So I took the plunge. I signed up for Kenpo Karate at the local dojo (which literally means “place of the Way”, or “place of practice”). I had no idea how many other benefits karate offered.

I started to learn how to defend myself indeed, but I also learned that taking on something like karate is less a project and more a journey. I also learned I needed some serious patience. If I thought I was going to be able to fend off a would-be mugger with a knife after a few karate sessions, I was sorely mistaken. I soon realized that if I was to expect tangible results, I was going to need to dedicate myself for a while and develop infinite patience.

But it dawned on me that anything worthwhile takes hard work and time, so I hunkered down and started training regularly. I soon realized that what I thought was going to take months was really going to take years. So my patience developed.

My muscles developed too. In fact, I was sore in places that I didn’t even know existed. From my thumbs to my ribs, I found muscles that hadn’t ever been flexed before. After a half a year I started getting into the best shape of my life, and I had hardly noticed because I was concentrating on learning the craft.

My discipline began to grow as well. Often I just didn’t want to go, but I forced myself and always felt better for it afterward, always. Our sensei (teacher) is a blackbelt and former military man, so his brand of teaching certainly involves discipline, but never more than anyone can handle. Moreover, to learn the various karate moves and forms, I began to develop discipline over every miniscule movement of my body. And to perform each of the moves properly, you need to have supreme control over your mind as well as your body. This takes years of practice, but even the novice benefits from each attempt.

My confidence continued to grow, but not just confidence in fighting, but confidence in my physical abilities, and each time I train, my confidence develops even further. I have more faith in myself, I trust myself more.

Another benefit of training in the martial arts is that one begins to grasp the difference between the goal and the journey, and why the latter is so much more important. In this day and age of hyper-consumerism and quick fixes and TV, it’s easy to think that the goal is everything, regardless of how you get there. Capitalism stresses achievement and profits at the expense of the process. TV shows and commercials wrap everything up neatly and cleanly by the end, without much real struggle. And we are bombarded with advertisements of immediate relief or riches or good looks if we “just buy this product”.

But what about the process? What about the journey? What about the lifestyle? Everyone’s in such a rush to get somewhere or get something that many of us Westerners miss our own lives and each of the present moments because we’re so concerned with the future. Training in karate slows one’s life down a bit. It teaches one how to enjoy the process, not the goal. It’s a life long study, and no one reaches blackbelt status quickly. That’s the way it should be.

Once you learn to enjoy the process, to enjoy the intrinsic goodness of practicing and training, you begin to grasp one key to life. The journey is more important than the goal.

First, select simple art. Maybe your first Christmas art quilt pattern design shouldn’t be an intricate nativity scene. Try starting first with a Christmas tree.

A Christmas art quilt pattern that centers on a Christmas tree can be very simple or more intricate, depending on your skill level. It could be as easy as stitching a large green print triangle for the evergreen and a small rectangle for the trunk.

Use your computer’s clip art collection – or your favorite online clip art – for design inspiration. Once you find the Christmas art you want to use for your quilt pattern, print it out and you’ll have your Christmas art.

Once you’ve selected your Christmas art, quilt pattern selection is next. Will you appliqu?our Christmas art one large 12-inch squares or incorporate it into another pattern, like a nine patch? Maybe you’ll choose to appliqu?our Christmas art onto a large panel in the center of your quilt and border with several blocks of your favorite quilt pattern. It’s up to you!

Maybe the Christmas art you want to incorporate into a quilt pattern is a family photo from Christmas past. What an exciting way to create a family favorite!

There are a couple of ways to get your photo onto the quilt. I recommend putting the photo on a quilt block prior to piecing. In case something goes awry in the transfer process, it’s much easier to cut another block than to create a whole other quilt!

Photo transferring is easy. The transfer paper is available at most craft stores. If you’ll be printing the photo on darker fabric, make sure to get transfer paper especially formulated for dark fabric. Follow the directions included to create your photo Christmas art quilt pattern.

Another method of transferring photos is through direct to fabric digital printing. It will cost a little more than doing the transfer yourself, but the water-based ink goes straight into the fibers of your cotton fabric. The photo will be soft to the touch because it actually becomes part of the fabric.

Digital printing has long life, which is important if you plan to use the quilt and will need to wash it frequently. Some photo transfers do not last through multiple washings. Call area t-shirt printers to ask if they offer digital garment printing services. Most are screen printers so you’ll have to ask for a digital direct to garment printer that does not use sublimation. Wording your question that way should help you weed through to find a good photo printer for your Christmas art quilt pattern.

If you’re not interested in appliqu?there are several quilt patterns that have Christmas trees, bells, or wreaths pieced into the design. Choosing one of these traditional Christmas quilt patterns would be an easy way to create a holiday family heirloom.

If you chose to piece a Christmas art quilt pattern like that, appliqu?ouldn’t be necessary. To add your own flair to the traditional pieced tree pattern, you could embellish the trees with buttons, iron on rhinestones, rick-rack garland, etc.

