General Craftyness

My mom has been a crafter for as long as I can remember. When we lived in Alaska when I was a kid, we had a lot of indoor time - so mom converted the garage into her studio. It's funny. Last year I ended up reconnecting with one of the other moms from that period of my life. She remembers "Gail's Arts & Craft School" because mom would let the kids work on all sorts of different stuff. And we did a lot of different crafts - decoupage and making 3-D curio boxes were huge. Over the years, mom tried everything - crochet, macrame, etc. . . Except for knitting. She just picked that up last year.

One Christmas we decided to not buy stuff for each other - or if they were bought, they'd have to be creative in some way.

I really attribute my ability to "think outside the box" to this early childhood exposure to being creative. Being creative in my family is a virtue.

So, now that I have a kiddo, I have successfully passed this meme to my offspring.

M had SO much fun at Maker Faire. What made me realize just how much fun it was, M was JUST as excited to go to day two as she was to go the first day.

On day two, J & M met up with some college friends - they have four kids - a 12, 8, 6, and 3 year old. The 12 and 8 yo ran off to see Maker Faire and took a cell phone with them. After an hour or so, they started texting their parents saying that they've seen everything and they wanted to go. M said they kept texting and texting. After a while, the parents ended up leaving. It was a foreign concept to her. She told me with very wide eyes, "Momma, I know they didn't see everything - there's a lot to do here. I just don't understand why they wanted to leave." So do I have two more years left till mom becomes uncool to hang around?

M made a fabric lunch bag over at the Craft Stylish/Singer booth. Here's her while making it. Notice the intense concentration.

I remember her coming over to show me her bag and telling me that she had pushed the fabric and controlled the pedals all by herself. I'm sure the people running the booths were there watching her like a hawk. I'm just glad she got to do one - I heard the machines were packed. Here she is with it done:

The photo above was from the Craft Stylish blog. The caption said, "M***** Hattan proudly displays the lunch bag she made over at the Singer Show booth. Six-and-a-half-year-old M***** told us she has been sewing since she was six."

I thought that was really cute. As we were leaving Maker Faire to go home, she announced to me that when she grows up, she'll have her own booth with her own workers at a Maker Faire.

Yes, I definately have passed the Craft meme to my kid.