There are 3 critical times you will want a mostly mess-free kids’ craft on hand:
- Traveling
- During remote, long-distance calls with grandchildren
- When you are trying to carry on a conversation with adult children
When I’m in my own home and I’m up for some chaos (my chaos quotient is typically several notches higher than most people’s), I love messy projects including slime and PlayDoh, and paint with glitter.
But when I’m in someone else’s space playing with the grandkids, I’ve learned to change up the rules. I don’t want to stain the carpets at the Airbnb, or accidentally turn my daughter’s new kitchen table blue. When I’m doing a remote craft project with grandkids who live far away, I want to be conscientious about who is going to clean up after I’m finished having fun. And for a visit with the grandkids, packing my suitcase is the most intentional part of my job, and I take it seriously.
My suitcase, packed and ready for a beach trip with the grandkids.
But here’s why I most love my low-mess craft kit arsenal: I keep several of these fun kits on hand in my own home because they give me space to leave the grandkids for a while to focus my attention on their parents.
I cherish any amount of time I get to connect with my grown children. It’s tricky to find ways to have meaningful conversations with them, and uninterrupted listening time has become priceless to me. To get it, I have learned it’s important to plan ahead. These projects give us all peace of mind because the kids can be in the room “playing” and the adults can still carry on our conversations. Win-Win-Win.
Here are some of my top favorite low-mess craft projects for grandkids:
1. Purchased all-inclusive craft kits that don’t include spillable stuff.
What I’m talking about when I say “no-mess” here, are projects that really can’t permanently damage surfaces, carpets, furniture, and clothing. You’ll have to pick up a few paper scraps, but you can probably get away without a painting smock.
Pictured above is a cute little mosaic craft kit that includes sticky-backed mosaic tiles and small sequin-like “diamond” gems that adhere to the page. There’s not much in terms of open-ended creativity, but it is a fun art project that allows kids to work with art supplies and develop small motor skills. This one is just fun and since there’s no glue to make a mess, it cleans up VERY easily. You may need to help kids when they are peeling tiles and gems away from the sticker sheets since the sticky backing sometimes doesn’t peel off as it should. (Also, please don’t count that time one of the toddlers stuck a rhinestone jewel up her nose–this stuff happens, but will not be part of my Amazon review).
I also love the Melissa and Doug stained glass activity kits (there are several styles). These include heavy-weight vinyl stickers that you peel off and apply to a clear plastic backing. They include a suction cup hanger to hang your stained glass creation up in a window to enjoy. Lots of fun!
2. Mess-free coloring pages
Crayola’s mess-free color wonder markers are a wonder! The markers are clear and non-toxic, but they will only color on Color Wonder paper, which means they won’t color on walls.
Or clothes.
Or body parts.
For toddlers, they are a great alternative to frustrating crayons, and Crayola produces them in dozens of kid-friendly designs based on trending cartoons and educational characters. For older kids, I recommend blank color wonder paper and multi-colored markers so that they can develop their artistic prowess.
3. Lego Classic Building Sets
I’m a big fan of these affordable Lego Classic sets that come with several simple Lego projects that even very tiny hands can manage. I’ve had success entertaining kids as young as 3 with these sets. They come pre-packaged in small sets so I simply drop the instruction booklet and a pre-bagged set of Legos into a zip-top bag and toss it in my purse or travel bag. The key to my success is that I only pull out one bag at a time, so there’s never a giant pile of ankle-breaking Legos on the floor to step on in the dark. The kids just drop the finished project back into the bag and later, I’ll pull the Legos apart for someone else to try again later.
If you have time and space for a more complicated project, each box includes a rainbow of shapes and colors of bricks so kids can create freely.
The sets I’ve purchased include six project bags, and each bag includes three simple “builds” that a child can put together in a matter of minutes with a little bit of adult coaching. I take them on trains, airplanes, and car rides, and we’ve even used them to entertain kids at the restaurant while everyone is waiting for food to arrive.
4: Beginner Felt Sewing Kits
This one requires an adult assistant for kids under age 8, but these easy little hand-sewing kits are a great way to occupy a child when it’s rainy outside or the baby is napping and you are trying to keep things quiet. These include several fun styles to try, and everything you need (including blunt-nosed scissors to cut the embroidery floss) is included. All holes are pre-punched, so this is just a fun way to learn the up and down of stitching with a plastic needle. There are several gender-neutral kits. My grandsons love sewing these!
5. Foil Fun Kits
I discovered these by accident when I was looking for something cool to go with the Space Explorers Playdatebox, but I was instantly hooked. Each kit includes several heavyweight background pieces with stickers you can apply to the backing. Then, you peel away sections of white stickers to reveal a sticky black surface. Apply a sheet of supplied foil paper to this sticky surface and rub gently. When you pull the foil page away, the foil adheres to the sticky part of the paper leaving a shiny metallic surface. You’ll have lots of small discarded white sticker papers to pick up afterward, but this one is a fan favorite at my house. These come in several themes and include enough background pages, stickers, and foil for 8-10 separate art projects.
6. Paper bag puppets with glue-on body parts
You’ll need a glue stick for this one. Or, some kits include double-stick tape which is even easier to use. I’ve purchased lots of these kinds of kits over the years. The kids can mix and match body parts to create their own designs, or just follow the instructions to make something similar to the designs in the instructions. As a bonus, teach the kids how to put on a puppet show to entertain the adults when they finish!
I keep an arsenal of these no-mess projects on hand in a drawer in my pantry. They are ready to grab if the adult Sunday dinner conversation is going well and the younger natives are getting restless. One or two of them go with me whenever we travel, and I often give them as gifts to other grandmas. There are dozens of other options online to explore, but once you get into the habit of keeping a little $15-20 project on hand for emergencies, you’ll understand why they have become a staple in my grandma-grandchild playtime.