When it comes to crafting, my girls still love heading into Michaels and exploring the aisles of creative possibilities, aisles filled with sketch books and artist pencils, markers and paints, miniatures and holiday decor, and so much more. When they were younger, they would gravitate toward the aisles teeming with silk flowers, each selecting different varieties and launching into stories involving the flowers and fantastical creatures and characters. These days, they are more likely to wander through the aisles of decor, checking out lights and figurines, and eventually making their way toward something new they might want to explore in greater detail.
For our 15 year old, she can spend a good amount of time peering into the miniature models, admiring the details, like books and tables and chandelier lighting options. She is also a fan of the holiday decoration offerings and was as excited as I was to see that some of the Christmas things have sprouted up among the Halloween and Thanksgiving and fall options. I love the look in her eyes as she wanders through the decorations, fingers lightly passing over holly and ivy and wall hangings and cookie platters.
As for our 17 year old, she searched out sketchbooks first, seeking out some higher grade paper for her Prismacolor colored pencils. I love that she checks out YouTube tutorials and follows artists from whom she garners good information. Although she’s had the pencils for a few years now, only recently has she started to really experiment with them and the ways she can blend colors on good sketchbook paper. From there, she wound her way to the beading supplies, where I handed her my phone and told her to take pictures of things she might want to include on her Christmas list because she wants to explore making bracelets.
While she found some interesting options there, eventually she stumbled upon some fun beading kits that are apparently what many teens and young adults use to make all kinds of what are called kandi bracelets out of pony beads. I’m not entirely certain how she discovered this idea, but I love that she was curious enough to try it out; she dove into the small creative beading kit we picked up for her as soon as we got home and she has been creating all kinds of bracelets with various colors and words and patterns. Since then, she has sought out several tutorials and learned several different kinds of options for putting beads into cuff-style bracelets using ladder stitches and has even learned how to create beaded options of her squirmles, better known these days as worms on strings.
Not only has she made bracelets of single and multi-strings, she has also learned how to create beaded shapes, including stars and hearts. She has worked on necklaces and even when the project she has spent pain-staking hours working on slips from its string, she has determined when to try again and when to put it all away and give herself some time to reset herself and come back later to recreate a design. As she has delved deeper into the possibilities, she has also learned what strings work better than others and has overflowed with delight as she has let her imagination lead her in new directions.
How I love watching my girls grow and explore and dive into new creative projects. It is both inspiring and empowering for me in that they remind me to spend more time playing with ideas as well as my words. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into familiar patterns that can become ruts, places where we can get stuck because we like knowing what we know. I am often guilty of this. And so I love being in the midst of these two remarkable young women whose curiosity is delightful to behold. I love the way they are willing to wander off in a direction of something that catches their interest. In those moments, I am happy to follow where they may not realize they are leading because they discover some fun and wonder and I love getting to be a part of that. It’s pretty awesome, really.