10 Fun and Functional Bushcraft Projects for the Whole Family

Bushcrafting skills can, quite literally, be lifesavers in a survival situation. The ability to make what you need with minimal tools and using only natural materials is priceless. Even if you lose everything, if you still have your wits and your own two hands, you can provide for necessities.

But don’t delude yourself: bushcrafting right means doing lots of practice, over and over, until you can’t get it wrong. Rather than doing this alone, you can involve your family and have a little fun along the way.

In this article, I will tell you about 10 functional and fun bushcraft projects that you can do with the whole family. Perfect for camping weekends or just beating boredom in the backyard. Let’s get straight into it.

DIY Meat Smoker

Smoked meats are delicious, no question about that, but smoking is also a good survival skill unto itself. Properly smoked meat will last a long time, even at warmer temperatures, and that’s why it has been a survival staple for countless ages.

The smoking process dramatically reduces the amount of moisture present in the meat, and moisture is so often the chief culprit when it comes to spoilage.

Most folks smoke meat in the backyard using a smoker, something like a barbecue grill, or with a custom-built smoker that they made for the purpose. Obviously, that’s something you likely won’t have in any survival situation where you aren’t bugging in.

The good news is it’s entirely possible to build a great smoker using nothing but scavenged branches, foliage, and a little bit of cordage.

As long as you have plenty of wood for fuel, you’ll be in business! Full instructions here.

Feather Sticks

One of the single most important resources you can have at your command in any survival situation is fire. Fire is something that most people take for granted because humanity mastered it so long ago. But just try making it yourself without a lighter or matches, and you’ll discover it’s quite challenging.

Getting a proper camp or cook fire started begins with the right fuel, and the very first thing you’ll need is tinder. Something that burns easily, quickly, and hot, something capable of igniting larger pieces.

For this purpose, nothing is easier to source or make than feather sticks. Basically a simple, dried stick that is repeatedly shaved into slivers over and over again until it looks something like a Christmas tree or rat’s nest, it’s the perfect easy project to do when you have a few minutes to spare and are teaching little ones about safe knife usage.

Learn to make your own feather sticks here.

Char Cloth

Here’s another fire-starting helper, one that you’ll need fire to make in the first place. Most of what you need to know about char cloth is in the name. It is cloth that is charred! All you need to do to make it is put a small quantity inside a flame-proof box, like an Altoids tin for instance, and then expose it to intense heat.

You should punch a tiny hole in the box to provide for a little bit of ventilation, but after that, it only takes around 20 minutes for the process to complete. The finished product is charcoal black and will catch fire almost effortlessly.

This is an old-school method that is still valid and valuable today and a fun project to do the next time you get your fire pit going.

Make your own char cloth here.

Bow Drill

Assuming you’ve got fuel and tinder, you must still have the means to actually start the fire. Lacking modern tools, you’ll have to resort to primitive techniques. One of the most effective primitive techniques that is easy to make with natural and a few choice scavenged materials is the bow drill.

Using friction alone, you can get a fire going in just a minute or two after a little practice. You can also use the same basic fire-starting technique without all the assembly with the hand drill method.

Fire Plow

A fire plow operates on the same principle as the bow drill; generate enough friction, and you’ll soon have fire. But whereas the bow drill is more elegant and relies on dexterity or finesse, the fire plow depends on brute force.

Basically, it’s a plank of wood with a channel cut or ground into it, through which you push a stick, called the plow. The frantic pushing back and forth will soon generate an ember that can easily ignite your tinder. You’ll work up a sweat with this method, but it’s handy if you can’t construct a bow drill.

Hand-woven Baskets

Woven baskets might be the butt of a lot of different jokes these days, usually revolving around comparing their worth to that of a college degree, but they get a bad rap. Baskets are incredibly useful for lots of different tasks, from gathering berries and edible mushrooms to constructing small game traps, fish traps, and a lot more.

Basket weaving is truly an art form, and an ancient one at that. If you’ve never tried it yourself, you might be surprised at how challenging it is! The premise and the individual movements are simple, but repetition is the key to getting it right.

The nice thing about practicing this skill is that, at the end, you’ll have a practical and decorative item that you made yourself, one that is useful even outside of a survival scenario!

Lean-To Shelter

Ask most preppers what the most critical survival resource is, and they will likely tell you water, maybe food, or sometimes security. In actuality, assuming you’ve got air to breathe, the most important necessity is shelter. Exposure kills quickly and mercilessly when you’re caught outdoors or when you can’t heat a structure.

Accordingly, learning how to provide for your own shelter is essential. One of the very best all-purpose shelters is the simple lean-to. It’s a standby for a reason: it will keep wind and rain off of you and also help to reflect heat from your fire back onto you, giving you more warmth for the same amount of fuel.

There are tons of ways to make a lean-to depending on what materials are at hand and what environment you are in, but the walkthrough here will get you started on the right foot.

Snare Trap

Lots of preppers plan to rely on hunting for supplementing their food supply during a survival situation. Hunting can be great, especially if you’re good at it, but the problem is that it is always an active technique, meaning you’ve got to be there, be aware, and get the job done.

A better bet for multiplying your efforts is trapping. There are all kinds of traps that can be constructed in all kinds of ways for catching all kinds of game. It’s way too much to get into here, but the very first trap you should learn is the snare. It’s adaptable, easy to set up, and can be made from scavenged material like wire or natural cordage.

Learn how to make snare traps.

Carve a Spoon

Here’s an oldie, a project that’s more of a rite of passage and one that is deceptively challenging! A spoon is one of those things that you won’t miss until you don’t have one and then try to make one. It’s tricky!

Bushcraft Skill: Carve A Spoon Out Of Wood The Easy Way

This is the perfect camping project for passing time around the fire while swapping stories, and it’s great for honing whittling skills. A good knife and the right stick to start with are all you’ll need.

Crayfish Trap

A criminally underrated food source in areas where they are found, crayfish are basically tiny lobsters. They taste really similar, and they are extremely nutritious; an excellent source of protein!

They can be real rascals to catch by hand or with other methods, but trapping them is a cinch. A couple of plastic bottles, rubber bands, and a few other things along with a little bit of bait will get you a bucket full.

Paracord Sling

Used as a hunting tool or, in a pinch, as a self-defense weapon, a sling can be just as effective today as it was in ancient times.

Note that a sling should not be confused with a slingshot; a sling is little more than a pouch that can launch a small stone, marble, ball bearing, or similar projectile at extreme velocity using nothing but muscle power.

Again, it’s something that needs lots of practice, but making the sling itself is easy enough if you’ve got plenty of paracord to spare. This is the perfect project for folks who have lots on hand.