Arts and Crafts

I hope my friend Kellie doesn't mind me copying an excerpt from her blog. When I read this, I knew exactly what she meant and it hit a chord in me:

"So I had one of those moments today...one of those, gee my life isn't turning out like I expected moments. Let me explain...Growing up, I had these little visions of how my future would turn out. In high school, I valued imagination and creativity as some of the finest virtues one could obtain in life...
I had these images in my mind of me being a super mother and all the great activities I'd do with my children. Visions of me twirling my pony tailed girl in her sun dress amidst the wildflowers after telling her grand tales of princesses and pirates was always popular in my head. Endless horsey rides and hide and go seek games with my little cowboy/spaceman/firefighter/pilot. I planned on writing and illustrating books for my children about the imaginary adventures they take. An endless array of home made costumes, crafts and captive little ears were all in my future.

Then I actually became a mom.

Yes, you do have those wonderful imaginative moments, but they're generally squished in between a whole lot of butt and nose wiping, burning dinners, spills on the floor, spitup on the shirt, a whole lot of "no, you cannot have three popsicles today," and even more, "That's one....That's two...(you get the idea). Oh and the sleep deprivation. Always, always, the sleep deprivation. So somewhere in the midst of all this, my value for peace and quiet seemed to greatly overtake my need for imaginative times...

Sigh. I'm great at getting her all set up with crayons and a coloring book, poising the little people barn, and scooting her off on her bike while I hurry and make a phone call/email/cook dinner/clean the bathroom etc. But when it comes to actually sitting down and entering her world of imagination, I've fallen severely short of what I would like. My high school version of myself is frowning at me from behind my Yoda mask. So how does one get the creative spark going again? I miss that part of myself."

After I read this, I was inspired to teach Brinkley how to get her craft on. Arts and crafts is is HUGE part of my life. I feel like it is largely what makes me who I am.
I thought the best thing in the world was a big box of blank computer paper. Oh, the possibilities inside that box! I was always making stuff.
I want Brinkley to feel the same way about creating.
Yes, I was concerned about the mess it would make (and it did make some messes)
But I thought, "If my mom let me do it when I was little, I can certainly let Brinkley do it!"
My mom is a whole lot cleaner than I am too. So, there you go. No excuses. :)

I just have to say, it was so much fun!
One day we painted with watercolor paints. And even though all the colors are mixed to a nice muddy brown, we painted some lovely pictures. Brinkley also painted her skin green. Her very favorite color.


Another day we colored crowns, cut them out, and then wore them around. We even wore them to the neighbors house for dinner. Brinkley loved being a princess!

And another time we played with glitter and glue.
This one was a little harder for Brinks to grasp the concept.
I tried to show her that you draw pictures with the glue and then sprinkle the glitter on lightly.
She just liked squeezing the glue out in big old puddles and smothering it with glitter.
2 year olds. Love them.

This one is my beautiful creation. It was near Halloween, can you tell by the scary tree with bats flying around?


And here is Brinkley's piece of art:

It is still really difficult for me to balance everything I need to do with everything I want to do. Not to mention all the things I should do!
But this was a start. And it was fun.