Craft

My kids love to do art and craft! Hannah in particular is prolific, and our house is always covered in her creations. Unfortunately, though she loves to create, she is very bad at getting rid of old stuff. She feels sad if she has to throw something out (the opposite of me).  The ironic thing about this is that if she doesn’t see you throwing it out, she accepts happily that some of her old craft has gone.  Somehow it’s the actual throwing out that is stressful for her.

Please understand, I love that they are creative. I just don’t know what to do with all their creations. I have a large folder for each of my kids, where I place some of their work. I write the date and their age on the back so I can remember how they used to be. I love to see their progress. But if I were to keep every piece the kids created I would need a larger house – just for the art and craft.

Last Friday night I was home alone and the kids were in bed. I looked around and there was stuff everywhere. I grabbed the recycling basket and started sorting out the junk! I emptied our recycling basket 3 times (and it’s a large basket too!). I kept 3 or 4 pieces and got rid of everything else.

The funny thing was on Saturday morning, when I got up, the girls were already set up on the dining table with their craft box open, glue sticks out and stuff everywhere. Hannah commented on how I cleaned up the house really well last night but didn’t quite notice that most of her craft had gone! In any event it didn’t matter that it had gone, because 2 hours later, my house was once again covered in … craft!