entail sewing (and I am not a seamstress!), but there were a few that just involved paper.  Koen picked out making Charlie the Chimpanzee and some paper clothes for him.  I would've never thought of making paper dolls and outfits on my own, so I'm so happy I now know how to do it and how easy it is.  Here was our goal.

I drew the monkey on some brown paper for Koen and he did a great job cutting it out.

Cutting out the clothing was a little more intricate because of all the fold-back tabs, so I did the cutting for Koen, but he did the fashion design.  Look how proud he is of his monkey and his outfit!

After two days of outfitting Charlie, he now has a short-sleeve shirt/shorts outfit and a long-sleeve shirt/jeans outfit and pajamas with bananas all over them (of course).  Koen was so cute last night.  He wanted me to put Charlie in his pajamas while he was putting on his own.  
Last night I needed to keep the boys occupied while I made dinner and got Penn started eating his.  I figured it was a good opportunity for some coloring.  Thankfully both boys were excited about it.  After I had them sitting there I got inspired.  I had pepperoni out for the pizza I was making, why not decorate a paper pumpkin with some edible face pieces?  The boys loved the idea.  They used pepperoni for the eyes and raisins for the mouth.  As you can see they were super excited about them (mostly because next they got to eat the pieces!).

Penn saw me taking pictures of the big boys and so was just sitting on the floor doing his "cheese" face.  I can't get enough of this hilarious face!

After the boys ate their pumpkin faces, I gave them some black construction paper and told them to cut out shapes, gave them some glue and they made permanent faces instead.  Seriously, this was the best during dinner prep activity I'd invented in quite some time!  They enjoyed this part of the activity a lot as well.

Well, as you know, I'm not the most crafty person, so this could be it for awhile.  But hopefully we'll keep coming up with some fun, simple activities as we start spending more time indoors.