Kid-Friendly Kitchen Crafts!

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When I found out I was going to be a mom, I had visions of what Motherhood would be. You know, not just rainbows and butterflies. Or even meltdowns and panic attacks. Honestly, I had visions and dreams of coloring, painting, and other crafts! You know, typical kid stuff, right??

Wrong. Oh-so-wrong! It turns out boys are … different, to say the least! OK, OK. Before you want to punch me, hear me out. I totally was all about the “it’s nurture, not nature” side of the debate. Buuuut, try as I might to have a gender-neutral child, the rough and tumble is totally built into this kids’ DNA.

But my rough and tumbly kid still likes to do ‘craffffs.’ Yep. He’s definitely a crafty kid! However, I have to carefully plan our crafty projects because he’s still a boy. He has a fairly short attention span, so I keep him ‘tied down’ for the absolute shortest period of time possible. And the way that I do that is by choosing to do Kid-Friendly Kitchen Crafts!

Why? Because they not only produce delicious results, but they can also be prepped ahead of time and are done on a surface that can be cleaned easily — the kitchen counter! 😛

Ari’s Mimi (my mom) recently bought Ari a Star Wars apron for when we do crafts and he was so excited to put it to good use!

Our first adventure in kitchen crafts was the ever-so-popular Unicorn Bark! I saw this on Facebook a while back and I knew Ari would love to try his hand at making it!

Like so many kids activities, there was a lot of Mommy prep for a fairly short kitchen craft! I purchased four different colors of pastel colored melting chocolates from the local craft store (I prefer Pat Catan’s!) and a 6-flavor pack of brightly-colored sprinkles. That’s it.

I melted the chocolates according to the directions on the bag (which means slowly and steadily). And I had Ari waiting patiently to do his part. He had his mini-baking sheet ready for the melted chocolates! I greased the baking sheets (besides Ari’s mini-baking sheet, I had a regular sized baking sheet) with coconut oil. As soon as the chocolates were melted, I hurried and dropped dollops of color randomly and sporadically on the baking sheet. Once the baking sheet was covered, Ari used a spoon to drag the colors and swirl them together.

Once the colors were swirled together to his liking, we went crazy with the sprinkles! Post-sprinkles we shoved the baking sheets into the freezer for about an hour to harden the chocolate. The result? This glamorous looking gem!

Totally cute and totally fun! Ari absolutely loved doing this kitchen craft and we are still reaping the deliciously edible benefits!

Another one of our favorite, easy, and slightly more messy kitchen crafts is homemade pizza. For this kitchen craft I purchase some ready-made pizza dough. My personal favorite is from Corbo’s Bakery in Little Italy. I picked up a couple of them recently and then let Ari play around with one.

I spread some flour on the kitchen counter and told Ari to just spread it out. He did a great job and, most importantly, he had SO much fun! I was impressed at how quickly he learned to pound on the dough and roll it out! It was awesome!

Our pizza was lopsided and delicious! We topped it with some Trader Joe’s Pizza Sauce, Basil, and Organic Mozzarella Cheese! Yum, yum, yum! It was so delicious that I somehow forgot to snap a picture of that lopsided monstrosity. Ha!

Of all the different types of crafts we have available, kitchen crafts will always be my favorite. Next week I have a ‘slow’ week at work and I plan on getting Ari in the kitchen with me every single day. I’ll be sure to update you with our future kitchen endeavors! 🙂