Crafts for Kids Using Cooking Utensils

Painting Crafts

• Transform ordinary kitchen utensils into creative crafts with colorful paint. Have your child paint an old measuring cup with nontoxic acrylic paint, making a face on one side. Then, fill the cup with dirt, plant grass seed and watch his hair grow. In the winter, introduce your youngster to a brand new type of artistic canvas. Gather old condiment bottles and turkey basters and fill with water and a little tempera paint. Bundle up warm and let him use them to decorate the snow. In the summer, hang a plain, white bed sheet on the clothesline and let your child squirt away with child-safe fabric paint to make a new wall hanging for his room. Alternatively, gather utensils, such as cookie cutters, a potato masher, funnel and a fork, and pour different colors of paint into shallow dishes. Let him dip the utensils in the paint and press them to paper to make prints and shapes.

Room Decor Crafts

• Help your child upcycle some old kitchen utensils into brand new decorations for her room. You can turn a wooden spatula into a note board to keep track of phone numbers and important dates. Paint the spatula or cover it with glue and ribbon, loop a ribbon through the hole at the handle's end and use double-sided tape to attach a miniature note pad to the opposite end. You can also make a photo display from spatulas and spoons. Just paint the utensils or cover them with glue and ribbon. Use glue or double-sided tape to attach a photo over top of the wide end of each utensil, and plant the utensil photo flowers in a vase filled with floral foam. If your child loves jewelry, help her make a spoon tree to hang her bracelets, necklaces and even her hair elastics. Simply cover a large polystyrene cone with construction paper, and push plastic spoons through the paper and into the polystyrene beneath.

Clay and Treats

• Make homemade modeling clay and use it to be creative. Encourage your child to try using rolling pins, cookie cutters, a potato masher, a slotted ladle and a cookie press to make shapes and create scenes. Roll out the dough into a flat canvas and let him use various utensils to etch a picture. Make a face with multiple shapes and layers, and use a garlic press to create long strings for hair. When it̵7;s time for lunch, wash out the utensils and incorporate crafting into mealtime. You can cut give your child slices of melon to cut out with cookie cutters, use a pastry bag and icing tip to decorate a sandwich with spreadable cheese or peanut butter, or use a melon baller to scoop out cantaloupe. Slide the balls on wooden skewers to make a fruit bouquet, watching younger children closely to ensure no injuries occur. When it's time for dessert, have your youngster scoop out strawberry centers with the melon baller, and then use the pastry bag and icing tip to fill the centers with icing.

Toys and Play

• Transform a set of old wooden spoons into puppets and let your child plan a performance. He can draw on facial features with marker or use glue and felt or other crafting materials. Use yarn for hair and make clothing from felt or old scraps of fabric. Instead of creating random characters, help your child make a wooden spoon puppet of each member of the family. For a young fairy princess, make a magic wand from a wooden utensil. Wrap the entire handle in colorful lengths of ribbon and cut out two craft foam stars to glue over top of the end. Your youngster can also make a colorful bouquet of utensil flowers to use during pretend play. Just cut out different flower shapes from felt -- two shapes for each flower -- and glue one on either side of wooden utensils, and add felt or tissue paper leaves.