Crafts for Kids

In the last box of goodies my aunt sent us I found a wonderful book.  It's called Pioneer Crafts, and as you can imagine, that's just what you'll find inside!  It couldn't have come at a better time!  With the weather being so cold and miserable, the kids and I haven't had much time for outdoor fun.  Instead this might give us some new projects to work on.

Some of these projects are a little familiar.  There's wood working, mostly whittling sticks.  There's also a piece on carving soap, something I did when I first learned to use a Swiss Army knife in Girl Scouts.  It gave me a real respect for those little tools to this date.  Until recently I had one everywhere I went.  There's also candle making, basket weaving, and doll making too!  These were all things I got to do in Girl Scouts and really enjoyed.  I guess I didn't really stop to think how much my kids are missing out by not having exposure to these things!  I was so spoiled with a great Girl Scout troop!  I was also disappointed with my daughter's Girl Scout troop.  They seemed to lack any kind of ambition in comparison to the things my troop did by their age!  I hate to say it, but that's part of the reason I didn't bring her back for another year.  It seemed like she wasn't doing anything at Girl Scouts but getting into trouble.

Other crafts in the book include things I wouldn't have thought of on my own, but really probably should have.  There's a tutorial on making tin lanterns, something that might be especially fun to do with preparing for the possibility of power outages in the future.  It never hurts to be prepared.  There's a project for making a balancing acrobat that looks pretty fun.  There's a tutorial on making your own moccasins, something I think my daughter would love!  They have instructions for silhouette portraits, making a loom, loom weaving, and dying.  My favorite project, the one I'm most looking forward to doing with my daughter, is the crazy quilt.

When I'd first heard about crazy quilts and all these random scraps of fabric I had a very different idea in  my head.  I'd thought they meant making a quilt that's just random scraps of fabric put together at random, fitting the pieces wherever they'd manage.  I thought we were talking crazy angles and legitimate wackiness.  I had no idea they were anything like what the book describes them to be!  I always thought those were just called "patchwork quilts".  Who knew?  I'm looking forward to buying random fat quarters and things so we can have a variety of fabrics to work with.  I'd feel a little silly using fabrics that don't have a story behind them, since that was part of the tradition, so we're going to use the fabric for things like doll clothes and use the leftover hunks of fabric for the quilt.  There's a lot of fabric left over when you make fashion doll clothes!

I'm really loving that book and I can't wait to work on some of the projects in it!  I might just be inspired to cut up some cereal boxes so we have materials to weave some baskets!  Maybe we can get all kinds of crazy and use cases of soda to add some variety and even more color to the mix!  Who says you need fancy craft supplies!  We've got some great stuff that can be recycled in our own home!