Let’s get creative!!! It’s national Keep Kids Creative week and Mompert Carrie Gaskins has a fun and easy-to-do craft you and your kids will enjoy.

Keeping Kids Creative

Kids are artists at heart. Whether its music, painting, drama – they are using their creative and artistic skills on a daily basis. From singing in the car, being a “drama” queen in an altercation with a sibling or drawing a special picture for a friend. These are all ways kids show their creativity.

As a parent, you may feel you are most creative in the grocery aisle but really, there are some quick and simple ways you too can feel creative and share this with your children.

Let’s choose a birthday. Your child has been invited to a princess party. The to-be-six year old princess loves purple. You scour the card aisle in your local supermarket but you find no purple princesses. Why not sit down with your child and create a hand made card just perfect for this occasion? It won’t take long and it won’t take much in the way of supplies but you’ll have some great one-on-one time and your child will be so proud to show off their “masterpiece”.

Once the card is all done, you don’t have to stop there! Go to your local dollar or gift packaging store and get a plain white gift bag. Bring it home and add the same color purple to it to match the card. You can use feathers, beads, glitter – the works!

You’re done, your child has gone to the party with beautiful gift in hand. Sure, the card and wrapping will most certainly meet its end in the trash bin after the party. But you’ve taken the time to enjoy a great craft with your child and shown them that sometimes the best things are hand made. They’ll remember both the project and the special time you spent together.

1. Start with half a sheet of cardstock (5 ½” x 8 ½”) and choose a few other pieces of cardstock to match your project for layers.

2. You need only a few tools to complete this project and here they are: paper trimmer, adhesive, ink pad, stamp(s), embellishments.

3. Stamp your image and have your child color it in.

4. Glue your layers together and add any embellishments you’d like. In this case I added glitter and ribbon. And you’ve finished your project!

For more about Keep kids Creative week along with other craft ideas, visit http://www.brucevanpatter.com/keepkidscreative.html