From Egg Carton to Art Pallette

Here’s another handy tip about egg cartons from LifeTips.com:

An empty egg carton is a great artist´s palette — just squirt a little paint into each egg cup. This makes for easy clean-up and less chances of spilling.

Cheap Paper - Oh the Possibilities!

It’s a little known fact that you can go to your local newspaper and ask for end rolls of paper. End rolls are the bits of paper that are left after a newspaper has completed its print run. These oversized pieces of paper are perfect for kids crafts! The Simple Dollar has a list of fun-filled activities using end rolls that you can use for parties, playdates, or rainy days.

Paper mache
With so much paper, you’ve got a perfect opportunity to learn the basics of sculpting and to make some interesting items (like a pinata). All you need is the newspaper cut in strips, a good-sized balloon, some paste, and some paint to paint up the finished product. Just coat the strips in paper mache paste, put them around the inflated balloon leaving one end just open enough so that you can put goodies inside, allow the sculpture to dry for a few days, then pop the balloon and put goodies inside. Then, put paper mache over the opening and allow that to dry. Paint it up and you’ve got yourself a homemade pinata. You can also sculpt other things with paper mache with some creativity - try a Viking helmet, for example.

Practical Uses for JunkMail

Ok moms, this tip was originally geared towards those little extra flaps of paper inside the Netflix envelopes you tear off before sending the movie back - but I think it can work with all sorts of junk mail! Your little one will be happy to learn that next peice of mail just might be for him. Thanks to Lifehacker.com for finding this site:

Although most origami requires special paper squares, we have adapted these designs so you can use NetFlix flaps without alteration. Just tear them off carefully at the perforated line and follow our step-by-step instructions for making paper-folding magic.