Encourage their inner artist

I was laughing tonight as we finger painted with Em about how many little "art projects" we've done in just two short years. I wish I had photographic evidence of all of them, but when I started looking I realized I did photograph a lot.

I believe that encouraging the inner artist in our children is hugely important. I think nurturing their creative side really is as crucial as teaching them to read and count (I was equally surprised at how many pictures I have of Em reading...the kid LOVES books). Not just because I'm a designer... BUT maybe I am a designer because my family encouraged creativity in me. My Mom always had blocks and puzzles for me, and when I solved them, she got new ones to keep me always challenged. My grandmother is an amazing crafter. She started me sewing before I could probably tie my own shoes. She always had a project for me to do and it's some of my best childhood memories. I try to make sure Em and I are always doing something to spur her creativity and once I realized I had so many pictures of our fun, I thought I should share them :)

Before I trusted us with real crayons or paint, we "painted" with food. Here we're using yogurt but we've also done ketchup and mustard for some color fun.

We started to color with crayons by her first birthday. We experimented with all different types and sizes and had lots of fun learning what she liked best!

We started building before by her first birthday as well. This was good for working on our fine motor skills but building and creating something with the blocks was fun too.

What started as just putting pieces together has already grown into building castles, and cars, and then putting people in the castles/cars. I can see her imagination growing every time we play :)

Play-doh is another one of those that started as just fine motor skills and learning to play with the texture, but has grown into creating things and she loves it!

Here we're still getting used to the texture

Now we've advanced to stamping the play-doh

To creating entirely different (may I say abstract) pieces

Finger painting was a progress too. We started with "clean" finger painting...

To handprint painting (a gift for Grammie Gigi)

To full on finger painting fun!

And don't forget things like stickers, drawing, and decorating!

Ok so usually they end up on paper, but our first gymnastics coach would put a sticker on their noses after class if they'd been good and we went through a sticker face phase.

We love to draw with pens and pencils but seem really drawn to our new magnadoodle lately.

She loved decorating her own cookie at a Christmas party.

And we MAY have let her help "re-decorate" our master bath...

Apparently pulling down tacky wallpaper looked fun...and honestly, her little fingers were great at the job! LOL

I hope you've enjoyed my trip down creativity lane. We've done plenty of other crafts but I'm not always good about the camera (luckily that shouldn't be a problem anymore). It's fun to watch them learn to do a project and morph into REALLY doing it. When we first started to color it was purely scribbles on paper, now she picks colors with intent and does her best to color objects, not just all-over. It's also been a great way to teach her colors and shapes without it being boring for her.

Creative thinking is a huge part of my career, but more, it's a huge part of me. I love a good project...I love to create something with my hands. I hope to instill that love into my children.