Artists of all ages: gather your empty cereal and cracker boxes and get ready for a joyful month of sketching, painting, and play with illustrator, toy maker, and storyteller Suzy Ultman. In this daily practice, you'll turn cardboard from food packaging into a cute and colorful set of painted alphabet letters. Each day, you'll create a new letter, starting with cutting out your shapes using Suzy's PDF templates. If you prefer not to cut cardboard, you can also use the templates as coloring pages. Suzy will guide you through painting specific designs for each letter, but she'll also talk about different ways to imagine your own letters and make them unique. The most important tool here is your imagination, and you can also work with craft paint, paint pens, markers, colored pencils, pom poms, googly eyes, and all your favorite materials. Use your finished letters as flash cards, personalized tags for gifts, banners that spell words or names, and so much more.

Do you love looking at tiny things and making tiny things? Illustrator, toy maker, and storyteller Suzy Ultman welcomes you to her tiny world and shows you how to transform an ordinary cardboard box into an extraordinarily cute dollhouse cafe. Find out how to trim down your box, cut out little doors and windows, and paint on colorful details to give your cafe character. You can add a second floor inside as well as whimsical wall paper. Your dollhouse cafe will be ready for business when you complete your set by making cardboard cafe tables, miniature menus, paper rugs, trees, and animal friends. Suzy designed this project to be easy-to-create for all ages. Younger crafters will need help from an adult to cut corrugated cardboard, but everyone can have fun designing, painting, and making their cafe unique.

Chunky, cotton, upcycled yarn is simple to make when you have access to just two things: an old T-shirt and a pair of scissors. This yarn can be used for macrame, crafting string bags à la Cobrina's knotted pantry bag class, making rag rugs - Cal Patch teaches you how to do that here - as well as a multitude of other craft projects. If you're looking to speed up the process even further, using a rotary cutter, a cutting mat and a ruler will give you yards of yarn in just minutes. The leftover fabric can be used in small sewing projects or cut into squares to make handy shop rags - all eco-friendly options.

Make a durable and surprisingly sophisticated pouch from the most humble of materials: a discarded mailer. Maya shows you how to dissect a Tyvek® envelope and paint it for charming, distressed effect. You can add designs with hand-carved or store-bought stamps and install a zipper to finish. All the stitching is done by hand with the running stitch so there is no machine needed. You'll have endless ways to organize all your bits and pieces, as well as a go-to handmade gift for any occasion.

Designer and illustrator Natalie Malan uses patterned papers based on her original paintings and the Cricut Explore Air 2 to create two dimensional cards inspired by nature. Working in Cricut Design Space, learn how to add your own setiment to a beautiful layered butterfly card and play with color and pattern to create a variety of beetle cards along with a matching envelope. These insect cards combine color and garden florals that are perfect anytime of year.

Put your kids' colorful imaginations to use! Using Kool-Aid is an easy and fun way to create hand-dyed yarn – for your knitting projects, as well as hooking a future generation of crafters. Melanie shows you how to create a palette at home without any special equipment or a tangled mess. She also offers tips for working alongside kids and shows how different fibers take the dye differently.

This class was originally filmed live April 19, 2023. Creativebug instructors Courtney Cerruti and Twinkie Chan make fairy houses for Earth Day. Discover cute and fairy-friendly DIYs using terracotta pots and simple materials to create a magical scene. Add embellishments and sweet little details for your woodland wonderland. We will also show you how to adapt the design for an indoor tablescape or mantel scene.

These charming nature pals are perfect for little hands to grab onto and cherish. They’re made from wool felt, which doesn’t fray so it’s forgiving to work with and lovely to the touch. Alison from Kata Golda imbues these tiny critters with big personalities through her imaginative details. She shows how to sew them with a combination of hand stitching and machine sewing, in each design so you can create a trio of the plush, adorable nature pals. Make a Woodland Wall Hanging to make them a cozy home!

Hang out with Faith as she experiments with natural materials such as leaves and flowers to make permanent impressions on fabric. This video originally appeared live December 11, 2018.

