5 Easy Springtime Crafts I Made as a Busy Mom

Last updated on March 16th, 2024 at 02:21 am

Did the groundhog see his shadow this year? I don’t remember.

Regardless, my home state of Florida forges ahead with spring before most places anyway.

Likewise, I’m in full-force spring mode.

Whether it’s Valentines pinks and reds, St. Patrick’s gold and rainbows or soft blending Easter pastels, I’m all about the warm colors and vibrancy of spring. This excitement spreads to my home, where I’ve tried to tackle some of the DIY projects on my list.

Now, since most of my focus tends to be on raising my toddler, substitute teaching, and running the house, I am left with little time to gymnastic my way into arts and crafts.

Still, I persist.

What I do accomplish tends to come out as imperfect, “rustic” and a little rushed. But the key here is that I made time for it, so that’s a win. If you’re looking for some low-maintenance project ideas this season, look no further. Come see what I’ve made!

Table of Contents:

DIY 1: Making Over the Toddler Play Table with Contact Paper

This little play table was a hand-me-down gift to my daughter. It came with four little chairs and a removable square panel in the middle of the tabletop for stashing items.

The secret chamber component is my daughter’s favorite. She’s used it to squirrel away many treasures.

This piece of furniture is hot pink running the length of its legs with designs of Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck along the tabletop and chair backs.

I’m a self-proclaimed lover of pink, and it’s too much for me. The table was overstimulating and loud. Plus, Daisy’s pose is not, in my opinion, age appropriate. So I had a plan to quiet it all down. The plan involved covering numerous offenses with “marble” contact paper.

I ordered this marble design peel-and-stick contact paper on Amazon and got to work. To make this coverage happen in the smoothest way possible, I needed:

1. a precision knife, like X-Acto
2. a smoothing tool, like my bench scraper
3. scissors
4. patience

And full disclosure– at one point, my husband had to rescue the operation, because I was overwhelmed. Contact paper is sticky and leaves little room for error! It’s a lot of pressure to get it right.

Here’s how I covered the table in “marble” contact paper with passable success:

I started by covering the largest surface, which was the tabletop. I peeled off the backing to the paper and carefully stuck it along one edge, slowly laying more and more on and attempting to smooth as I went. If you don’t smooth, you get unwelcome air bubbles.

When I finally finished covering the table top, I used scissors to cut the piece I had used from the rest of the contact paper roll. Then I went in with my precision knife to cut a more exact edge. I also used it to cut out the secret compartment hole. We wanted to keep that.

Despite my attempts to lay the paper completely flat, I still wound up with a few bubbles. My husband helpfully showed me a way to “fix” this. He used the precision knife to pierce a pin-sized hole in the bubble and pressed down on it to allow its air to escape– no more bubble. Knowing this little trick helped release some of the pressure to be perfect.

After long bouts of peeling and sticking and praying, I stood back and snapped a dozen pictures to admire my handiwork. I mentioned something to my husband about sharing chracteristics with Joanna Gaines. The experiment continued.

After the largest surface area was covered, I went after the chair backs. They were still tackily adorned with cartoon characters. Using the scissors and precision knife, I cut pieces to cover the backs and slowly laid the paper.

I barely had enough contact paper to achieve my goals.

Measure twice, they say. I had 35 seconds to order this stuff on Amazon, I retort.

So the last chair back ended up being cobbled together through various leftover pieces. The random quilt of contact paper panels is not too noticeable. My Type B self squeaked by this time!

With the project complete, I was eager to show my daughter. She didn’t remark on the fancy new aesthetic, but I know she appreciated it. She likes playing with the table, and is probably less overwhelmed while doing so!

(I know I certainly am.)

This table was simple to makeover, but also serves as a monument to what I can get done with enough determination. And it’s much more calming to rest the eye upon. I heartily recommend covering things with contact paper as a low-cost and simple makeover option.

DIY 2: Crafting a personalized Mama sweatshirt

Materials needed: Oversized pullover sweatshirt, cotton squares of various colors, scissors, needle and thread

Optional: Laptop for tracing the letter pattern

This idea was born from my “Mama” T-shirt my husband got me when I was pregnant.

It’s a sibling, if you will.

This pullover I added the letters m-a-m-a to was the perfect opportunity to add a fun color palette to a comfy classic: the roomy sweater.

