Crafts Anyone?

Crafts for kids have come a long way since I was a child. If you are old enough to recall getting your feelings hurt by not hearing your name mentioned in connection with a particular “Magic Mirror,” then I’m sure you understand what I mean.
Back then we made a lot of snakes from egg cartons (and no, we didn’t sterilize them beforehand), homemade paper fans and orange juice can pencil holders that said trendy things like: “Thumbody Loves You” with the standard black stamp pad thumbprints. There were no baby-safe ink pads for us (that’s okay, we had cribs covered in lead paint and rolled around in the back of the family station wagon on road trips – we don’t need no stinkin’ art supplies just for kids) and we liked it!

MYO meant you got five cents off a jar of mayonnaise with a misprinted label, not a pre-packaged kit to make-your-own cotton candy or whatever. But I digress…

I recently came across a video archive of the show alluded to above and saw that the highlighted project was a construction paper light switch plate which cleverly featured a rectangle hole in the center for Santa’s nose. The child on the show related that her brother helped her tape the frame to the wall so it didn’t fall off each time she turned off the light. It boggles the mind.

While I could walk down the memory lane of wildly unsafe or just plain strange things witnessed over the past several decades in the name of art, I think it might be better to live in the now. No more kickin’ it old school: let’s get to the crafty goodness of the 21st Century. Oh, Yeaahh!