The price of convenience

Ready-made craft kits, like the examples above, are convenient. They're convenient because they're available in local supermarkets, craft and toy shops and online. And they're convenient because if you're looking to buy a gift for a child who likes to make, the box always tempts with the promise of 'having fun' and 'creating lovely home-made things' without any preparation. But how many of these kits actually deliver enjoyable, let alone creative, experiences for our children? How many of them actually make good on their promise that a child can accomplish the craft activity easily. They never say how an adult will need to help them follow every complicated instruction, or take over completely for the fiddly bits. And how exactly does this 'following of instructions' foster creativity anyway?

We've accumulated quite a collection of these kits over the years. My children are given them as presents and on paper, they seem like such a great idea. We keep them in our rainy-day box, and if we are stuck indoors, or if I or one of my children are feeling poorly we occasionally choose something from this stash to do together. We picked out a couple of kits to try today, and yet again, they did not live up to their creative promise.

We tried an old-fashioned knitting doll and a make-your-own friendship bracelet kit. We very quickly abandoned the knitting doll as neither myself nor my six-year-old could master the weird wool manoeuvres. Then the friendship bracelet instructions told us we needed the ability to plait, and to thread frayed wool through tiny pre-cut slits in neoprene - way beyond my daughter's skills. I eventually persuaded her to abandon the instructions and just do her own thing. This she eventually did, but unlike when she was little, she felt she had failed by doing so, and very quickly lost interest in the project. 

If I was more of a radical I would throw away the instructions and packaging of these kits, and add their materials to our existing collection of art and craft resources. Then I would respond how I usually do when my children want to make something - which is to gather a few materials from our collection, the recycling stash or the kitchen, and let them experience making something in their own time, in their own way - with their own outcome. This would be a much better use of the materials, and a more creative experience. 

We have a lot of success with these kinds of impromptu creative sessions. For example, on Sunday when I set out some simple craft materials in the hour before dinner, my two children happily joined me in some cosy and creative pomander-making. And the contents of this experience? Just an orange each, some cocktail sticks, a felt tip pen and lots of gorgeous smelling cloves. We had a fabulously chilled-out time making patterns for our pomanders by poking holes into our oranges with a cocktail stick. There was no set of instructions to follow, we inspired each other by sharing our ideas, they honed their hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills, and they both decided when their making-time was finished. The pomanders are now looking and smelling marvellous on our display shelf.

I suppose because of the time of year, I'm thinking how lovely it would be to put together some home-made creative kits using the components of some our favourite invitations-to-create - to give away as Christmas gifts.  Whether I manage this or not, at the very least I'm definitely going to try not to use these creativity-free ready-made kits with my children any more; for me, the price of their convenience is too high.

Pomanders, perfume and pong

A great way to get children and grown-ups to imagine themselves at home in a Tudor hall or Victorian drawing room at the Geffrye Museum is to get them to sample the aroma of herbs and spices, beeswax and tallow candles, or the distinctive smell of a coal or wood fire. This usually starts a lively conversation about the amazing power of olfaction to evoke ideas and memories of different times and places.

To develop my children's olfactory skills at home, we played the game Guess the Smell. We took turns to collect things from around the house and hid them in foil-topped, fork-pricked pots. We sampled the mystery smells then drew or wrote down what we thought was in each pot before removing the foil. Today we had houmous, Marmite, soap, chocolate, strawberries, rosemary and coffee; there was some serious sniffing and thinking, and plenty of giggling and guessing.

When we were in Kynaston Gardens a few weeks ago we spotted an unusual fruit tree. The smell of its velvety citrus fruit took me straight back to a childhood memory of making pomanders from oranges. I thought this might make a lovely activity for Buddy and Daisy; to experience the wonderful perfume of citrus and cloves combined. So we took a few of the windfalls home with us and made the pomanders pictured above. Here's how we did it:

1. First we pierced the fruit skin with a fork and began to press cloves into the holes. Though both children's interest in this activity waned after about five minutes Daisy popped back to the making table a couple of times, adding a few cloves every visit.

2. When the fruit was entirely covered in cloves Daisy returned to help me thread a sparkly pipe cleaner through its core. I used a bamboo skewer to make a threading hole first.

3. Then we secured the pipe-cleaner with a pony bead to the underside of the fruit.

4. Next, we threaded five pony beads to the length of pipe-cleaner sticking out the top of the fruit.

5. Then we twisted and tucked the end of the pipe-cleaner into the pony beads making a hanging loop for the pomander.

6. Finally, we sprinkled over some fine glitter for extra sparkle and hung the pomanders from the radiator to dry cure.

Two weeks on, they are ready. They smell gorgeous, look very festive and evoke lovely memories of my childhood. And now the perfume of the pomanders will be part of Buddy and Daisy's smell-memory too.