I can never throw away a picture...

Since we have decided to home school, I have wanted to make sure that our arts & crafts projects are focused on reusing items that we already have and letting them be artistic at any time. My mom has an in-home daycare and I see the copious amounts of construction paper, glue and beads she goes through. It not only costs a lot of money, but I think craft projects (that small children make) often get pitched.  I have tried my best to let the cute ones linger around the house as long as possible; but if I kept them all we would be hoarders. Besides my daughter's desire to always be crafting, both she and my oldest son are coloring ALL THE TIME. I don't think I will ever tell them that they have used too much paper and can no longer color.

One lesson I hope they learn from my leniency is that happiness is only achieved when you are doing the things you WANT to do. Maybe they will be a graphic designer or cartoonist or painter...or have an occupation that hasn't even been defined yet.  My hope for them is that later in life they seek out whatever sort of career or path that makes them want to wake up everyday and live their best life. This video pretty much sums up my feelings on this:

Another lesson I hope they learn is to be thrifty. I don't win first place in this, but I definitely put my best foot forward. I try to buy used items when possible, use cloth diapers, reuse my children's worn clothes, have a very large garden in our backyard, can our food and try to make homemade meals as much as possible; but I feel there's a lot of work that can be done. My children observe and participate in many of these activities. When it comes to their projects we use many toilet paper rolls and cardboard. Our latest creation is a book we made to store all of our Christmas cards. We used leftover scrapbook paper from our Advent Chain, stamps, some leftover ribbon, cardboard from one of the many boxes in our basement and a leftover Christmas card of our own. It was easy too! We just punched holes in the cards and cardboard and glued a collage of our card and scrapbook paper to the front. The kids also colored the back cover in a winter theme. They love looking through it. I actually have two years worth of cards in there since I never threw away last years. :)