Being Crafty

I am not very crafty.  Although, I really want to be.  I love pinterest but I try to spend as little time as possible on it, because I know what would happen if I spent more time on it.  Right now, I basically use it to save some recipes or organize some homeschool activities that I want to eventually do with the kids.  If I spent more time on the site, I would very likely spend a lot of time making tons of boards full of lots of lovely crafts that I would have great intentions of creating.  However, I would never do most of them.  So, it would truly be a waste of my time.  I think with this season of life, the biggest reason is that I am just too busy.  But also, I am just not really crafty. 

Being my kids' homeschool teacher though is requiring me to step out of my comfort zone and be more crafty.  We don't do elaborate crafts, and most don't turn out looking like the photos on pinterest, but at least the kids got the experience.  So recently, when we decided to buy a cheap, boring step from Ikea, I decided to let the kids make it pretty with paints.  We were planning on using the step stool for getting onto the trampoline, so it didn't need to match any specific decor.

This is what the stool looked like before we made it "pretty".

   

I decided to spray it down with a coat of white paint to begin with.  While the paint was drying, I asked Luke and Abbey to design what they wanted the step to look like when finished.  I wanted them to go into the project with a plan instead of just throwing paint on the step.  I felt like this would be a great experience for them on "brainstorming" and seeing an idea from for inception into a finished product.

Luke has his "thinking/concentrating face" one...look at that mouth!

After they finished planning, it was time to start painting!

It was hard work--and Luke wanted to make sure he covered every square inch of that step stool!

Want to see the finished product?  Warning--it is very colorful.  But, I think it is fun and it looks like tie-dye.  I let the kids totally do this product themselves and I think they really enjoyed having control over the project.  I did ask them at the end if they wanted their hand prints on top, and they both excitedly exclaimed, "yes!"  So, I did help with that part.