Avery was destined to be a crafty little girl.
With a mom who LOVES scrapbooking, blogging, and writing stories, and a dad who’s a graphic designer and a crazy talented artist, this little girl never had a chance to be otherwise.
She’s loved to draw and paint and work with play-doh ever since the moment she could.
Her most recent favorite thing to do is go out in the garage and mess with Mommy’s scrapbook stuff.
Don’t get me wrong…I love watching her go through my bins and drawers of things, all the while saying, “Oooooohh…what else in here???”
But let’s be honest with ourselves.
She’s confiscated stamps and stamp pads and stamped all over the garage and herself.
She’s dumped my containers of glitter more times than I can count.
She’s gone through my stickers and peeled them off one by one and used them all over the place. She’s “reorganized” all my little letters and embellishments and half the time I don’t even know what’s where, or if it’s even usable.
It’s pretty frustrating, but I’m proud of myself for continuing to allow her to use some of this stuff, with boundaries of course.
She’s just fascinated with it all, and I want her to know she’s welcome to use some of Mommy’s stuff – everything can’t be DON’T TOUCH IT! – you know? I want to encourage any and all creativity that she has!
In the name of creativity and encouragement, I’ve started a little “scrapbook box” for Avery when we play in the garage. Anything she really likes of mine – or anything that’s no longer, ahem, salvagable for my own scrapbooking purposes – goes in this box.
When we go to the garage to get our scrappin’ on, I pull out her box of paints, glitter glue, paper scraps and other fun things, and we “scrapbook” together.
It’s adorable.
Her new favorite thing to “use” is of course, my beloved Cricut. Oh, Lord. She turns it on and off, plays with the little cutting pad, and tries to stick paper on there. She’s content because she doesn’t know she’s not really using it.
She thinks she is, and that’s the cutest part of all.
So, she turns the machine on and off, and pulls the pad out and puts in back in. And all the while, she’s got my glue and is dumping pools of glue onto little random scraps I’ve provided. She stacks these strips of paper up until it’s a little tower of paper.
She makes these for people she loves. Sometimes she adds special stickers when she’s done. Sometimes she stamps random designs. Sometimes she busts out her glitter glue and brushes the top of her creation.
We have glued paper piles all over the house. I have no more glue right now…I need to buy some for both of us soon. I think I will also pick up some safety scissors and some kid-friendly materials to go along with it.
And when you ask her what she’s doing? She says, “I scappinbookin like Mommy.”
