Crafty Crafters

A few weeks ago Riley went to the library and struck gold: she found her soul mate in a book and we have lived and breathed by it since.

Create with Maisy! Wake up before the sunrise and ask your parents if you can! Pore over it's pages, scavenge the recycling and the farthest reaches of your mother's cabinets for bits of pasta, crepe, aluminum, and glitter.

I should have written her intro.

Luckily, I enjoy crafts as well. We had to limit her to one a day, because, you know, we got stuff to do, but it's been a lot of fun. This book is perfect for an almost-4-year-old: the crafts are simple and use common household items and are very adaptable to what you have on hand. And it's nice that it is laid out for them that they can flip through and pick what they like. Which is a huge attraction, probably half the appeal. Usually I pick crafts for them from Pinterest or blogs, and they like those, but they aren't as invested.

Vegetable stamp painting.

Paper lanterns.

Water colors on white crayon drawings.

Pencil holders and tissue flowers

It is so much fun seeing the kids getting creative and proud of their creations. I love this age! Today Riley and Joe took turns telling me stories (or "scary jokes" in Joe's case).  It was the best. Riley really talks with her hands when she is telling stories - the dragons and princesses and "hans" (she means princes) and knights really came to life. She interjects her "and then"s with such gravity. And Joe just kept sharing knock knock jokes with bananas and chicken nuggets as the inexplicable punch lines. We humor him though.

Right, I sometimes get the vague idea that others might find these details rather uninteresting. But these details glow in my heart - it is what it is. I'm smitten.