Let them decide.

My mother has sewn, crocheted, knitted, and done practically everything else her entire life. When I was young, she tried to get me interested in crafting, but it just wasn’t my thing. I remember when she tried to teach me to crochet, it wasn’t a pretty sight! It just wasn’t my time. Now, I love to craft, though I still can’t crochet! My daughter, on the other hand, loves to make things. Her very favorite thing to do is to draw and she is very talented if I do say so myself. I guess what I’m trying to say is introduce new things to your children. Show them that there are many creative outlets and help them find the one they enjoy the most. They may be like me, Lord help them, and not discover the joys of crafting till later in life, or they may be like my daughter and want to learn how to do something new all the time.

Why don’t you start off with this easy project. (This project is recommended for children ages 4 and up. Parental supervision is required because of the use of an iron.)

Here’s what you need:

Wax Paper
Crayons
a pencil sharpener
scissors
ribbon
a hold punch
an iron
2 brown paper bags

Tear off a piece of wax paper about a foot long and place it on top of a brown paper bag. Let you child peel the papers off of the crayons and then “sharpen” them with the pencil sharpener over the wax paper. These are the shavings that will create their sun-catcher. Make sure the shavings don’t pile up too high because it makes it difficult to iron. When your child has a look he likes, place another piece of wax paper over the shavings. Now you should lightly press over the bag with your warm iron. Peek to see how well the shavings are melting to determine if you need to turn the heat up on your iron.

Once the paper has cooled to the touch, with safety scissors, let your child cut out shapes like hearts, stars, crosses, you get the idea. You may want to trace the shapes and allow your youngster to cut along the lines. The final step is to punch a hole at the top, thread the ribbon through, and hang your child’s work of art in a sunny window. His face will light up when he sees how proud you are of him. Don’t forget to make one for Grandma!

Read These Next

If you’ve been around here long, you know that I’m in a perpetual battle with my stash. I feel like I haven’t bought yarn in years unless I needed it for a specific project. I knit fairly a lot, and crochet some, too, but it feels like my stash never gets any smaller.

It’s not just the unused balls of yarn that are a problem. In fact, maybe a bigger issue is all the odd balls and leftover bits that seem to pile up without any effort. Even though I love scrappy projects (and knit a whole sweater dress with scraps earlier this year) it still feels like a never-ending quest to use up all the little bits.

So I’m always on the lookout for good patterns that are made to use of the extra bits of yarn. If they are super easy, too, that’s so much the better.

So it is with the Lalu Scarf by Sheena Stone. This any yarn, any gauge pattern is designed to use up whatever scraps you have on hand (assuming they’re mostly the same weight or can be held double to make the same weight).

It’s a tube scarf worked in the round, and she specifically notes that she works it outside in, so the back of the scarf is on the outside as you knit. The needle tips are on the part of the circle farthest away from you as you knit.

It also has an attached I-cord edging, which sounds really time consuming but does give the edges a nice, finished look.

The way the colors are changed as you knit you don’t really need a lot of each color. It would probably be good if you had at least enough of a color to complete one round, but you can change colors more often than every round if you need to because you’re using all your tiny bits.

Grab the free pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Sheena Stone.]

Read These Next

Have you read?