On the Road Again: 27 Easy Travel Activities and Crafts for Summer Vacation

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Oh, summer road trips. Long hours spent on the road, fun trips to amusement parks and sightseeing stops, my sister and I fighting in the backseat…nothing says summer vacation more than a family road trip. If your family will be hitting the road this summer or even flying to an adventurous location, I’ve decided to create a list of awesome boredom busters to give your kids some entertainment during those endless hours in the backseat. So buckle up, because I guarantee this list of travel activities will keep your kids occupied during traffic jams or long lines at the airport.

This list of crazy amazing summer crafts for kids contains not only exciting travel games, but free printable activity sheets, easy art projects, and ways to keep your kids (and car) organized. Most importantly, I’ve included a list of relatively mess-free snacks that are travel-friendly, so that your kids won’t be asking you to stop at every McDonald’s you pass. This list of travel activities is literally everything you could ask for!

I’d love to hear how you keep your kids entertained during summer vacation below in the comments, whether you have DIY craft ideas, fun and easy snack recipes, or organization tips. Here’s wishing your family happy traveling!

On the Road Again - 27 Easy Travel Activities and Crafts for Summer Vacation

On the Road Again: 27 Easy Travel Activities and Crafts for Summer Vacation

Kid-Approved DIY Travel Games

Vintage Vacation Travel Games

Kids and parents will love this collection of vintage-inspired crafts!

Free Printable Activity Sheets

Mandala Free Coloring Pages

Be sure to check out all of these awesome free coloring pages!

Organization Ideas

Kid's Road Trip Activity Binders

Tons of great ideas for keeping your kids and your backseat organized!

Easy Art Projects for Kids

Airplane Doodle Books

The perfect way to keep kids entertained during long flights!

Yummy Mess-Free Snack Ideas

Yummy Ladybug Healthy Snack

A deliciously healthy alternative to junk food!

How do you keep your kids entertained during summer road trips? Leave a comment below!

16 DIY Country Crafts for You and the Young’uns

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DIY-Country-Crafts

The best thing about this time of the year is that everyone has fresh produce, cute animals, county fairs, and gardening on their minds. Wouldn’t it be lovely to live on an apple orchard with free-roaming chickens? Of course, not all of us are lucky enough to have that simple country lifestyle to themselves. However, with a few rustic crafts like a Carved Wood Farm Plaque, you can bring that farmhouse charm  into your own home. No matter where your crafting skills lie, you will be able to find a DIY country craft that suits your talents and your lifestyle. You don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn to make these cute crafts!

One of these days, I’m going to be able to rise early in the morning and tend to my garden (and rabbits and ducks). I will have myself a hearty lunch and spend my free time enjoying the sights and sounds of farm life. I’m probably over-romanticizing it, but hey, a girl can dream! Until our country dreams come true, we can create DIY country décor and cute farm animals crafts. The simple life is just a craft away.

 

Farm Animals Crafts

Clay Pot Farm AnimalsSit your little ones down at the table and watch them create a whole barnyard full of animals right before your very eyes. Don’t you think your daughter would look extra cute in a Little Farmer’s Market Dress while she works? You might even want to whip up a Lacy Anytime Vest to wear for yourself as well. With the right attire, you will have all your new critters following you like Little Bo Peep.

 

DIY Country Décor

State Fair Farmhouse CupboardYou can add a touch of vintage charm with these beautiful farmhouse-inspired decorations. You will fall in love with your home all over again once you add a hand-painted cupboard or whimsical veggie figurines. From beautiful decorations to adorably useful knickknacks like Metallic Keys Stamped Clothespins, the aesthetic of rural living can be yours. Roll up your sleeves and transform your home into a picturesque paradise.

 

 

 

Garden CraftsEven if you don’t live on a farm, you can still care for your own little garden. So what if your only “animals” are earthworms and butterflies? This free eBook Garden Crafts will show you clever ways to decorate flower pots, plant stakes, watering cans, and more. Everything a suburban farmer (like you) needs is in this nifty free eBook.

 

 

 

 

What types of animals and produce would be found on your dream farm?

 

Get Out and Play! DIY Outdoor Activities for Your Family

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Summer is the time for kids’ imaginations to run wild in the backyard. Finally, they can go outside and play, to the relief of parents everywhere! Fresh air, exercise, and mess-less fun make the great outdoors the best place to play. At AllFreeHolidayCrafts.com, we’re celebrating summer with DIY outdoor activities to get your whole family out and moving. If we’d had these outdoor games and activities growing up, our parents would’ve needed to drag us inside for dinner!

Years ago, kids were often left to entertain themselves in the backyard. Now that families are more active, we need more DIY outdoor activities that can appeal to all ages. Roll up your sleeves and get to work on these great summer ideas. They’re fun to make and play!

Get Out and Play! DIY Outdoor Activities for Your Family

 

DIY Backyard Board Game

Imagine spending an afternoon with the family playing a DIY Backyard Board Game. If you’re a musical family, design the board to include challenges like singing and tapping out a beat. If you’re a sporty family, roll the dice to race around the yard or do jumping-jacks. The possibilities are endless for this exciting summer idea! This game is guaranteed to result in laugh-out-loud moments and great summer memories. Everyone wins when your family is having a blast! What kind of challenges would your family enjoy?

DIY Backyard Board Game

DIY Kids PVC Periscope

Something about fresh summer air really stirs up kids’ imaginations. When you’re spending family time in the yard, give the kids a little inspiration for their make-believe adventures. This DIY Kids PVC Periscope, created by Amanda Hill for Living on Love and Cents, could lead to a submarine fantasy! Kids can peer around corners and spy over bushes. This kids craft for summer would take any hide-and-seek game to the next level.

