Fun Craft Projects Using Old Clothes and Material

Many children enjoy playing dress up with old clothes. However, you can do so much more with old clothes than allow children to play in them. Reuse old clothes or material by creating useful crafts with them if you can’t pass them along to someone else.

1. T-shirt quilt

T-shirts are one of the more difficult types of clothing to get rid of. They may hold sentimental value if they were from a concert you attended. Perhaps you ran in a marathon and were given a t-shirt for participating. Why not cut the logos off of the t-shirts in large squares and create a quilt from them?

Using a piece of fabric as a base to get the proper size, sew the t-shirt squares together making a rectangle the same size as the base. Place batting, which can be purchased at fabric or craft stores, between the layers and then sew the layers together. Complete the quilt by sewing along the squares to keep the batting in place. Then sew edging around the quilt, ensuring the raw edges are completely covered.

This gives you a way to keep the memories of events from your life and have something to keep you warm in the winter. You can use a similar idea with baby clothes you simply can’t bear to part with.

2. Bags and purses

Do you have old jeans that have sentimental value? You can create a wonderful bag or purse from those jeans. Using the waistband as the opening for the purse, cut the legs off a little longer than what you want the purse to be. If the length includes part of the legs, split the inseam.

You may have to use a triangle of fabric to close the leg area to make it straight across. Turning the material wrong side out, sew across the bottom to make a bag. Then, cut strips from the remaining fabric to make the straps. Sew the straps to the waist band and you have a purse or bag.

3. Bean bag toys

Make children’s bean bag toys out of old or unmatched socks. Create an animal by sewing the socks together. Then fill them with beans, dried peas, or rice. Sew yarn on them to create a mane for zebras, horses or giraffes. You can also use buttons for eyes.

4. Sock puppets

Another use for socks you can’t find a match for is to make sock puppets from them. Sew or glue yarn on the top. Sew buttons on for eyes along the sole of the sock. Make clothing for it from old pieces of fabric.

If you think about it, you can probably come up with other fun ideas of craft projects using old clothes and material. Why not use a couple of these ideas to start you off? Depending upon what you come up with, and how you make them, you can remember things from your past while reducing the clutter in your home.

So, it is possible to do crafts with your kids by buying what you need such as Alex Toys Super Knot A Quilt or Alex Toys Happily Ever Crafter or you can use what you have at hand and have a lot of fun.