Getting Crafty

Kids are inherently curious and a great way to nurture that curiosity while stimulating creativity and imagination is getting crafty.

Now before you break out in cold sweats, know I’m not talking about Martha Stewart crafty, put the other moms at PTA to shame crafty, or make that science fair project double as an MIT application creative. Kids don’t care if you’re an artist or have the best ideas. They care that you spend time having fun with them and getting creative is a big step.

Plus, we have it tons better than our parents did. We have the Internet and virtually endless sources of crafty ideas at little to no charge.

Now, I admit to my use of the Internet and not a little leaning on those moms that were born with the crafting gene (which must have been a recessive neither of my parents carried). But there are times I do have my moments.

For instance, Sweetness went on an International Space Station kick a while back. About the same time I ran out of a roll of paper towels. I handed her the paper towel and invited her to color it, put on stickers, whatever she wanted (she’s 4). If she was older I’d have her use a photo of the ISS and draw what she saw on the roll, or even connect toilet paper rolls. But, she’s 4.

Then I pulled out a few pipe cleaners and some aluminum foil, and voila. International Space Station – which she wanted hung in a place of importance in her room.

Now, I’m the first to admit it isn’t an award winning, super impressive creation. In fact, I think it’s super lame. But to her, it is her very own ISS and she loves it. She shows it to everyone who comes over. That’s all that is important.

I tend to love the other things we’ve done over the years more, but she thinks the ISS is the best. Again, the most important part is spending time together, building that connection.

To better do more crafts, I ended up gathering all the craft stuff I’ve acquired over the years and put them in bins – crayons, markers, pipe cleaners, pom-poms, googley eyes, Play-Doh, various paints, glitter glue, glue, stickers, coloring books, activity books, sticker books, you name it – in the dining room. Just pull out, set up on the kitchen table, and you’ve got craft time.

You can find all kinds of crafty stuff at the craft stores for far less than a toy store. I use Michael’s because they send me coupons and if I use those and go at a sale, I make out pretty well. And sometimes these crafty ideas make great Christmas gifts, like the time I had the kids color tiles I bought at the hardware store. We put a little lacquer on them and a few felt feet and voila, coasters from the kids for Christmas!

My tip today is take time to get crafty, no matter how lame you might thing your creation may be, the time together is the real star.

What are some of your favorite crafty ideas with your kids?

Tagged as: connection time, crafts