Best Arts and Crafts Ideas For Girls

To you, it is just a paper plate. Give it to your child along with a few paints, glitter, glue, pens, stick-on gems and googly eyes and it could become a fish, dragon, fairy princess, fish tank, a fancy hat, a leaping frog or pretty much any other thing you can think of.

Paper plates are cheap to buy and children can unleash their imaginations. If you would like a bit of inspiration here are a few ideas I thought were pretty brilliant...

Okay so I think we have established that a paper plate is never just a paper plate - rather an essential piece of kit for all those budding artists out there. This is a really great way to give children complete freedom and unless they are very young you won't need to supervise very closely as there is minimal risk (unless scissors are involved).

You could also try making a set of seasonal plate pals with paper plates - for Christmas you could make Rudolph, Santa, a Christmas pudding, a snowman, a bauble or a nativity scene. For Easter you could make plates into colourful eggs, an Easter rabbit, a chicks the woolly lamb as shown above and for thanksgiving you could try making a turkey!

If you have a great paper plate idea to share, leave a comment below so others can try it out!

Felt has been around in the craft world for a really long time and is incredibly popular as a material for a few main reasons:

• It is cheap to buy
• It comes in a huge range of colours
• You can use it for almost anything - from jewellery and decorations to dolls
• Children of any age will enjoy playing with it
• Because it is so easy to cut, children can easily form something they are really proud of from it.

Like the paper plates, felt can be the base of some fantastic creative projects. You could provide a few extras like buttons, glitter, glue, board and pens and watch the creative session unfold before your eyes. Even things like toilet roll tubes and empty bottles could be decorated and turned into something new. Kids love a challenge and they love giving gifts of things they have made. So if you are a parent, babysitter, auntie, grandparent or anyone else who is close with children don't be afraid to ask them to make something for your home - think fun cushion covers or pictures. They will be so proud to have been asked and it really helps confidence!

There are jewelry kits available for children of all ages and there are tons of different types of beads and kits out there so you can choose exactly what appeals to your child. A type of kit that sadly gets over looked, but makes a wonderful birthday gift is hemp jewelry making kits.

Hemp is eco-friendly and a brilliant fabric for children and adults alike to work with because it is so gentle on skin. It looks fantastic and won't snap, which is an advantage over some of the elastic thread kits which tend to be five minute wonders and don't last too long.

These kits are cheap to buy, great value and the finished product looks beautiful. The kit here will produce 10 pieces of jewelry and is guaranteed to be a lot of fun. I love these kits too because the jewelry is the kind of style that would be perfect as friendship and fashion bracelets - two things most girls are interested in.

Other kits you can buy have materials such as:

• Plastic
• Glass
• Clay (often these are baked in the oven once they have been made to set them)
• Recycled materials
• Wood
• Foil

The choice is huge and personally I think these kits are brilliant for teaching a child a new skill, which always helps confidence.

Any child who is a little bit dexterous can enjoy messing about with modelling clay. It is cheap and the possibilities are endless. A few ideas of things you can make:

• Sweets and cakes for a clay bakery (my personal favourite)
• Monsters and dinosaurs
• Fairies
• Keyrings
• Jewelry
• Christmas or Halloween decorations