The vibrant art style of hip hop lends itself well to kids crafts.
Hip hop has a great visual history attached to it with bright colors, graffiti-writing fonts and an anything-goes art aesthetic. Crayons, markers, fabric and glitter paint markers all work well for hip hop crafts for kids and is a great birthday party idea. You could have a guest DJ, which could be mom or dad, play some kid-friendly hip hop while the kids are making their crafts to add more fun to the atmosphere.
Clothes
Clothes are a large part of hip-hop culture with T-shirts and kicks (shoes) being the most vocal platforms for individual expression. Whether on the street or during breakdance competitions, known as battles, clothes say as much about the individual in hip hop as well as the movement itself. Have each child bring a white T-shirt and lay them out on a bench in a backyard on the grass. With adult supervision, each child can write their name on their shirt in bubble lettering, which is a hip hop style of writing on t-shirts and found in graffiti murals done in hip-hop culture by graffiti artists. Then, each child can choose colors they like and have an adult help them spray paint their T-shirts. Hang them on a clothes line outside to dry when finished spray painting.
Hip-Hop Accessories
Bandanas are popular and thematic to hip-hop culture as well. Hip-hop artists and lovers of hip-hop tie them around heads or in their hair. Pointy lettering mixed with the bubble lettering used in the clothes decorating can be used to get a hip-hop style. Bandanas can be decorated on a table with buttons, fabric markers, stickers, glitter and glue on shapes. Each child can pick a color of bandana they like or everyone can have a white bandana to personalize. When the bandanas are done, each child can try theirs on and have a Polaroid picture taken of them in a 'hip-hop/tough' pose wearing their fresh bandanas.
Fresh New Kicks
A pair of sneakers, called "kicks" in the hip-hop world, are found in the streets on hip-hop cultural purists and on the hip-hop club dance floor. In the hip -op world, personalizing your kicks with colored shoe laces that are thick is one of the markers of hip-hop style.
Decorating for the Turntables
Before .mp3s existed, hip-hop DJs and music enthusiasts used to go digging through the crates religiously to find "fresh" tunes to spin at block parties, teen centers and clubs. Artists such as Kurtis Blow, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were busy making their mark on the musical map and changed music as we know it. As a cool craft, hip-hop record mobiles can be made with old hip-hop vinyl records, easily found at garage sales. With string and a hole puncher, punch a hole in the top of each record and string them together, leaving a loop so the mobile can be hung from the ceiling or wall. Decorating the records with glow-in-the-dark stickers can be cool also. Decorating old vinyl to be hung up on room walls is a great craft activity as well.
Tags: each child, hip-hop culture, bubble lettering, hip-hop style, making their