I hear it nearly every day. My craftiness has definitely rubbed off on my oldest. She’s always wanting to make something. There’s strips of paper here. Crayons scattered there. Then there comes the, “Make something with me!” from her.
She came to me just yesterday with a piece of paper decorated like a movie clapboard. She showed me her hard work and how she cut the paper to try to make it open and shut. Then, after playing with it, she accidentally tears it. She brings it to me and asks for me to help her make another one.
We found stronger paper to use this time. However, there was one change that she wanted to make. She wanted to actually make it open and close without it tearing up. I showed her my stash of weird crafting supplies. Well, they’re weird to her, not to me. LOL. I tell her that we can use a grommet to secure the top and bottom together and it will open and close no problem. I didn’t want to just take over her craft, so I showed her what we needed to do to attach the grommet. After a couple of tries, she asked for me to finish that part for her. Once it was ready to go, I told her it was now up to her to finish the project with her own decorations and designs.
She was so proud of her creation afterward that we had to put it to use. With her silly brother running around, he was up for anything! We had him act some stuff out for us … on her cue, of course. He quickly learned that he couldn’t say anything until she closed the “clapboard” and said ACTION!
It turned out to be a really fun day for us. Now, while this sounds like something that took all day, the craft itself and the acting out altogether took up just over an hour. So, we had plenty of time to do other things, too. I wanted to share that with you so that you don’t look at crafting as something that takes all day. Even the busiest of Moms can find a little spare time to do something quick and fun with her kids. It just takes a little imagination … of which most of the time your child has supplied most of.