Quarantine Projects - DIY Crafts to Do With Kids
Things to do while we're all stuck at home, including some DIY crafts to do with the kids. What started out as a kinda cool snow day, got serious real quick. Most of us are essentially stuck on house arrest, many temporarily laid off. So we need to keep ourselves and our families busy. Without spending much money. That's where I come in. I have five fun and easy woodworking projects you can do by yourself, with your kids, or anyone else stuck there with you. All of these quarantine projects can be done for less than $20 using pretty basic tools. Most in around an hour.
Giant Sports Jenga
Go Beavs
Giant Jenga is nothing new, but it can be a great project to get the kids involved with during the build and playing it after.
Cost: $18
Materials needed:
The first thing you are going to do is cut the 2x4’s into 54, 10.5” pieces. I recommend setting a stop block up on your miter saw to make these cuts super fast and repeatable. Opposed to measuring 10.5” 54 different times. You can also use a crosscut sled on your table saw, but I found the 2x4s to be a little long to handle on my sled.
Giant jenga case
Depending on how committed you want to be to this project, you can actually be done after cutting your 54 pieces. You will be able to play a totally decent game of giant Jenga with your 54 pieces of 2x4. If you want to make it a little nicer, and/or keep the kids occupied a little longer, go ahead and read on.
I wanted the sharp end cuts to match the rest of the piece, so I spent a little time and rounded the corners over on my router table with a 1/2 roundover bit. You could also just round them over with your belt or oscillating sander. After getting all the ends rounded over, I went to work sanding them. I did not go crazy here. Just sanded them semi-smooth with 100 grit on my orbital
After sanding, I decided to make this a sports themed project and dye the blocks orange and black. Then painted an equal number white (18 of each). Once dry, I gave a quick coat of shellac to provide a little more protection. The dye portion can be a lot of fun. You can get just about any color you want and custom blend any color you can’t get. This would be a fun project to give to the kids, just let them go nuts with the random colors. All you need is some transtint, some denatured alcohol and a old glass jar. Dump some alcohol in, squirt some dye in, then wipe your piece with rag dipped in your mixture.
If you want to make your life easy, I recommend making a two sided case for transport/setup. Cut a piece of 3/4” plywood 10.5” wide and 27” tall. Then cut a piece 11.25” wide and 27” tall. Finally, cut a top piece 11.25x11.25”. Glue and screw them all together. This will fit your pieces like a glove and make setup a breeze. It also makes it easy to move around once you’re done playing.
Orange dye on quilted maple
balancing wine bottle holder
Cost: Free-$10
Materials needed:
3x9” piece of wood or larger
Wood finish
Wood dye (optional)
You’ve seen these before, but use this opportunity to make them your own. Find that really cool piece of scrap wood you’ve been saving and make a gift for someone. Again, you can get the kids involved here and have them choose a color and even apply it themselves (with supervision). I made a variety of them in lengths ranging from 9-12”. Widths from 2.5” to 3.5”, and most with a thickness of about 3/4”. What I learned is that the thickness of the wood doesn’t matter, and the length isn’t too critical. What does matter is the angle at the bottom, the distance to the center of the hole, and the size of the hole. I used a 45 degree angle, then a 1.5” hole exactly 6 7/8” from the tip of the 45 degree cut. After that, everything is for looks. I rounded my edges over, dyed some for fun, and left some natural. This is a great chance to try a new finish you aren’t totally comfortable with yet, or maybe a new stain or dye you haven’t used before. If you mess it up, who cares? Sand it off or start over.
Magnetic fridge bottle opener
Cost: $10
Materials needed:
3x8” piece of wood (or larger)
CA Glue or other strong adhesive
I love this project. The one I use everyday… I mean, from time to time… Mine started as a project I used to get better at bow tie inlays. I had a cool cracked piece of wood, so I spent a couple hours practicing inlays on it. Now I have a bespoke bottle opener that will last forever, and didn’t have to risk ruining a table to get good at bow tie inlays.
The back side of the bottle opener.
The project is pretty straight forward. Take a flat block of wood. Mine was a 5x10” cracked piece of 1” walnut. On the back I used a 1.25” forstner bit to drill two holes. The one that will catch the bottle caps was drilled as deep as possible without breaking through the front. The one that will hold the opener to the fridge was drilled just deep enough to drop in two 1/8” circular rare earth magnets, plus adhesive. CA glue works well to hold these magnets to the wood. But go ahead and use whatever you have available. I added three of these magnets to the lower “cap catch” hole, and that was more that sufficient. It’ll hold a ton of caps. Probably more than necessary. But I’d add at least two of these magnets to yours.
The only way you can mess this project up is to add your upper magnets right behind your bottle opener. Which I’ve done before. If you get those magnets behind your opener it will cause the caps to stick directly to your opener. Not allowing them to drop down below, out of the way. Also a good idea to drill some pilot holes before screwing your bottle opener to your finished piece. You’d hate to crack your sweet new opener when almost finished.
ring toss
Cost: $15
Wood dowel
20x20” plywood
Who doesn’t love carnival games? Probably lots of people, but I’m not one of them. This is another project that you can get the kids to take part in. Either with the staining/painting or the assembly. I took an old closet dowel, cut three random lengths, glued in the threaded end of a bolt, then twisted the dowel and rod into a threaded insert installed in a 12x12” piece of plywood. This project is about as easy as it gets, but you don’t even need to make it as hard as I made it. Forget the bolts and threaded inserts, just use a wood screw through your plywood base directly into your dowels. Done and done. Get some $7 amazon rings and let the kids play a game they actually built.
Thin wood coasters
Cost: Free-ish
Materials needed:
Wood
Wood finish, Arm r Seal is a good one
This is a fun way to use some of those really pretty off-cuts. You can even make a little money selling them around the holidays. Basically, all you need to do is cut some 8mm strips, sand them to 180 grit, then cut them into 4x4” squares. Add an optional chamfer or rounded edge, then complete with your finish of choice. That it! Check out this video for more details.