"Craft" time

It's the thought...
Recently I have been trying to do many more crafts with Link. Not only is he a total sports junkie but he has also been showing a lot of interest in creative endeavors as well. I figured since he is young I should nurture those creative tendencies and set up some craft times a few times a week for him. We ventured to a couple different stores and got a plethora of supplies (as well as an over the door shoe hanger for the closet door to store everything in). Through the month of October we have been doing a lot of projects involving pumpkins and Halloween themes. I did a little browsing on the net to find some project ideas and came across quite a few cute projects. I have no idea how old the kids were that did these crafts and I have to tell you, anyone that claims their two year old did any of these by themselves and even did 70% of them themselves is a Big Fat Liar Face. I post pictures on Facebook of all these cute projects we have done and I post Link in the process of making them. What I don't show you is the true experience of crafting with a two year old.
Let me demonstrate what I mean.


Craft #1: Tissue Paper Pumpkin

Cute right? I think it came out wonderful. We hung it up on the wall right near the door when you walk in. It was a fun one to do because Link enjoyed tearing up the tissue paper. What people saw was this:Link happily gluing the hell out of the cardboard pumpkin I had cut out for him. They also saw pictures of him putting handfuls of the paper on the board.

What they didn't see was this:Link screaming, launching cars into the paper and then throwing all the tiny pieces all over the playroom at the dog. They also missed out on the glue that got EVERYWHERE including the table, my shirt, all over my hands and all over his hands. We had to stop creation so he could wash his hands because he was screaming "Mommy! What's that?! What's that?! We need to wash our hands!!" They also missed out on pictures I conveniently forgot to take that included Link pouting when I wanted him to wait to glue the green paper on. Nice eh? Next craft!


Craft #2: Jack-o-lantern paper plate craftA fun paper plate jack-o-lantern with pipecleaners and foam stock. What people saw was this:

Link proudly displaying our pumpkin with scissors in hand. They also saw him painting on a green piece of construction paper in the same batch of pics.

What they didn't see was this:Link fanatically obsessed with cutting the crap out of the construction paper we used to make the stem. In fact, for the majority of this craft I was constructing it. He spent most of his time getting paint all over his hands, the paper, the table cloth, and mixing all the colors by dipping the paintbrush into each container over and over again. To his credit he did twist the pipe cleaners and sort of cut out the stem! He also, of course, helped glue the hell out of the paper plates!

What they really should have seen was this:
because that was his true masterpiece for the day. I actually had nothing to do with creating this piece!


Craft #3: Pom Pom Pumpkin PatchA cute little pumpkin patch made from foam stock, pom poms, googly eyes and pipe cleaners.
What people saw was this:What they didn't see:
Link making a run for it when the pumpkins weren't ready to go on fast enough. They also did not see me trying to keep the googly eyes on the pom poms because Link just "needs the eyes" or all the pom poms everywhere because I had Link help me sort the colors out. He thought it would be fun to throw "all these pumpkins" at the dog and into the sink, which he deemed a basketball hoop. Also missing from our fun craft were pictures of the glue all over the both of us from gluing on the "feet" (leaves) for the pumpkins. You will also notice the scissors in the above picture because Link is convinced that every time we do a project that we have to have scissors.

I would talk about craft #4 but really it pretty much didn't involve Link at all... aside from squeezing a whole lot of glue into a plastic cup. Ah hell...

Craft #4: Orange yarn pumpkin
I don't have a picture of the finished product because quite frankly, it's still not finished because I know it will be crushed when brought out. This was a failure of age appropriateness on my part!
I didn't really leave anything out of my picture post on this craft because this was the only real picture we had of Link participating. The next step was to blow up a balloon, dip yarn in a glue/water mix and wrap it around the balloon, let it dry and pop the balloon and pull it out. As you have probably figured out, all Link wanted to do was play with the balloon and he got mad when we ruined his green balloon. He just wanted to party!

I'm not going to stop crafting with Link. I love every second of it. It's always an adventure but I have found my idea for what to do with the materials usually differ from his. The finished products are always cute and I love the time we spend together... I also get a my exercise doing crunches as I continually pick up fallen materials and arm stretches as I constantly wipe up glue. It's also time to invest in a buttload of Elmers because man does my kid love glue.

A Time I Had