Saturday, January 2, 2010

Crafting Responsibly

So I have all these super cool crafting supplies in the house for the kids to build super cool and neat o pictures and etc. And they do. And I end up with STACKS of super cool neat o non recyclable crafts. In days gone by there was no "crafting" to craft (Like the walmart crafting supplyeverythingforyoukits) In days gone past everything had a point -A needlework "Sampler" was someone practising their stitches in order to make clothes later on, a scarf - someone practising knitting, a carved something - practising carpentry skills (and neat gifts/skills a la Mose in "Amish in the City"), my point is 'crafting' was to practice skills needed in the future. I want to steer my kids into crafts and projects that have some use, or build some skill (other than I can glue like crazy!) so I don't end up with a bunch more garbage to throw in the landfill.
The two big boys love coloring right now....they make geometric colorful pics. And turn them into bookmarks and cards, ok! I realize painting is a childhood rite of passage and I'm fine with breaking out the paints and making a mess.....but where do we draw the line? I notice a lot of blogs I follow already craft responsibly with neat stuff made from well neat stuff - Why do I end up with piles and piles of drawn on paper, glued on paper and etc....I expect it's pretty normal, but I'm feeling guilty about our landfill.....
I'm being pretty cynical as expressing oneselves with crafts and art is a great outlet but I want to be practical about what we are doing to our environment......
Having said this hubby is finishing our basement and was using some self leveling cement. August took the extra and poured it into the bottom of a 4L plastic milk jug
and then dropped some coins into it. Hoping they'd stay on the surface. They sank, quickly. I laughed and said "In 10,000 years some archaeologist is going to bang those coins out of there and wonder what in the heck you were doing!" He liked that!

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