Crafting with children

William dies some eggs. The bunny bag is destined for the bakery shop, with a boy version and a 'big girl' version too. It's hot cross bun time again.
The rabbit is from Pinterest, Mommy's favourite craft (no mess)

We've had another long weekend of blissful relaxation.  I suppose we should all be outdoors riding our bikes or something, but we're all too tired for anything that energetic so we 'craft' instead (when we're not doing the washing up or fixing things, that is).

I do find crafting with children quite traumatic, though. I've never felt guilty about working or anything like that, but I must admit to feeling vaguely rubbish about how impatient I get with them when we start making things. I always set out to be 'nice mummy' but am usually reduced to a frothing lunatic within minutes, hissing all kinds of dreadful things which I hope the children wont remember or understand.

Firstly we can never find anything: "Where are the scissors?" must be one of the more dreaded questions in the English language, followed closely by "where is the sellotape?" No matter how many times we sort everything out into boxes with large signs saying CRAFT on them. To make matters worse, my carefully tucked away back-ups have usually been plundered as well. No scissors. No UHU stic.  This drives me completely insane: "Make your own bloody Easter eggs" I throw over my shoulder as I stomp off to go back onto Facebook.

The children rally however and art supplies start emerging from the Lego Box and the sock drawer and I'm lured back by three sweetly smiling little boys, all eager to create. A mess. No sooner have we set everything up, they start knocking everything over, usually destroying the half-finished masterpieces, cue for much anguished wailing and frantic mopping. Even worse if one boy knocks over someone elses masterpiece, which is then cue for much squabbling and occasional violence. Which requires refereeing and mopping up and having to start all over again. I usually need a drink by then, regardless of the fact that it's still two o' clock in the afternoon.

They also never read the instructions ("oh look, we should have put the vinegar in before we added the oil, now it's probably not going to work") so we often end up bitterly disappointed that our stuff never looks like the pictures. There is nothing more depressing than bad craft and we seem to have a lot of it.

I've undoubtedly created a rod for my own back though.  Georgie immediately googles Martha Stewart if he needs to find something out and William drags the Readers Digest Jewellery Course into our bed in the morning, when we'd rather have Roald Dahl ("Mommy can we make the triple-spiral fancy earrings today please?" No). The children seem to get a manic gleam in their eyes the minute the word 'craft' is mentioned and I immediately regret that we didn't suggest that they played in their fort instead.

I wouldn't have it any other way of course, but it's not the most relaxing way to spend an afternoon. I'm sure it will all be replaced by surfing and video games soon, which means I will then probably feel guilty for not enjoying it more now. Whatever.

Until then we need to put more newspaper down. Oh yes, it's an island. We don't have newspapers. Argghhhh.