Craft ideas for children

The weather has turned now & Autumn is well & truly upon us, which means less playing out for kids & more spending time indoors.  As I am not up to going out lots with my little Miss we often do crafty things in the house anyway.  Which I have to admit I enjoy as much as she does!

I am going to list some of the stuff she/we have done & that has kept her occupied for ages.

Most recently we picked a load of conkers (which the majority of were used to put on windowsills as a spider deterrent!!).  The ones that were left I said she could decorate, which meant getting glue & glitter out, my favourite thing!  She had found one lonely pine cone too so she also blinged that up :)

Autumn is also good for collecting all the different coloured leaves & we usually do some sort of artwork with them! After jumping (her not me!) in them she collects them in a bag & chooses the prettiest to make pictures with. They don't last long as the leaves dry & crumble but it's nice doing.

Something she really enjoys is baking.  I love it too but I struggle with more complicated recipes as it wipes me out too much. So providing we measure everything out first she will happily mix it all together & if I tell her what needs doing she loves doing it. We make a mean sponge cake (thanks to trusty Be-ro & their recipes) & make them pink as often as possible..not forgetting decorating them with lots of sweets!

Another thing she likes doing is making (sugar free) jelly & we use silicone moulds so it makes it a bit more fun. Strawberries work well in it if you want to add something but kiwis don't as I found out when I tried it!

Paint is always good fun for kids & I saw something online which I thought was lovely..putting their handprints onto clothes.  She jazzed up a couple of her things & did a vest of mine. I kept it as I am sentimental like that! I love having stuff she has made & actually have a box for such things :)

Another thing she did very recently was painting a self portrait onto a blank canvas. She has really got into drawing in the last year & has a real eye for detail.  She will happily sit drawing pictures for ages now & I have started putting them in a folder as they are so good! The canvas she did is up on her bedroom wall & it's such a simple thing for them to do too. We also have one that she did with my niece when they were tiny & it looks more like a crime scene but art is art! :)

Being a parent with M.E or any chronic illness is very difficult but there are lots of fun, low energy things we can do with them at home.  I mentioned in a post a while back about the guilt I experience about not being able to take her to lots of fun places etc.  But when we were talking about me not being able to do certain things she told me her favourite is doing craft stuff with me so I must be doing something right.

How we perceive things isn't always the way they do.  So we need to try & be proud & should be giving ourselves big pats on the back for what we do manage to achieve.

And my love of glitter & all things sparkle has rubbed off on my daughter so I am very proud ;-)