5 DIY SPED Crafts to do When You Can't Buy Craft Items

It can be difficult to be stuck at home for days on end during the COVID-19 self-quarantine–particularly when you don’t have any craft supplies! Here’s a list of 5 awesome DIY crafts that your family can safely enjoy while at home, without having to go buy things to craft with.

1. Egg on a Stick

Since it’s Easter, we thought we’d start off with a thematic craft.

What you’ll need:

• 1-2 eggs per person

• As many sticks as eggs

• Paint, food coloring or styrofoam balls and glue

• Glitter (Optional)

• Ribbons (Optional)

This craft is both straightforward and versatile. You can decorate your eggs in any way you’d like; make a funny face, wrap in ribbons or tie-dye.

Now, you can either make a hole in the top and one in the bottom of the egg to slowly blow out the filling into a bowl or hard boil it. The first way, you’ll have eggs to eat but it does make the egg more difficult to handle without breaking. The hard-boiled method is quite a bit more forgiving.

Go ham on your eggs! Paint them, stick things to them, dip dye them, do whatever strikes your fancy. 

Once your eggs are dry to the touch, hold up the egg, gentle but firm, and tap the bottom with the pointy end of the stick. For hard-boiled eggs, you will need to tap the egg and press a little harder. Now you have an egg on a stick!

Tip: These make for pretty great flower pot decorations.

2. Treasure Bottles

What you’ll need:

• A bottle of any size

• Treasure (explained below)

• A bit of paper to write your secret message on

It’s important to note that you can put as much or as little in your treasure bottle as you like, and that treasure can be whatever you see fit.

Start by writing your message, roll it up and stick it in the bottle. Next up, add your treasures. Pop the lid on and there you have your very own treasure.

3. Make a Terrarium

It’s important to remember all the good out there, despite the recent madness. One of the undeniably good things about right now is that it’s spring.

What you’ll need:

• A mason jar, a large glass, a glass fishbowl, a seethrough plastic fishbowl–whatever you got
• Sand (if you have it)
• Small pebbles, gravel and/or marbles
• Soil
• A spoon for adding the elements of your terrarium
• Little plants (if you only have grass available at the moment–that works too!

There are many directions you can take with a terrarium. You can even opt for colored sand and paper plants.

The big thing with terrariums is layering. If you’re going to have live plants in your terrarium, you’ll need either something absorbent (like sand or gravel) as your first layer and preferably a layer that creates little pockets for the roots (like gravel, larger pebble or marbles).

Start by adding a layer of sand if you have it. Next, you’ll want to add a layer of gravel or smaller pebbles. After that, you can add marbles if you have them and would like to. These layers are here to ensure that the plant’s roots aren’t just sitting in water–which can rot the roots. Next layer is the soil, you can even add a little decorative sand on top of this if you’d like. Pick some tiny plants from your garden (or some grass). If you don’t have access to plants, get creative with it - forego the soil part and make some paper plants, or even add little toys.

4. Magnificent Monsters

You know that annoying feeling when you pull out the last tissue and have to deal with the empty box? Or when the store is completely out of paper towels of any variety? Well, if you do have an empty tissue box or a regular small box. 

What you’ll need:

• an empty tissue box or a small box with a round hole cut out

• paints and brushes/fabric and glue/glitter glue/aluminum foil/scrunched-up paper

• glue
  
• spare cardboard

• scissors

• googly eyes (optional)

• pom-poms, wool or any other fluffy craft items

First paint the ‘skin’ of the monster – purple, blue, orange, you decide. If you have googly eyes, pop them on. No googly eyes at hand? No worries, you can just paint eyes straight on the box.

Once the monster has dried, decide what its teeth are going to look like. A big, wobbly row, or two fangs? Paint these on your separate bit of cardboard, cut them out and then glue them on the inside of the hole to make a mouth. You can add ‘hair’ (fluffy craft items), arms, antennas and any other fun thing you can find around the house.

5. Beadless Bracelets

No beads? Not a problem; this recipe doesn’t call for your traditional beads. We’re going to use cardboard instead.

What you’ll need:

• Markers

• Cardboard

• Colored Thread/String/Wool

Cut out a cardboard shape (circles or squares usually work best). Next, pierce the cardboard either through the side or in the middle of the front/back. Once that’s done, draw on or color in each cardboard piece. Then run a bit of thread through the holes, have a quick fashion show, and maybe add a dance party to that as well.

About Stephen’s Place

Stephen’s Place is an independent apartment community for adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities, located in Vancouver, WA (7 minutes from Portland, OR).

If you have a loved one with developmental or intellectual disabilities, who is looking for a community to live in, please contact us for more information. 

Stephen’s Place is a private-pay apartment community due to our state-of-the-art amenities and programs. We are a nonprofit and do not profit from our community. We are private pay because we spend more than some housing communities to ensure that our residents are comfortable and can safely live their lives with independence and dignity.