Crafty toddler

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve crafting. I made clothes for my dolls, tents out of sticks and leaves, and ironed Holly Hobby patches onto canvas bags (included iron marks from leaving the iron in one spot for too long). My daughter is almost two years old and I've got the itch to start crafting with her. One of the great things about having a child is getting to relive your favorite pastimes. So this past Saturday we did our first craft project together.

It was pretty simple but loads of fun; we made plant markers for the garden. I had some colored wooden pieces in tongue depressor, heart, star, circle, square, oval and other shapes and sizes. I laid out a waterproof table cloth on the floor, poured out the bag of wooden pieces and got some gel glue. My daughter was the designer. When she was drawn to pick a piece I asked where she would like it to go. She would lay it down on a stick and I would then glue it into place. After a short time she wasn't content to just "design" and she got the urge to do some gluing for herself. Gulp. Toddler + glue = ? I checked the glue lable and it washes off so I encouraged her to play with it. Also her hands were not strong enough to squeeze much glue out of the bottle. She got the sense that she could do it herself and I didn't have to scrape her glued pants off the floor. After the pieces dried I used a permanent marker to write the plant names on them. I would definitely do this project again. She had fun picking out the pieces by colors and shapes and I had fun encouraging her creativity. And I think she will enjoy putting the sticks in the garden by the plants she and her daddy are growing.