We had a birthday this week, and one of the gifts we gave our son was a craft kit with colorful pipe cleaners, fuzzy balls, and little jiggly eyes. He made some cute, funky little "bugs" with the materials.

I have found that giving my kids a variety of raw materials for making things is really helpful - colored paper, little pieces of wood (like wooden balls or dowels), beads, wire, string, etc., and they come up with the most imaginative stuff!

Then they can give their creations away as presents, so there are multiple uses here.