Crafty Hearted: Better Than Diamonds

I am proud that my boys are so incredibly creative already, not so they can be my little drones, but because I feel like creativity is an incredibly important skill. It's something I can nurture in them that the school system can't. Whether they become artists or bean counters, it will be something they can use to express themselves or problem solve. It gives me a little reward to see their little minds at work, it's like a whisper letting me know that keeping them home with me until Kindergarten didn't damage them with my imperfection. Add creativity to the sweet generosity of a little kid and my heart is mush, especially when that kid is mine.

Mr. Golden Curls is 6 years old now and he has always been a creative spirit and a problem solver. At Christmas time with my parents we were all sitting around after having opened gifts and he was roaming around the house. He kept passing through saying "I'm looking for a bead. Do you have a bead?" It is not strange for him to be on a mission to make something but when he presented my mom with this ring made out of a twist tie from one of his new toys and a cut piece of straw for a bead we were pretty blown away. As far as I know he's never seen jewelry made like this but he had the ability to go measure Grammy's finger, create a bead, and get it twisted onto the wire just right. Then he gave it to her with the words, "I didn't have anything to give you for Christmas so I made you this."

I Am A Robot...Craft Project

Introducing Skippy Bowlingball (made by Lil' Spitfire), Stella (made by me) and the robot who never ended up with a name because Mr. Golden Curls couldn't decide on the perfect one. He was, however, positive that this was "a talking baby robot."

Robot voices abounded yesterday as the boys and I made one of our coolest kid projects to date, paper robots! This idea was even sweeter because it was 100% my 5 year old's idea. He had seen my Skull and Crossbones garland on the tree, asked what held them together and you could see his wheels turning. On the way to school he told Pappa all about the robot he was going to make using brads for joints. He's home all week for Christmas break so every day we're going to do something extra fun. Yesterday was robot making day!

It was such an easy, fun project that I thought I'd share. The cardstock we used was perfect. It's from a package my mom got me from Michaels of metallics in all different colors by American Crafts. Brads weren't hard for us to come by, I'm slightly addicted. The brads I use come in a multi-pack of lots of different metallic colors from Hobby Lobby. We used a small hole punch to help us with the brads, a large hole punch for one of the mouths, stencils and cut free form shapes and that's that.

Silly pictures using the timer on the camera have become a tradition in our family, so here you have it, Robot style silly.

I was totally impressed with the boys. Mr. Golden Curls made his completely by himself, punching holes and all. Lil' Spitfire required very little assistance, he's almost four, I had to punch the holes for him and bend the brads but everything else was all him. He even came up with the idea of hole punching the mouth. And how could I miss out on the action? I couldn't! So I made my own robot who currently resides on the Christmas tree.