Stuck at home? The weather has been horrible in many parts of the country this week, so I’ve been searching for good crafting sites for some old fashioned, arts and crafts fun with the kids. Here are a couple of the most inventive, user-friendly places out there…

If you want to take a trip down crafty memory lane, head over to scrumdilly-do! Kid-craft maven Jessica Wilson has simple yet totally fun projects kids of any age can accomplish - no altering the project for little ones. I remember making these black scratchboards when I was in sleepaway camp - they’re gooey, colorful, and like magic for kids! A great project for using the nubs of crayons, or utilizing funky, recycled ones you can make at home as well…

Speaking of recycled crayons, the diy network has a great post on recycling crayons using muffin tins or molds. We’ve only made round, flat crayons at home, but how fun would it be to make letters?

Crafting a Green World is a new crafting website from model/environmentalist/overall green maven Victoria E. The newest site in the Green Options family of websites, CAGW focuses on everything from knitting to notebooks. My favorite post so far is called Junk Mail Love - if you’re like me and have magazines laying around from, well, forever ago, try this instead of recycling the old-fashioned way. CAGW shows you how to many super cool beads (see above) from junk mail to old issues of Nick Jr. Make them as chunky or delicate as you like - great for working on fine motor skills as well as green-fashionista training!

For kids who love making figures, try Paper Critters, the online paper toy creator. Get your post-consumer recycled paper out for hours of critter creating - choose from an almost endless database of cute and creepy characters!

There’s lots more out there - send me your favorite crafting websites, and I may just make this a weekly post! Hope everyone stays warm and dry this weekend…happy crafting!

Photos courtesy of Junk Mail Gems.  Thanks so much!