Our easy Saturday morning crafts session: wrinkling animals, airplanes, boats, rings, watches, balls and other random things out of tin foil. First we tried to use tin foil made for crafts (mainly in the pics) but the normal one for kitchen use molds better in my opinion. The crafts one was also too stiff for the kids. The almost 2 yo started off mainly tearing the tin foil, and the 3 yo insisted on using scissors, but later they also squeezed the tin foil into various shapes, so I guess they got to know the material in a way that suited them. And our kids have, more or less, played with these things the whole day. Obviously the tin foil toys have gotten broken many times over, but the great thing with this material is that you can easily mend broken toys.
This is something I will add to my list off easy crafts to be done in a hotel room – I assume you can buy tin foil everywhere for an affordable price, you don’t need glue, it is easy to clean up, and there is a great variation to what you can make (how about bath toys?).
I got the idea of trying tin foil from my favourite crafts blog Skapligt enkelt, where a Swedish primary (or pre-?) school teacher made tin foil sculptures for her class. In class she had used them to talk about how we interpret feelings through faces and body language. I thought the idea was great, but too advanced for toddlers, so our toys were a lot simpler.
Free But Fun 
[…] though some of the options definitively will be good like making bracelets with beads as well as playing with tin foil, there’ll be other opportunities available now as […]
[…] way to have a nice time together. Would be easy to pack along a few pipe cleaners together with tin foil on a trip too. Go here to find more ideas on easy-to-do crafty type of activities when […]
[…] it all to the wind, mind you. I’ll be trialling a couple of new experiments on this trip: tin foil crafts and, from the same Free But Fun blogger who brought you tin foil crafts, the sock memory game, […]
[…] Anyway, toddlers are easily pleased, the first thing we did in the early hours of the morning was tin foil airplanes (we’ve gotten better at them since), which they happily played with until we skyped one set […]
Such simple and interesting fun craft you have here! You are creative! However, I have not really seen coloured tin foils here.
Thanks for the compliments!
[…] Tin foil crafts. This idea comes from Free But Fun, so I’ll point you there to read more about this simple, mess-free and widely-available craft idea. […]
You’re right – that is such an excellent travel game! Mess-free and readily available. Genius!
Now we just have to try it out when travelling, huh?!
Definitely!
I was not a creative mum when the kids were young…..that is a great idea for a rainy afternoon etc
I don’t believe that: just look at all the delicious food you make! Much more creative and inventive than what I could ever do – I think your creativity may just show in another way! I love the way kids give and excuse to be playful 🙂