Finding ways to boost wellbeing and feel good at home are imperative towards maintaining healthy bodies and minds.

Getting creative with the kids is a great way to keep them entertained for hours and help their imaginations run wild. Enjoy our quick and easy-to-follow guides for fun family crafts using bits and pieces from around the house.


Shake your pom-poms and your pasta shells to your favourite tunes - or start your own stick band in the garden! What different sounds can you make?

Equipment needed:

  • Sticks (find some in the garden or on your walk)
  • String, wool or embroidery thread
  • Items to make noise, i.e buttons, caps, pasta, etc.
  • Scissors
  • Sellotape

To make the button instrument:

1. Find a stick which has a fork in it.

2. Use a needle or wrap a piece of sellotape over the end of the wool to create a hard end - like a shoelace - for you to push through the buttons. Tie one end of the wool to one side of the stick's fork.

3. Thread buttons of varying sizes onto the wool. If you don’t have buttons you could use bottle caps. Ask an adult to poke a hole through them and you can attach these instead. Tie the loose end of the wool to the stick. It might be quite heavy and so try to pull it tight so that it doesn’t come off.

For a bit of decoration you can wrap wool around the other end of the stick to create a handle or add pom poms like me.  To create these simple pom-poms:

4. Wrap the wool around your hand around 30 times, making sure you don’t do it too tight so that you can’t take it off you hand.

5. Cut off the end and pull it off you hand, keeping it in its shape. Tie another piece of wool around the middle with a couple of tight knots and then cut open the looped ends.

6. Fluff it up a little and cut off anything that is poking out and you have an easy pom-pom to attach to your instrument.


To make the pasta instrument:

7. Find a new stick - this can be whatever shape you want. We chose something with some nobbles on it, so that we could use these to tie wool onto.

8. Cut off pieces of wool and attach the pasta. If you have pasta with holes in it, this would be easier as you could tie the wool through the holes.

We then added decorations, by tying a knot of wool around the handle end and wrapping the wool around to add colour to the instrument. You can wrap all the way to the top if you like or add some paintits all up to you.

What else could you use to create more stick instruments? Lego, beads or dried up pen caps perhaps?