For a more in depth look at this process, check out Natural Dyeing: A 2-Part Series by A Verb for Keeping Warm.

A dishcloth knitted with pure linen transforms an ordinary rag into a luxurious textile. Wendy Bernard demonstrates how to work with linen yarn to create a washcloth with an i-cord loop for hanging. The linen fiber resists mildew, is great for scrubbing, and gets softer with every use. This quick knitting project is a fun way to try out new stitch patterns—several of which are included in the PDF. Make a stack to give as a gift, or keep them for your own daily use.
 

Join artist and illustrator Carolyn Gavin for a month of exploring color. Using both gouache and watercolor, Carolyn will demonstrate how she works from reference and imagination to create her paintings. She begins the daily challenge with her signature florals, then works through the month using fruits, veggies, and household objects as subjects. You’ll experiment with shape and color and learn how to let inspiration guide you along your painting journey. Finish your paintings by adding detail with pen and ink to create a month of beautifully rich paintings. 
 

Every kid loves bubbles, and most adults do too. Learn how to make several easy bubble wands and Rad Megan's secret family recipe for bubble juice. What are you waiting for? Get crafty with bubbles and enjoy a fun day outside!

Any gift can be elevated with a thoughtful presentation. Artist, educator, and gift-wrap authority Courtney Cerruti share some of her favorite wrapping and trimming techniques with an eye on eco-friendly combinations and elements. Learn furoshiki-inspired ways to enclose presents with fabrics, and use and reuse things you have at home to create beautifully wrapped gifts that are nearly too pretty to open. For additional classes using the furoshiki technique, see Megumi Inouye's Wine Wrap and Tin Wrapping classes. 

Learn the basics of dyeing cotton and other cellulose fibers—a process that is similar to dyeing protein fibers, but is just different enough to merit its own lesson. In this class, Kristine shares her passion for working with natural plant extracts to create beautiful shades of red using Madder. She shows you how to prepare cotton for dyeing and how to create a dye bath, sharing expert tips along the way. With this method, you can dye a single pair of socks or a whole pot for friends.

Jennifer Orkin Lewis (also known as August Wren on Instagram) is a champion of daily painting practice, devoting half an hour each day to creating the loose and colorful paintings for which she’s known. In this month-long series, Jennifer applies her signature style to one of her favorite subjects: animals! Working from photo references (included in a PDF with the class), Jennifer shows how to simplify and stylize your animal paintings to make them your own. Each day, Jennifer shows her approach to painting critters of all shapes and sizes – from farm animals to deep sea creatures – providing opportunity for all skill levels to practice.

Introducing CbMixtapes: playlists made of specific bits from different classes and grouped together by a common theme. It's a fun way to learn how one topic is approached by a variety of artists with different techniques, all rounded up in one curated mixtape.​

If you're in need of some vitamin sea, look no further than these ocean-themed classes. Lisa Congdon demonstrates how to draw a handful of whimsical, graphic fish using a micron pen or your favorite drawing implement. Sketch a mermaid along with Lily Sol, in her daily class inspired by art journaling. Jennifer Orkin Lewis, also known as August Wren, shows you how to paint a dolphin, a starfish, and a sea turtle. Finally, if you're technologically minded you'll enjoy making a jellyfish with Risa Iwasaki Culbertson using an iPad and Procreate software.

If these mini lessons inspire you to dig deeper, check out the full classes listed here:
REPLAY: Daily Drawing Challenge by Lisa Congdon
Goddess Sketchbook: A Daily Practice Inspired by Feminine Energy by Lily Sol
Daily Painting Challenge: 31 Animals with August Wren by Jennifer Orkin Lewis
Procreate 101: A Daily Practice for Beginners by Risa Iwasaki Culbertson

​PDF reference photos can be found on the full class pages.

Liana shows you how to make seed bombs for your garden, just in time for spring! This video originally appeared live on February 21, 2017.

