Apps for Arts and Crafts Projects for Families
By KIT EATON
Published: July 24, 2013
My home grows a little noisier this time of year because my children are
on their summer break from school. You might be in the same boat.
The Dorling Kindersley’s Kids’ Crafts app simply
designed, in bold colors and with straightforward graphics, and has a
few nice touches, like a jingling bells effect to appeal to children.
Foldify is a $4 iPad app that can create printable templates for toys made of paper.
The PaperChibi app creates 3-D figures, though its
templates are more limited — you pick from set options for eyes and hair
color and so on.
So here’s an idea: Instead of occupying the children with a television
or handing them an iPad and sending them on their way, try using tech
more creatively. Many apps are jammed with arts and crafts ideas for
children and families.
Foldify,
a $4 iPad app, helps parents make something tangible with their
children. It has many shape templates ready to be printed, cut and glued
into temporary toys, like a cube-shaped person or a car. Inside the
app, children can color the templates to their hearts’ content using a
digital painting interface.
They can even drop in their own photos, cartoon eyes and other amusing
extras onto the template. The app displays how the final assembled 3-D
item will appear as you paint.
Once the template is complete, it can be shared via e-mail, Twitter or
Facebook, or printed for assembly. The app even has an online database
of templates that other users have designed that can be downloaded and
printed. This app is really easy to use, but its features mean younger
children could use some supervision.
On Android, a roughly equivalent app is PaperChibi,
which costs $3. This 3-D app with paper templates is more limited.
Instead of free-handing designs on its main screen, you pick from set
options for eyes and hair color and so on.
The templates are limited, as well, including a person, car or dinosaur.
When it comes to printing, the app lets you choose different
complexities for the final model, from a simple box to a highly detailed
figure that would easily take a half-hour to cut out and glue. Though
it can make fun toys, the app has a menu system that is a little
frustrating.
Dorling Kindersley’s Kids’ Crafts
is a $7 iPad app based on the publisher’s successful books. It’s simply
designed, in bold colors and with straightforward graphics, and has a
few nice touches, like a jingling bells effect to appeal to children.
The app is a mix of games to play on-screen and instructions to make
real-life playthings.
For example, the “Cross-Stitch” game lets you color in a virtual
cross-stitch square without having to lift a real needle and thread, but
“Pirate Pete” has step-by-step instructions on how to make a simple
fabric pirate doll. The app’s various projects are a delight, but there
are just six of them; that’s not much for $7. It also helps if you
already know how to knit to “Make Ted.”
Kids Craft Ideas
is a simpler, free Android app. The app has about 100 photos of craft
objects that you can make with your children, using the usual
ingredients: colored paper, pipe cleaners, glue and so on. But each
object comes with a single, nicely captured photo of the final product,
and there are not step-by-step instructions or materials guide. Users
are on their own.
A similarly named but more detailed app is Kids’ Crafts,
free on iOS. It offers detailed ideas for many craft projects, as
varied as “stained glass” made out of tissue paper and “recycled box
boats.” Each project has a list of the necessary materials, and
step-by-step instructions. But the app is dense with words and has many
links to a store to buy raw materials. So it’s best if an adult manages
using the app while instructing children what to build. The app also has
unpredictable scrolling behavior with the various panels of the
instruction pages scrolling differently.
Finally, check out Craft-A-Day Summer Edition,
a $3 iPad app. It’s beautifully designed and has a different arts and
crafts project for every day through the summer, with very simple
instructions. They’re not the most complex projects, but they are cute.
Have fun, and remember: Most of the joy in doing crafts with children is
making things up and being creative, so try using the ideas in these
apps as the inspiration for even better ideas.
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