Craft Projects for Parent Groups

If your parenting group has lost its pep, and members are silently beginning to drift away, get everyone excited about meeting again through craft projects you can share. Parents, especially, love to talk about their family's accomplishments, including vacations, graduations, birthdays and weddings. Consider getting your group involved in the Craft and Hobby Association's Craft Night -- a pledge taken among individuals and groups to spend just one night a week engaging in a crafting activity for the main purposes of relaxation and companionship.

  1. Projects That Chronicle

    • Recommend to your parenting group that you do theme units to chronicle your children's milestones. Have each member bring a new scrapbook and a box of family photos to every meeting over the next month. Enlist everyone in the group to chip in and buy patterned papers and adhesive and let members take turns bringing in one sheet of embellishments each meeting to share with the group. Variations on this theme include working on photo albums and journals in the same manner. Members can make journal entries at home and bring them to share with the group every meeting. Award prizes for the worst, funniest and most heartwarming days chronicled.

    Decor Projects

    • Take turns selecting new decor projects to work on each meeting, making sure each member has input. You might spend two or three meetings decoupaging photographs to stretched canvas, compiling shadow boxes or painting family portraits in oils. Make each person responsible for her own supplies and put one person in charge of researching each unit's topic. For instance, on a unit that uses oil paints on canvas, it might be interesting to have a different member of your parenting group each week research creative painting techniques and share them with the group before the meeting.

    Involving the Kids

    • If you're not already doing so, consider involving the kids in your parenting group crafts -- at least on special occasions such as holidays and birthdays. Your group can meet to help the children make Christmas tree ornaments from salt dough or Easter cards for residents of the local nursing home. When one child is celebrating a birthday, your group might bring the kids together to make him a gift such as a canning jar drink mix or a simple paper bag puppet.

    Breathing New Life

    • Hopefully, once word gets out about your new-and-improved parenting group meetings, those hard-to-find former members will reappear with paintbrushes and memory books in hand to rejoin the activities. Groups are always more fun when they encompass a wide array of age groups and personalities. Give everyone a say and value their opinion. Do your part to chip in with shared expenses and don't be afraid to discuss your projects together as you work on them.

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