Crafty Friday: Bookmarks

My daughter loves to create. She's always crafting, designing, drawing, sewing, and the like. In fact, she creates so much that we've dedicated a good portion of my lower kitchen cabinets to all things crafty. The shelves housing all of my art supplies are partly taken up by bins of material scraps, ribbon, and wood pieces to which she has free access. The craft supplies are so bountiful that they have spilled over into my pantry. We save everything that could become a potential craft: egg cartons, oatmeal containers, lids, boxes, bubble wrap and as a result, we could supply a preschool class with enough craft supplies to last them a year.

The nice thing about having a craft cabinet/pantry/bins taking up my valuable art storage space is that when Audrie has an idea, there's no asking for permission to use some material, no waiting for Mom to get the art supplies out, there's no delay in creativity. She is free to craft whatever's on her mind with whatever's in her cabinet.

I love that Audrie creates all the time, on her own without prompting, but it's made me kind of lazy in the craft department. I find that I rarely plan out craft projects. I no longer set a designated "craft time" to create with my children. I've let Audrie's unprompted creativity take the place of my role as the craft teacher. It's not that I don't want her to create on her own, it's that I know she enjoys having a topic sometimes, and she loves the time we share when crafting together. So, in an effort to designate a craft hour, I've come up with what we're calling Crafty Fridays. I'm collaborating with my daughter to come up with creative craft ideas and bring them to fruition every Friday. And to keep me honest, as well as share these projects, I told Audrie that I would post them on my blog every Friday. If you want, you can join us each Friday and create, too!

For our first ever Crafty Friday, we chose to make bookmarks. The ingredients are as follows:
-Ready made bookmarks (Found at any craft supply store. These aren't necessary, any poster board/cardstock/felt cut to size will work. I just had these on hand.)
- Scrapbook Paper
-Buttons
-Stickers
-Felt
-Ribbon
-Thread
-Markers

First, we gathered our supplies and set them out for easy access, making sure any dangerous objects were out of reach of my ever adventurous and danger prone son. Each child was given a blank bookmark to accessorize to their heart's desire. I suggested making bookmarks out of felt, adding buttons, embroidering the paper......and on and on.

But, Audrie decided to skip all of the fun supplies I set out along with the suggestions I made, and opted for her own fanciful "scrapbook paper" with horse silhouettes.

Stickers were weapon of choice for Finn. I also helped him cut out shapes and glue them to his bookmark.

Once the bookmarks were embellished to their liking, we punched holes in the top and tied a coordinating ribbon through it.


These are some other ideas that we've implemented in the bookmark department:

These bookmarks were added to swag bags to help promote my little Etsy Shop. They were made with squares of scrapbook paper and hand drawn birdies.

As for these bookmarks, they were also made with squares of scrapbook paper (did I mention I like scrapbook paper?) stitched right onto the bookmark. I used Mod Podge to glue the thread to the paper after I stitched it. This is a great way for slightly older crafters to add a little extra something to their paper projects. My daughter has recently become obsessed with sewing, so anything she can stitch is a good thing.

Well, this concludes our first Crafty Friday. As you can see, even with all of the planning and preparation, suggestions and ideas, kids can take their own path. At least I provided the topic. :)

Nessa Dee