Crafts for Teens

Button Bracelet

What you will need: 3/4" to 1-inch wide elastic, buttons, glue, heavy thread and needle, and scissors.

What to do:

1. Organize your buttons and decide which ones look good together.

2. Cut a piece of elastic that will fit around your wrist, without pulling it tight, with a 1/2" overlap. Sew the elastic together to form a band. Place it on your wrist to make sure it fits loosely.

3. Begin sewing buttons on the band starting by sewing your most important or prettiest button on the middle top of the band. Use a needle and thread to attach the button and tie a double knot to secure it to the elastic band.

4. Work out and around from the main button on both sides until you have covered the entire band. You can also glue buttons on top of the buttons you sewed on the band to give it more interest and dimension.

Back-to-School Journal for Success Craft for Teens

(An Altered Book Craft)

Recycle old books to make your own work of art. Express yourself, inspire, and grow using journaling and different artistic mediums.

What you will need:

1. Old Book - You might be able to find an old book around the house that is no longer useful, but if you can't you can find them in used stores, garage sales, or library sales. The best books are hardback books.

2. Pictures that Inspire You - You can find pictures in magazines, print them from the Internet. Use photos of friends and family. Buy scrapbook paper from craft stores, or draw them yourself.

3. Other Essentials: Scissors, Exacto knife, glue, markers,

4. Extras: Things to embellish and accent your art: tissue paper, colored pencils, paint, sequins, buttons, rubber stamps, stickers, ribbon, and other decorative items.

What to do:

It is very easy to make an altered book. Decorate the cover of an old book using paint, decoupage, and/or any other techniques. Try different art mediums and combine them in any way you would like. The whole idea is to make something unique that depicts your own style. Don't be afraid to experiment.

There are many techniques you can use to create your pages. Here are some ideas:

1. Poems or Songs - Use your favorite songs or poems and decorate a page to represent the song or poem, or write your own poems.

2. Illustrate your interests - Find pictures or draw pictures of things that interest you. Glue them to the pages and add other objects to enhance the page.

3. Use words from the page - Use words from the page to make a poem. Highlight the words you are using by painting over the words you don't want to use. You can make sentences, use fragments of sentences or just one word. Decorate the page to go along with the words you have picked.

4. Make pockets - Pockets can be made by folding the pages in many different ways. You can use the pockets to hold pictures and other items relating to your theme.

5. Make windows - Make windows by cutting slits in the pages and folding back the paper. Glue picture on the other side of the page so they show through the windows. Fold back, curl up, or crinkle up the paper to make frames around the window.

6. Make holes and indentations - Glue lots of pages together so you can make holes an indentation in your pages. Use an an Exacto knife to cut the pages. You can then place of glue small objects inside the indentations.

7. Special Effects - Tear pages to make your picture look old and worn for special effects. Burn the sides (carefully) with a match or lighter. Experiment with origami techniques, and other book making techniques.

The altered book page on the left was also created using ideas from "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens". On the left side a quote from Abraham Lincoln was used, "People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be." And on the facing page is a list of and pictures of "Things that Make me Happy".

The altered book page on the right was created using ideas from "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens" using a poem from Robert Frost, "Two roads diverged in the wood, and I-- I took the one least traveled by, And that has made all the difference."

"In My Pocket" Altered Book Page

If the only way you could communicate was by showing the objects in your pocket, what things would you include to tell someone about yourself?

Glue a piece of scrapbook paper on a blank page of your altered book. Cut a pocket from an old pair of jeans. You can find these at second hand stores. Think about what interests you, or what you would like other people to know about you. Find pictures and other objects that you can glue to your page. You can also place items in the pocket. Include your favorite poems, verses, or quotes.

Altered Book Pages on Other Web Sites

Very good directions on how to make altered books - Earmark-decorative-painting-studio.com

Examples of Altered Pages - The Art of Happiness

Picture of Page of Altered Books from the Creative Art Space for Kids Foundation

How to make an altered book with pictures - on eHow

Great example of Altered Book Pages - http://www.mephistophelia.com/artwork2.htm and Dogberry Hill Studio

Decorative Paper Mache (Papier-mâché) Letters

Create works of arts using large 3D letters. Hang them on your bedroom walls or set them on your dresser.

What you will need: 12" paper mache 3D letters from JoAnn Fabrics, glue, scissors, scrapbook paper, pictures from magazines, embellishments such a buttons, ribbon, bows, charms, or anything else you can use to decorate the letters such as paint, markers, found objects in nature, etc. You can make your own paper mache letters if you can't find them in the store. Go to Art Projects for Kids web site for directions on how to make the letters.

What to do:

1. First decide what letters you would like to use, and what you would like to convey through your art. You can use your initials and decorate the letters to depict your personality: what you like, who you are, your interests, etc., or you can spell out words that describe how you feel, who you are, or wish to be, or you can pick words that describe one of your interests such as "Sports" and decorate the letters with pictures relating to that subject. If you picked sports, you would decorate the letters with sports related pictures and words.

2. Collect pictures and other decorative items you might want to use on your letters.

3. Glue the pictures to the letters. Cut the pictures out and decide where you would like to glue them. If you are using pictures from magazines, use Elmer's Rubber Cement so that the pictures won't wrinkle when you glue them on. If you are using heavy paper such as scrapbook paper, you can use regular glue such as Aleene's Tacky Glue.

4. To finish paint on a clear coat of Mod Podge to protect the paper.

Teens get published! Share your creative letters with others here. We would love to publish your projects on this page so you can inspire other teens. Just send us a picture of your finished project in jpeg format and we will publish it on this page. Also include any special instructions and a list of items you used.

Other Crafts of Interest to Teens

Twenty-six Bible Lessons
for home school, each
based on a different
animal.

Sample Lessons
from
The Resource Room

Fruit of the Spirit
Sunday School Lesson

Watchdogs
Sunday School Lesson

Consider the Ants