The full Mama sweatshirt tutorial can be found on this post, but in short, I traced and cut letters from squares of differently colored cotton. (I made sure to adjust the colors just right, to my liking!) Then I cut out the letters and measured and pinned them into place. This ensured even spacing when I attached them.

It was audacious of me to assume this would be a machine sewing project.

After sitting at my machine for a moment and gaining a clear understanding of what navigating all of those sharp turns of the letters would be like, I just threaded a needle to hand stitch. I straight stitched each letter on, knotting off any loose ends to keep the stitching secure.

I’m happy with how this DIY-ed pullover turned out.

Is this what they mean by discovering my “mom style?”

DIY 3: Baking up tiny celebration cakes for the blog’s first birthday

Materials needed:

Four-inch cake pans, natural sprinkles, cake ingredients

Optional, but handy materials include: A KitchenAid stand mixer with paddle attachment, bench scraper for applying frosting, and kitchen scale for measuring ingredients

I’ve had the King Arthur yellow cake recipe on my baking bucket list for a while. The classic, golden birthday cake smothered in a thick milk chocolate frosting has been an award winner and nostalgic favorite.

I had to try. Lucky for me, there was a (blog) birthday coming up.

I ended up baking five mini cakes to both experiment with the King Arthur recipe and celebrate the Internet milestone. They turned out as I planned: buttery, golden, light cake with a luscious chocolate buttercream.

I photographed and shared one four-layer cake with my family. The other four (two layers) were frosted, dusted with naturally-dyed sprinkles and tucked into cute paper boxes as giveaway prizes! I drummed up a scene on social media and awarded these tiny confections to four lucky readers and– I hope– put a smile on a few faces, courtesy of Chocolate for the Teach.

To bake mini cakes, I use a four-inch pan. I’ve had success with both a silicone mold and a springform pan. I usually follow a recipe as written but only adjust the baking time, often by using my senses (smell, sight, wobbling the cake pan) to determine if the cake is completely baked. This is important. You will likely always need to adjust the baking time for making cakes this size.

In the past, I’ve also had success making a white cake for my daughter’s first birthday— because who wants to give a baby a full-sized cake to smash?

I’d say these little babies were a sweet success. Give it a try!

DIY 4: Baking a naturally-dyed rainbow cake

Materials needed:

Four six-inch cake pans, natural food coloring set, white cake ingredients

Optional, but handy materials include: A KitchenAid stand mixer with paddle attachment, bench scraper for applying frosting, and kitchen scale for measuring ingredients

Six days had passed since I made the blog-iversary cakes, so I felt compelled to make another.

I’ve always been a fan of subtle, muted rainbow cakes but not in favor of the food dyes used to create them. Plus, with St. Patrick’s Day coming up, I was feeling particularly festive.

After scouring the Internet for some sort of less chemical version of food dyes that didn’t involve purchasing separate $20 bags of beet root, butterfly pea and matcha powders, I found this set on Amazon.

This humble set of liquid food coloring is made by a Seattle-based company called India Tree. The ingredients list glycerin, deionized water, vegetable juice, and spirulina or turmeric depending on the color. This “Nature’s Colors” pack comes with a teeny bottle of red, yellow and blue.

Its Amazon reviews seemed mixed on the potency on the coloring. I whipped up my favorite white cake recipe, mixed the colors in and hoped for the best. I dyed four six-inch cake pans of batter– one red, one yellow, one green (by mixing yellow and blue old-school art style) and one blue. Yellow was the easiest to color. The blue really took a lot of dropping and stirring in dye until the beige of the batter melded into a subtle blue. Be sure to mix the dyes in thoroughly for the best, most colorful result. Try not to leave any lingering streaks of white. You’ll need to use quite a bit of dye, but not the whole bottle.

One thing I should’ve known is that the batter will always hold a more intense color unbaked. So what you see in this pre-baked picture is not the degree of color I achieved once the cakes were baked. For reference, I didn’t weigh each six-inch pan of batter to ensure each layer was even, I just eyeballed it. Eyeballing is a wonderful technique for toddler mom bakers!

Once the cakes were baked and cooled, I whipped up a vanilla frosting. (I was going very basic with the flavorings here, just wanting the color the shine this time around.) I stacked my layers, starting with the blue layer and smothering each top with the vanilla frosting.

