The Unexpected Benefit of Our Craft Exchange

When I started the craft exchange, I didn’t anticipate the added benefit of having the Princess Cupcake learn the art of the handmade so quickly.

I started the craft exchange because I love to make things. But I also love to over-schedule myself, and somehow between the soccer and dance practices, work and laundry, I never found the time to be creative anymore. Like hands on walk away with something you’re proud of creative. I still found the time to shop for supplies and dream about what I’d make, but carving out time to actually execute seemed to be so far down on the priority list it never happened.

And voila, the craft exchange was born and continues to thrive, since there seems to be quite a few other creative people trapped in the same continuum.

After a particularly successful Craftmas, a genius member of our group said, “We should have the kids do an exchange.”

Simply brilliant.

I LOVE that the kids – and they’re ALL ages from 4 – 13 – are crafting for other kids, and they don’t realize it but themselves as well. Yes, the mom’s are helping — of course we are, but why is that bad!? Now our kids are not only developing a giving heart, they’re spending high-quality creative time with Mom too, seeing her do something she really enjoys – rather than how they usually see us with our heads spinning around yelling at people to get into the car while having one hand on the dishwasher and the other wrangling dogs, with a coffee cup nestled in our armpit.

With the kids craft exchange, I’ve taught the Princess Cupcake how to sew during our last two projects. For the first kids exchange, she made her friend Finn a Jedi Knight costume. I needed to help her come up with the idea since she’s never seen Star Wars but that was a minor detail. She was so thrilled to sew and so enamored with her robe that she wanted to make one for herself when it was all over. The pride she had for it was simply priceless.

In the most recent exchange, she wanted to make a soccer pillow for Megi, who though she’s never met, considers as a cousin of sorts. With some guidance, she picked out the fabric, the pillow, the thread, the photo, and the iron on letters. She cut it out, she sewed it together and she ironed on a couple of the letters until she got scared and had me finish those. 🙂 (Not upset about that one bit…)

I was simply guiding her through the process. Again, she swelled with pride, wanting to make her own soccer pillow with the leftover fabric.

Imagine her surprise when the gift she received was also a photo pillow of her precious puggie Beignet (I swear we mom’s did NOT share our project ideas with each other).

She was over-the-moon excited about the pillow because she knew how Drew made it since she had just made one, but he also made her the coolest animal jars a girl could ever have. How adorable are these?

They look like they should be straight out of a Land of Nod catalog.

All these kids were super creative. Other gifts that were exchanged:

• Tie dye shirts

• A homemade soccer board game

• Nerf gun bandolier and amo vest
• Stenciled and personalized rug
• Fairy tutu

• Marshmallow shooters

The timing of our kids exchange was the perfect warm-up for the gown up exchange that happens later this month. Stay tuned to see more amazing crafts from the super talented women that are in our group!