4 Craft and Art Projects Perfect For Teens

Creative teens need projects that let them express themselves and to develop their skills. The best art and crafts projects use materials that aren't hard to find or expensive, so if you make a few mistakes you won't be wasting expensive and rare supplies. With a little practice and a good eye, teens can turn their crafts into a small side income during summer break by selling them at flea markets or to friends and family members.

1. Beaded Jewelry

While other types of forged or cast jewelry is too complicated for most teens, beaded jewelry is an easy but totally flexible craft project. With a small supply of beads, a few types of bead wire and jewelry string and some findings like clasps, a creative teen can make bracelets, necklaces and even beaded earrings. Arranging bead combinations allows for plenty of creative expression. For more crafting fun, make pendants from air dry paper clay or beads from rolled up newspaper. Both can be painted with acrylic paint and sealed for durable handmade jewelry components.

2. Decoupage

Decoupaging requires only a glue-like decoupage sealer and a stack of old magazines or scrapbook paper. Teens cut out their favorite pictures or decorative papers, then glue them onto old furniture, small paper mache boxes and other decorative items. The sealer also works as a top coat to make the paper finish resistant to spills. Decoupaging also involves creating pleasing collages of different images or patterns, teaching teens important art concepts like color matching. Decoupage sealers work on a wide variety of surfaces including glass, wood and cardboard.

3. Origami and Papercrafts

Folding beautiful paper into the shape of a swan, goldfish or thousands of other designs gives mathematically inclined teens a creative outlet. Basic practice requires just an origami book or website and a stack of squares cut from plain copy paper. Once the teen knows a few origami patterns very well, a pack of high quality origami papers makes a great gift. Many modern paper crafts involve cutting and gluing instead of just folding, but they allow teens to create large scale models of their favorite video game characters, robots or dinosaurs.

4. Candle Making

For teenagers who want to earn extra money for summer fun, candle making is a great craft to learn. Young teens can use no-melt candle materials, while older teens can handle melting and pouring hot wax without injuring themselves. A wide range of scent and color options allows for artistic development, and handmade candles make great gifts for all family members. This craft does require the purchase of more equipment and supplies than other projects, including molds, candle wax and additives to change the color and scent.

Megan Perry is a writer who enjoys sharing her knowledge and advice with readers. For more on arts and crafts, The Alternative Consumer offers readers tips for making their own arts and crafts supplies.

Magical Inspirations For Decoupage Projects

Your imagination is the only limit when it comes to finding decoupage inspirations. You can conjure presents and works of art and make them materialize right before your eyes. You can even turn back time and make old furniture new again (or vice versa, making new furniture seem antique).

A table napkin, a doily, a photograph-they can all be transformed into objects d'artes by the magic of decoupage. At its heart decoupage entails translating an image onto a prepared surface-be it wood, glass or even ceramic. The finished image, nestled on its new home, is then layered with varnish or wax to realize your desired aesthetic effect.

Among decoupage enthusiasts, handmade paper, because of its versatility, is the hot medium right now. But you need not follow this latest trend. With a vigilant eye you can save those candy wrappers and labels and even used stamps that would have found their graves at the local landfill, and give them a second less utilitarian life as the patterns and images in your latest decoupage master work. Similarly, left over gift wrap can find new utility as the verisimilar 3 dimensional images on greeting cards and hand-made book covers. Just apply the repeated gift wrap images to paper and cut them to fit their new context.

Even Nature's little works of art-autumn leaves, tulips, seashells, or parrot feathers-can be civilized and pressed into service as part of the intricate detailing that transforms mundane coffee tables or jewelry boxes into beautiful crafted objects of aesthetic appreciation. Or even something as simple as a lampshade. Just imagine taking that dirty old lampshade, giving it a good cleaning and then embellishing it with a scene captured right from the natural world, a virtual tapestry with real pressed lilies and the discarded yellow feathers from your parakeet. The ugly old lampshade is now a conversation piece.

Even over-looked second-hand items that crowd thrift stores, the detritus of our industrial age, can be reincarnated by the life giving force of decoupage. An old stained but sturdy chest of drawers can be raised from its tomb in the basement to become an art center where you store and organize your brushes and pigments when they are not in use-or maybe even a newborn's changing table and then a storage space for the child's toys as he or she grows.

(Here's a tip from a seasoned decoupage enthusiast on which varnish to choose: A quick drying water-based varnish is perfect for protecting pieces from scratches and scuffs and even a bit of heat. A thicker, oil-based varnish is the way to go when you want to give an item that yellowed tint of an antique; you can even give new furniture that crackled or marbled effect with an oil-based varnish, so that the new becomes old again for the very first time. )

As I said before, only your imagination is the limit. Just think of all the possible, low-cost yet personalized gift ideas: a set of penguin coasters for the aunt who loves arctic themes, a Hannah Montana protective book jacket for your tween's biology textbook or a Steeler's logo for your football obsessed husband's coffee mug. The possibilities end only at the hazy far reaches of your dream space.

Karen
Decoupage Your Life

For more Decoupage inspirations visit http://www.decoupageyourlife.com/decoupage-inspirations/. For more information on the amazing world of Decoupage please visit Decoupage Your Life. For Hints, Tricks and Tips on Decoupage, Decoupage Your Life is The place!