happy thoughts/card making for kids

He may not be into craft, but he loves to do the washing!! ( no this isnt slave labour, he cried when I told him he couldnt help... how could I say no??)


Jumeirah was in a mood this morning. Nothing I did was right, nothing I said was right. I got breakfast wrong, her hair was too "jungly" ( I tried not to laugh then got busted for snorting whilst trying not to laugh). Moods like this dont normally occur often in our house ( at least not from the kids :) ) so I wanted it changed pretty quick.
I made her sit up with me at the table and while I fixed breakfast, I wanted her to think of some things that make her happy. "Nothing really" was the happy reply. And so I told her my list of happy things.

Smiles



when my flowers start growing



rainbows... "Hey they make me happy too!" and so I asked her to draw a rainbow. She then told me she could do it herself and got to work drawing things that made her happy.

Her list:

Rainbows

Presents

Daddy ( gee surprise surprise)

Lollipops

Jumbos

And so she drew a picture for each thing and then asked me to write it out so she could copy it. I thought I might do this activity every year, so she can see the things that still make her happy and the things that have changed.







This wasnt done in pretty colours (although she asked if we could paint it tomorrow) but it did what I wanted it to do: it made her happy :)







She drew this for me as a "surprise". Its her helping my flowers to grow cos she knows that makes me happy too :)



Yesterday we had one of her preschool friends birthday party and she asked me if she could make her a card herself. Normally I dont really let her raid my scrapping stash but I allowed her to pick a few pieces of card and gave her some hole punches, glue and a few other bits of "bling" and let her go for it.

She had a lovely time making this card for her friend. I wanted to keep it as its the first one shes done on her own but she told me to take a photo instead :).

She also wants to do more card making in the week. You dont need expensive card stock to do this, any cardboard will do. I bought the hole punches from a scrapping shop but you can also get these cheaper from Spotlight or other craft shops. They are great for strengthening finger muscles. Its also cheaper than buying one and it was great for her self esteem as she was really proud of herself.