by Debbie Gillotti

Created on: January 21, 2009   Last Updated: July 20, 2011

A child's mind is an open book and they are willing and eager to learn about the things that surround them in their daily lives. With an introduction to crafting, they are not only given the ability to learn new skills, they learn about how things around them can be transformed into new and sometimes useful items.

The thing to remember about being creative in some form of art is that we most always use our hands. As children, we learn dexterity, we learn about touch, we become aware of what our hands and fingers can do by themselves with a little practice. Children learn to use tools creatively. Paint brushes, sponges, scissors.

There are many resources available today, enabling us to create art from many types of media. Children should be allowed to let their creative juices flow by using any number of basic craft items that are safe for them. The simplest items like pipe cleaners, tissue paper, craft sticks, paint and glue, introduce them to a variety of textures, colors, and ideas. Simple items taken from nature can become dried floral arrangements, picture frames, paperweights.

Your child's projects may not be gallery quality but I do believe as it is said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Being inspired, creative, proud of your work is most important to a child. It begins with the simple coloring page stuck on the refrigerator door. The valentine made out of construction paper and lace that your child did in the first grade.

My grandson enjoys collecting various looking rocks. One afternoon, we added some small bent twigs to his collection. He was confused about my plan so after we arrived at home, I gathered some newspaper, paint and super glue and with a little bit of cutting and bending, together we created some rock bugs by attaching the twigs as the bugs legs. I let him paint our project as he saw fit once the glue dried. He now has a collection of lady bugs, beetle bugs and even a grasshopper. He was quite impressed by what he had created that now he looks around my property for other items to transform. Most recently, while cleaning out our shed, my grandson was lying on the floor playing with some nuts and bolts. He was pretending they were robots. Coming across an old bag of tin cans that I sometimes use in my garden, I recalled a fun craft idea using them. A week or so later, after cleaning the cans and removing any sharp edges, I gathered up a bunch of nuts, bolts, springs and washers and small magnets. When my grandson visited again, I brought out the items I had combined. With a little supervision and instruction, my grandson was soon making his own nut and bolt robots. Though everything was metal and the small parts were magnetized, we used yarn as hair, and made helmets out of yarn or clay. The robots were like Mr. Potato Head transformers.

Projects such as these seem small and not very exciting but I can tell you that my grandson was more than thrilled by his creations. It has opened up his mind to new ideas and our brief conversations have even inspired me to venture off into other artistic things that one day I hope to share with him.

Buy your child a disposable camera, a bird house kit, some watercolors. Cut out some pictures from a magazine, do some decoupage projects. Make a bank out of a oatmeal container or coffee can. Do something fun. It may spark the next Van Gogh.

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