DIY Kids PVC Periscope

DIY Outdoor Dominoes

Tricky, tricky! Playing DIY Outdoor Dominoes will get your kids outside and improve their math skills at the same time. These giant dominoes might make math seem fun! Whether you play dominoes the old-fashioned way or just stack and count them, the whole family will be exercising their bodies and brains. That’s just smart parenting, and your kids’ teachers would be so proud.

DIY Outdoor Dominoes

DIY Rainbow Paver Hopscotch

Here’s an updated classic that doubles as garden improvement. DIY Rainbow Paver Hopscotch will have your family hoppin’ and boppin’ their way through the yard. Your kids will love this colorful counting game. As an added bonus, the rainbow pavers will make a great summer decoration for your yard, and will serve as a nice, sturdy path. Wouldn’t this look cute in your yard?

DIY Rainbow Paver Hopscotch

What’s your favorite outdoor summer activity?

 

 

LOVE HStylish Weddings: 50 Simple Ideas to Make from Top DesignersOLIDAY CRAFTS? Win a copy of Stylish Weddings: 50 Simple Ideas to Make from Top Designers from Lark Crafts! The deadline to enter is May 13, 2014 at 11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Time. Featuring an assortment of DIY wedding designs from top craft designers, Stylish Weddings makes for a wonderful source of inspiration for crafters just like you.

 

Link Love: Outdoor Activities for Your Summer Bucketlist

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Here at AllFreeKidsCrafts, we’re no strangers to sticking our hands in the mud and getting grass stains on our jeans. In fact, we encourage it! Spending time outside is one of the best parts of childhood. Now that the weather is officially nice, it’s time to head outside, and there’s no better way to enjoy the great outdoors than spending some quality time with the kids. Finding outdoor activities for kids and adults alike to enjoy might sound tricky, but where there’s a will, there’s a DIY way! Whether you want to encourage your kids to explore nature or simply go outside to play, these fun activities for kids will make your summer (or, end of spring) truly special.

While kids are generally pretty self-sufficient when it comes to entertaining themselves, there are plenty of moments where they demand new ideas for fun. After all, how many times have you heard the dreaded “I’m bored” when you’ve sent the kids to go play? Sometimes simple outdoor activities like making paper bag kites, chalking a life-sized checkerboard in the driveway, or simply making up their own outdoor games will do the trick, but sometimes kiddos need a little something extra to chase their boredom away.

Don’t waste a day of sunshine! With these outdoor activities at your fingertips, you’ll be able to create an unforgettable summer bucket list that the kids will remember all year round. From garden crafts to water games to even a homemade slip ‘n slide, your little ones will be amazed with your genius entertainment ideas. These innovative and fun outdoor activities for kids will help you enjoy your backyard in a whole new way and keep the kids busy for hours on end. Get ready to see a few more grass stains on those knees!

 

Link Love: Outdoor Activities for Your Summer Bucketlist
1. Lawn Scrabble from Constantly Lovestruck
2. Gardening for Letters from No Time for Flash Cards
3. Make Your Own Hula Hoop from Six Sisters’ Stuff
4. DIY Slip and Slide from Inner Child Fun
5. Outdoor Tic Tac Toe from Chicken Scratch NY
6. Giant Outdoor Easel from Fantastic Fun and Learning
7. Nature Scavenger Hunt from Hands On As We Grow
8. Portable Water Walls from Fun-A-Day
9. Garden Sensory Bin from Mess for Less

How to Make New Year’s Eve Decorations and Games

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Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, which means you have very limited time to prepare and make those last minute decorations. You need to ring in the new year with a bang and tons of fun with your closest friends and family. If you’re having a house party then you definitely need to spruce up the place with some great decorations. And of course you need to plan some fun activities and games to make for a great night.

A really easy, yet fun decoration you can make for New Year’s is the paper garland rings. This is perfect for kids to help out with. All you need are different colored pieces of construction paper, scissors and either tape or a stapler. It’s so simple. You cut your construction paper to the desired thickness of each ring. Then you connect one end to the other and either tape or staple. Once you have your first ring you can then loop the second one through the first and staple or tape. You continue to do this until you have the desired length of your paper garland. If you want to get fancy you can always add some glitter to make the room sparkle.

Another one of my favorite decorations that are easy to make are fun little centerpieces. You can put these on the dinner table or dining table, it adds fun to the room. Materials needed are wire garland red and green, with stars hanging from them or little trees if you can find, a styrofoam base the size of your choosing and shiny cellophane wrapping along with ribbon. Again, this is such an easy craft for the kids to help out with. All you need to is stick the wire garland into the styrofoam base and format to your liking. Of course you need to cut the garland into pieces whichever length you wish. Once all your garland is nicely formatted and spread out like a floral vase you take the cellophane and wrap it around the styrofoam base and tie the ribbon into a nice bow. There you go, a nicely decorated centerpiece for the new year.

An easy and fun game for New Year’s Eve is the Memory game, only this time you can create it yourself. Using paper cups, beer bottle caps (two caps per beer so there are only two to match) and pop bottle caps (two caps per pop flavor) you can make this so simple. All you need to do is layout the bottle caps face up so you can see the label. You can use as many or as little as you wish, the more you use, the harder and more fun it will be. Once all the caps are laid out you can put a paper cup over all of them. Then start playing. The point of the game is to match up as many caps as you can. Find two like caps and whoever gets the most matches wins.

Other Memory Game Ideas
Fortune Telling Party Favor