Crafting with Children

Can I say something without sounding like I’m knocking my parents? When I was growing up, I kid you not, it was hard to find a blank piece of paper to draw on. I remember looking at my dad’s legal pads from work hoping there would be a blank page somewhere in there.
I’ve kind of taken the opposite approach with my girls. They don’t have permission to use my supplies. But, they have a little table and chairs next to mine. And a cart full of their own supplies. I let them paint whenever they want to. The only problem is they get really messy. We need to work on clean up time, I know!

My oldest daughter and I had a whole lot of fun making Junk Journals last month. I just have not gotten around to posting the photos on my blog. She really enjoyed watching Tangie’s videos, picking supplies, and following Tangie’s directions. I let her use my Tim Holtz ink pads for this project because her stamp pads are recessed and would not work. You can see even the little one got into the action…I let her glue the “scraps” together. It kept her entertained most of the time we were working on our books.
If you want to learn more about Junk Journals watch these videos by Tangie Baxter. Danielle was so proud of how “fat” her journal is, she kept talking about it so her dad finally said, “I take it *fat* books is the goal here?” Yep, and imagine how fat they will be when they are filled with all the “junk”!
Tangie Baxter’s Supply List:
*Composition Notebook
*Ink Pads
*Scrapbook Paper
*Glue (Aleen’s Tacky Glue, Tombow multi-tip, UHU glue stick)
*Thin Ribbons
*Binder Clips
My comments…I didn’t find the UHU glue stick tacky enough to suit me. Aleen’s glue worked better but it was wet and took longer to dry. I’m a big fan of Tombow, if I’d found the multi-tip I bet I would have liked it. Also, I used some “post it” style plastic tabs…very cool. I just stuck them on and pasted a scrapbook page over it.


This sounds like a fun summer project:) It reminds me of when my kids were in K4. We kept a spiral notebook of things that began with the letter/sound that they were learning each week.
I think I’ll pass this link on to emily. It would be something fun to do with her music appreciation classes. For instance, if they went to a movie they could save the ticket for their journals and write something about the sound track.