Fill your Bored Box with easy-to-find craft supplies and household or recycled items.

Any ordinary box can become something enticing and magical when it’s filled with easy-to-find craft supplies and household items that spark imagination, creativity and learning. Next time your kids claim, “We’re bored!” steer them toward the Bored Box and say, “Go make something!”

A Bored Box is meant to give children a chance to explore their imaginations. It’s a great exercise in creativity but also in independent thinking. Summertime means freedom from school schedules and curriculum and a Bored Box encourages kids to come up with their own ideas. So the less parent involvement the better.

Our Bored Box list assumes that your child already has access to basic school supplies including crayons, glue, child-safe scissors and a pencil.

Bored box essentials

With just these 15 items and some imagination, a child can create hours of fun. Some are basic craft supplies; others are ordinary items kids find interesting. Everything on the list can be found at a local supermarket or craft store.

This robot was created with items from a Bored Box. Feel free to recreate it but remember that the purpose of a Bored Box is to provide your child with a box of safe supplies and the license to create whatever they want.

Construction paper
Pipe cleaners
Wiggly eyes
Balloons
Yarn or string
Masking tape
Watercolor paint and brush
Single hole punch
Measuring tape or ruler
Clipboard
Rubber bands
Graph paper
Plastic gemstones
Stamps and ink pad
Felt or craft foam

Other items you can include: tissue paper, pom-poms, Popsicle sticks, feathers, alphabet stickers, beads, buttons, sequins, paper punches in various shapes, clothespins, chalk.

Household items

These are things you probably already have in the cupboard that will add a lot to your child’s projects.

Plastic/paper cups
Paper plates
Cotton balls
Foil
Cupcake liners
Straws

Recycle bin

Whenever your child has an inkling to create, encourage them to raid the recycle bin for these treasures that are ready and waiting to become the skeleton of their next project.

Cereal boxes
Metal cans
Milk cartons
Paper rolls
(toilet paper, paper towels, wrapping paper)
Bubble wrap
Egg cartons

About PagingSupermom.com

Aimée Lowry of Phoenix and Bettijo B. Hirschi of Glendale spend their days like many other Valley parents—juggling carpool schedules, trips to swim lessons and the rest of the tasks that come with managing a household of growing children. But by night, the duo team up on a blog called PagingSupermom.com. Their mission: to share ideas, activities and advice to help other parents make more super moments.

“We based the whole idea for our blog on a Supermom ideal that both Bettijo and I have in our heads,” says Aimée,  “We used to laugh about how every once in a while we feel like we’ve come close to that ideal, but we realize there is just no way to be Supermom all the time. Things just happen.”

Both Aimée and Bettijo spent their pre-parenting days working as professional designers, so they share an inherent longing for things to be aesthetic, organized and precise. But childhood is a messy business.

“I guess a Supermom Moment is really just the time when I’ve done something I feel proud of, or when I look around and all my kids are smiling and happy,” says Hirschi.

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