OK, so that's a mission statement meant for myself as much as it's meant for them. There's a couple reasons I'm repeating this mantra until it sinks into our psyche. First of all, over these past months I've gathered a collection of other women's blogs, bookmarked them into 1 folder, check them occassionally, grab photos/ideas & drop them into catagorized folders on my desktop (ie: "crafts_easy", "crafts_help", "drawing/painting", "outdoors") I know, VERY VIRGO. A popular site I like is
The Artful Parent. I was inspired by how her daughter starts out doing something with her materials but her mind wanders & explores & experiments and she eventually creates a variety of things. I liked the ease with which her daughter felt with any material; her openess to just let go, zone out and create. It took me awhile to realize why & the answer was that art was always within arms reach. Her mom wasn't setting out stuff, calling her over & saying "Ok now this is what we're gonna do! Doesn't this look like fun!?" That's not how art works - that's how craftmaking works. So, over the months I gathered (99cents Store is a store sent from heaven) But because I have, oh say, a zillion other things to do I've only gotten so far as the materials. I have not set up a station anywhere near what Jean from The Artful Parent has given her daughters. But I'll make something that works for us & this Virgo will post it all soon!
The other night I asked Ellia to dig through their crayon bin & drop all the itty bitty piece crayons into my muffin tray. While they took a bath I baked them at 150 & when Ellia got out of the bath she was very excited to see the "Swirly Crayons". Her first instinct was to NOT use them. Haha! She wanted me to put them in a bag so she could bring them to school and pass them out to kids & teachers.
OK, so that's a mission statement meant for myself as much as it's meant for them. There's a couple reasons I'm repeating this mantra until it sinks into our psyche. First of all, over these past months I've gathered a collection of other women's blogs, bookmarked them into 1 folder, check them occassionally, grab photos/ideas & drop them into catagorized folders on my desktop (ie: "crafts_easy", "crafts_help", "drawing/painting", "outdoors") I know, VERY VIRGO. A popular site I like is The Artful Parent. I was inspired by how her daughter starts out doing something with her materials but her mind wanders & explores & experiments and she eventually creates a variety of things. I liked the ease with which her daughter felt with any material; her openess to just let go, zone out and create. It took me awhile to realize why & the answer was that art was always within arms reach. Her mom wasn't setting out stuff, calling her over & saying "Ok now this is what we're gonna do! Doesn't this look like fun!?" That's not how art works - that's how craftmaking works. So, over the months I gathered (99cents Store is a store sent from heaven) But because I have, oh say, a zillion other things to do I've only gotten so far as the materials. I have not set up a station anywhere near what Jean from The Artful Parent has given her daughters. But I'll make something that works for us & this Virgo will post it all soon!
The other night I asked Ellia to dig through their crayon bin & drop all the itty bitty piece crayons into my muffin tray. While they took a bath I baked them at 150 & when Ellia got out of the bath she was very excited to see the "Swirly Crayons". Her first instinct was to NOT use them. Haha! She wanted me to put them in a bag so she could bring them to school and pass them out to kids & teachers.
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