Crafting with Kids
Valentine's cookies. I ended up baking these and letting the kids decorate them.
Pinecones with peanut butter and birdseed.
I have mixed feelings about crafting with the kids. When my dd was a baby, a friend sent me a subscription to Family Fun Magazine. I found an article in it about how to make a doll quilt, so I made one, and that was what brought me back to sewing after having abandoned it in college. However, I never renewed that magazine subscription because all the *Fun Ideas* that I never had time for or could never pull off successfully (why doesn't my kid like to do crayon rubbings, etc.?) made me feel inadequate. The magazine began to feel like a to do list that I was constantly failing on.
I used to let the girls try machine embroidery at sleepovers, etc., but the girls always ended up wandering off to go play in the middle of things, so I gave up. (It's not like I wasn't prepared, I had all the materials hooped and ready to go and all they had to do was type their names into the machine's computer and hit the go button.)
This weekend I was helping ds address his valentines. This is a kid who needs extra help with writing, so the task of putting 18 names on cards is no small thing. When he was in preschool, every time I got out markers and construction paper, he would make ME draw and write and he wouldn't pick up a pen. But this time, he said *Mom I like doing our work together.* He actually did the work himself and made a couple of extra cards for his teachers. Progress y'all. . .
And it's not like I'm trying to turn them into little clones of myself or to make them like the same things I like. It's more that I want to show them how to do things for themselves. I have certain skills that are dying arts to some extent and I want to pass those things on. Of course I wasn't ready to learn how to knit until I was, oh, about 38 or so. So I think I have some time with these guys. . .
posted by Mary B at 4:58 AM
3 Comments:
Those cookies are *exactly* what I wanted to be home making yesterday. Only, I don't have any kids to decorate them, or eat them, so I would have been required to both decorate and eat them myself. :gg:
Your kids will certainly develop their own crafty leanings. It's wonderful that you are exposing them to the things that you like. One day they'll say "Well, my Mom got me started."
People in our family make things. I don't know how this will fall out with Jackson, except for the fact that he shows interest in baking. Our kids are growing up in a time period with technology that makes their experience completely different. But I'm still convinced that people in our family make things. It might be food, or firecrackers, or clothing, or paintings, or socks, but we make things. Remember your monkey applique picture, that was in your bedroom as a kid? You've come a long way baby!
Vicki, I still have that monkey and am planning to hang him in the sewing room as I get it cleaned up and fixed up. I'll put him on the wall as a reminder of how far I've come. ..
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