The yellow layer definitely came through the clearest. Red had a struggle coming through, which was surprising to me if you look at how pronounced the batter looked. Blue and green came out just alright, in my opinion. I was definitely looking for a more subtle and muted rainbow palette, so this worked out well!

Overall, I’m happy with the experiment and am now equipped with the knowledge that I really need to amp up the red if I attempt dying cake batter again. This naturally-dyed rainbow cake was cute, delicious, and great for imagining that pot of gold at the end.

DIY 5: Embroidering “lucky” on a toddler T-shirt

Materials needed: Toddler T-shirt (I love this multicolor pack of organic cotton tees!), needle, embroidery thread, scissors

Optional: Light to midweight fusible interfacing

I’ve embroidered names on knit sweaters and swaddle blankets, so I dared to imagine: What if I stitched a word or two on a T-shirt?

This light green T-shirt emblazoned with an emerald green “Lucky” is the result of these imaginings. To accomplish this craft, I used my trusty chain stitch.

I won’t go into full tutorial mode for this DIY, but I’ll briefly describe the process for those interested.

First, I tightly secured an area of the T-shirt with an embroidery hoop. Ensure the hoop is evenly spaced in the middle of the shirt and pulled tight so your canvas is nice and taut.

Then I used a pencil to trace out the letters in lucky. Again, I eyeballed this. (But I did have to scribble out several versions, erasing each time, before I got it right!)

Using a basic needle and some green embroidery thread, I set to work using my chain stitch. For a more in-depth explanation of this stitch, read my sweater tutorial.

Finally, after stitching up all of my letters and knotting off the ends, I decided to cover all of the messy threading on the back with a lightweight fusible interfacing. I cut the interfacing to fit over the tangled mess and ironed that baby in. Covered! (This is the inside of the shirt, anyway.)

I was happy with the finished product, and my daughter looks so cute in this happy outfit. There’s something about her wearing a normal, every day T-shirt that makes her look so adorable yet grown up! I guess I’m the lucky one.

And while I was doing the photoshoot for the complete outfit, I couldn’t resist pulling in another springtime look:

Bonus: Matching mother-daughter green peasant dresses for St. Patrick’s Day

Though buying clothing is not a craft per se, I had to feature it in our springtime celebrations. Thus begins what I hope will be a series of matching mother-daughter ensembles.

Peasant dresses are back in style (at least, I think), and I’m totally supportive of this trend! Beautiful, feminine, flowy dresses that make it look like I put in heaps of effort even though I simply pulled one on? I’ll take one in every color!

I’ll also take any opportunity to wear green. So matching my daughter for the upcoming spring holiday was an exciting no-brainer!

My dress, called the Brook dress, is a linen dark green frock from Little Cottonwood. I love that it’s made from natural fibers, and that I’m supporting a small business. My ONE grips is that the sleeves clasp to tightly around my arms. (I’ll blame it on my biceps!) Other than that, it’s truly so well-made and fits just right.

My daughter wore an emerald green peasant-style dress by Cat & Jack from Target. I love how bright and springy the green is, and it’s perfect for my active toddler!

Fitting in crafts with a packed toddler mom and substitute teacher schedule

I’ve always been a crafty gal, so even though most of what I write on Chocolate for the Teach stays within the topic of substitute teaching, I like to offer up stories from my bustling home life here and there– which includes the DIY projects I manage to squeeze in as a busy toddler mom.

My intent with this little-but-growing DIY collection is to be a reference for low-maintenance, no-fuss, DOABLE projects.

They’re Type B tutorials, if you will.

I know that sometimes I have to sacrifice perfection when it comes to my overflowing project list in order to get these tasks done.

I suppose I can try for the perfect cross-stitch wall hanging when I’m 80. For now, I’ll keep balancing marriage, motherhood, part-time work, and my exhaustive list of hobbies with as much blundering grace and laughter as I can muster.

Thanks for reading, friends! What have you been creating lately?

Check out some of the other no-fuss DIY projects on the site:

Chain stitching a baby name on a knit sweater

Embroidering a name on a swaddle

Throwing a DIY ice cream birthday party

Colorful, personalized Mama sweatshirt

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