Learn the simple satisfaction of creating knotted designs. Cathy will teach you how to use simple knots to create twists and movement in a macramé plant hanger made modern with vivid colors. You’ll learn the fundamentals of macramé, which can be applied and adapted to all kinds of projects, from jewelry to home décor.

Artist and designer Kristy Rice gives you insight into her signature style which cleverly combines actual fragments of flowers and greenery with watercolor embellishments. Whether your blossoms are fanciful or hyper-realistic, you'll be delighted to see how the addition of actual plants makes the composition pop - literally! - off the page.

Learn how to paint a new flower every day with help from acclaimed watercolor artist, Yao Cheng. Known for her flowing, elegant style, Yao shares her technique for capturing the feeling of flowers rather than trying to paint them realistically. In each part of this 31-day challenge, she explores the ideal brush strokes needed to paint the petals and leaves of popular flowers like dahlias, poppies, peonies and hydrangeas. Through these daily lessons, you will hone your brush skills, discover new color combinations, and learn how to capture light, energy, and movement in your own floral interpretations. Be sure to share your paintings in the class gallery and on Instagram with #cbdrawaday !

Faith demonstrates how to make a phase box, an archival structure designed to protect treasured books, using cardstock and simple tools. This video originally appeared live on April 3, 2018.

For more of Faith's book arts, check out Innovative Book Structures, Daily Book Art Challenge, and 30 Structures in 30 Days. 

Begin a daily painting practice on an unconventional canvas: a bound book. Accomplished painter Missy Dunaway takes you through a month-long series of classes progressing from simple exercises to advanced paintings. Working with acrylic inks, you'll begin by breaking down compositions into simple steps, learning how to block out your image, apply acrylic ink in layers, and gradually add detail and complexity to render colorful and expressive images. Whether you're new to painting or have an established practice, Missy's prompts encourage you to explore materiality and record places - both familiar and foreign - in an artful, visual diary.

When she couldn't find low-additive body products for her baby daughter over a decade ago, Arina Soler began concocting her own. Since then she has developed her own skincare line, BellaCreme, and has empowered numerous makers to follow in her footsteps by teaching workshops. In this class, Arina explains how to create healing salves using botanical-infused oils, resulting in affordable and customizable nontoxic skin care products that will soothe parched skin. You'll find the process as relaxing as using the products themselves. Dry, sensitive skin - thirst no more! 

Transform an old t-shirt into the perfect summer tank. This no-sew top takes 10 minutes to make.

No sew? No problem! Faith shows you how to whip up these quick and easy totes in next to no time using just a rotary cutter or pair of scissors. This video originally appeared Live May 2, 2019.

A picture is worth a thousand words but words themselves are priceless. In this unique daily practice, multimedia artist and educator e bond explores the various ways that reading and writing can intersect with visual art and how one medium can inform the other. She’ll share some of her favorite fiction, non-fiction, poetry and music to generate interest points from which to play and experiment. See how these sparks can fuel visual art through collage, mark-making, and doodling, and how these visual observations alter your perception of the page.

In Latin, Silva Rerum means “a forest of things.” Using this idea as a starting point, we’ll create a commonplace or everyday book to collect thoughts, ideas, and ephemera from your day-to-day life. Get Messy founder Caylee will show you how to transform a vintage book into your own art journal full of papers you love. Learn Caylee’s favorite methods of layering in vintage and found items while recording your daily life. Remember to use the hashtag #creativebuggetsmessy on social media to share your work with the Get Messy and Creativebug communities.

You might think of maps as diagrams of physical places, but the irrepressibly creative e bond will show you how to re-imagine a map as a visual journey through your artistic and emotional places. In this 31-day class, you’ll use maps and mapping, their functions and characteristics, as a process tool for generating abstract compositions with mark-making, collage, doodling, and other visual experiments. Map-making will be your conceptual point of departure as you fill up your sketchbook with paint, photographs, leaves, ephemera, and pieces of actual maps to create vibrant, mixed-media spreads.