Craft & Play: The Magazine For Families

September 2026

A magazine that's meant to be cut up: read the story together, then build the tiger, the fir tree and the board game out of its own pages.

"What should we play with our kids?" It is the question we are asked more than any other. Craft & Play is our answer, and it arrives as a magazine that comes with an invitation to cut it up.

A magazine you are meant to cut up

Inside the pages there are things waiting to leave them. Punch out a tiger. Fold a set of grey rocks until they stand up in three dimensions. Slot together a fir tree, cut a strip of blue tokens printed with arrows, unfold a green board with a path running through it. All of it is paper craft, so a pair of scissors, a glue stick and a jar of colour pencils is the whole workshop.

The cover says it plainly — ACTIVITIES & GAMES, ages 4 to 8 — and everything inside is built so a grown-up and a child can do it side by side at the same table. Board games, decorations, stories, letters to write when the season is right. Design for children starts with their hands, and paper is generous that way: it folds, it stands up, and it lets you try again.

Read it together first, then build it together

Half of the magazine is there to be read. There are articles for parents to enjoy on their own, and a cartoon to read out loud to a child at the end of the day. The reading comes first on purpose.

Then the loop closes. You read the story, you make the thing the story was about, and what you made goes up on a shelf or hangs by the window as a decoration — and after that it is a toy, and you play with it together. Along the way the big ideas arrive in small, easy pieces, so a child comes away knowing not only what something is, but what it is for.

❝

Read it to your child, craft it together, then take what you made out and play with it. A fun learning cycle.

Panu, Founder & Creative Director

❞

Coding, on paper first

Issue 01 is called coding jungle, and it opens the way every language does — with a hello. <Hello World/> sits at the top of the page, and beside it a printed panel drawn to look exactly like a code editor, three little traffic-light dots and all, listing what is in the issue: <title>Jungle Coding</title>, <animals>Tigers, Elephants</animals>, <destination>Camping!!</destination>. A contents page, written as code.

An open spread of the craft & play magazine headed <Hello World/> beside a printed panel drawn like a code editor — interactive design for kids that starts coding on paper
The contents of issue 01, written as code.

Why do we learn coding? The magazine takes the question seriously and answers it small enough for a seven-year-old, then hands the whole idea over as a game. The green board unfolds into a path. The tiger stands up on it, grey rocks sit in the way, a star waits at the far end, and the strip of blue arrow tokens tells the tiger which way to go. Square by square, a child is writing a set of instructions — and calling it a game the whole time.

Building the coding jungle game out of the magazine's punch-out sheets

December, cut out and hung up

Issue 02 arrives with the bear in a green sweater and a santa hat, and it is called deck the hall. Inside, the same shape: illustrated stories to read aloud, a small arched card that pops up in one hand so a crowd of animals stands around a note reading I love spending time with you, and a Letter to Santa postcard already addressed — Santa Claus, 123 Elf Road, North Pole 88888 — waiting on a child's handwriting.

A hand holds up the craft & play magazine's "deck the hall" issue, its white cover topped with paper cut-outs from the pages inside — a wrapped gift, a star, a Christmas tree and a bear in a knitted jumper and santa hat.
Two hands turn the pages of the same magazine, open to an illustrated story spread of snow-covered houses, lit by a string of warm fairy lights in the foreground.
A hand holds up a small arched pop-up card cut from the magazine — cartoon animals in santa hats crowd around a fold-out note that reads "I love spending time with you" — in front of a printed illustration of a house.
A "Letter to Santa" postcard, its recipient address already printed for Santa Claus at 123 Elf Road, North Pole, has been filled in by hand with a Christmas greeting — resting on the open magazine's illustrated mailbox page, with a second postcard being addressed just behind it.

Then out come the scissors. Colour in the template, cut along the line, fold it once, and a flat sheet becomes a goat that hangs on a string of fairy lights and glows when the bulb behind it warms up. A fir tree slots together, takes a fringed paper garland and a set of flat paper baubles, and ends up on the side table looking like it has always lived there.

Overhead view of a paper-craft table: two finished paper goat cut-outs in a red geometric print sit beside a hand colouring in a matching goat template with pencils, with scissors, glue and Christmas props laid out around the edges.
Overhead view of two hands attaching a paper bauble to a folded paper Christmas tree mid-assembly, with a fringed garland strip and matching ornaments still waiting beside it on the table.
The finished paper Christmas tree stands on a round side table, its garland and coloured paper baubles in place, beside a potted plant and a decorative pom-pom ball.
A paper goat cut-out in a red geometric print hangs from a strand of fairy lights, glowing where the bulb sits behind it, with a second goat blurred in the background.

What stays behind is the good part. A tiger halfway along a paper path. A goat glowing on the lights by the window. A fir tree nobody wants to put away — and underneath every one of them, an afternoon two people spent at the same table. We will keep making these, issue after issue, on paper and on screen, and we would like them in as many hands as we can reach. If you are dreaming up a kids event, an interactive installation, or something printed that plays the way this does, we would love to hear what you have in mind.

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