Once you have completed your Christmas art quilt pattern, don’t forget to sign and date the quilt. Use a fabric marker to sign your name and date the quilt. You may also choose to use simple embroidery to stitch your name and date into the quilt. Remember, your creation won’t be complete without your name and the date on which it was completed!

Human developmental theories can be found in education, society, and even in peace research: cognitive, developmental, social learning, and socio-cultural developmental theories all have contributed to the educational system that is present today in the United States of America. Researchers such as Darwin, Freud, Erickson, Piaget, Watson, Skinner, Kohlberg, Bandura, Vygostsky, Bowlby, Bronfenbrenner, Gilligan, among many other scientists have done extensive research that today has influenced education throughout the content areas. The purpose of this article is to analyze two human development theories and create a lifelong learning curriculum for the art education throughout the lifespan of a learner.

Cognitive Developmental Theory

To understand is to invent, or to reconstruct by reinventing.                           

  Piaget (1972, p. 24)

Jean Piaget

Even though some critics say that Piaget’s theories are not correct, others support his research. To understand a bit better where the theories originated from lets discuss the origin of Jean Piaget. In 1896, born in a French-speaking part of Switzerland a child was born to a medieval literature professor called Arthur Piaget. According to his father, Jean was a precocious child who developed an interest in natural science (biology and the natural world), and even published a number of papers before he graduated from high school about mollusks. His lifelong passion was to understand how humans create knowledge. Piaget’s efforts founded the discipline of genetic epistemology (biological foundations for knowledge), and established a framework that continues to affect the way teachers are trained and students are taught.

He served as a professor of psychology at the University of Geneva from 1929 to 1975 and is best known for reorganizing cognitive development theory into a series of stages, expanding on earlier work from James Mark Baldwin: four levels of development corresponding roughly to (1) infancy, (2) pre-school, (3) childhood, and (4) adolescence. Piaget spent years observing and interviewing young male children in an effort to further his theories about the construction of knowledge. According to Nagarjuna (2006), Piaget “thought that by observing the ways that children create meaning, he could learn more in general about the development of knowledge.”

Development from one stage to the next according to Piaget is the accumulation of errors in the child’s understanding of the environment; theses errors eventually causes such a degree of cognitive disequilibrium that the structures within the child require reorganizing. According to Murray (2007), “All development emerges from action; that is to say, individuals construct and reconstruct their knowledge of the world as a result of interactions with the environment.”  According to Nagarjuna (2006), “Cognitive structures are understood to be the ways that young people make sense of the world, given their lack of adult sensibilities.”

Jean Piaget viewed intelligence as a process that help an organism adapt to its environment and proposed four major periods of cognitive development. The four development stages described in Piaget’s theory are (1) sensorimotor stage, (2) Preoperational stage, (3) Concrete operational stage, and (4) formal operational stage. Each cognitive structure in Piaget’s theory is defined by a series of traits, and corresponds loosely to specific age. These chronological periods are not rigid rules, just approximate values to set the stages in an order starting from birth to 2 years of age defining the sensorimotor stage, where the children experience the world through movement and senses and learn object permanence. The preoperational stage starts from the age of 2 to 7 years and the child has an acquisition of motor skills. In the concrete operational stage starts from 7 to 11 years and the children begin to think logically about concrete events that are taking place in their environment. In the formal operational stage begins after the age of 11 and it is when the child develops of abstract reasoning of the world around them.

            Based on his life long research, Piaget felt that “students should not be seen as empty vessels to be filled by expert teachers, but rather active participants in the building of their own knowledge” (Nagarjuna, 2006). According to Murray (2007), Piaget concluded “that schools should emphasize cooperative decision-making and problem solving, nurturing moral development by requiring students to work out common rules based on fairness” (p. 2). Even though the explanations offered may be incorrect today, according to the latest adult sensibilities and research, but “the fact that children do offer explanations for these things shows that they are actively working to understand the world around them” (Nagarjuna, 2006).

Following Piaget’s line of reasoning, Selman (1980) examined children’s cognitive understanding of the social world. To understand relations and interactions between people, children need to understand that others also have an internal state which influences how they are behaving. Selman reported that rather young children realize that different people have visual perspectives which are independent from their own. . . . Implying Piaget’s insight in peace education would ask for an active, exploratory process in which conflicting information and social dilemmas are allowed to exist. In such a process, learning to understand the underlying perspectives (visual, social, or emotional) of other people would broaden our possibilities of being confronted with and understanding differences.

Hakvoort (2002)

Lev Vygotsky

The second theory that will be used to write the art curriculum for the lifelong learners is the cognitive theories of Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky insists that children’s minds are shaped by the particular social and historical context in which they live and by their interactions with adults, explaining why educators will never be replaced with technology no matter the advances that we reach. His social development theories play a fundamental role in the development of cognition. Vygotsky (1978) states:

Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals (p.57).

Vygostsky’s theory of art developed a “dynamic overall approach by (1) the writer’s intentions, era, and background; (2) the form, content, and symbolism of the literary piece; and (3) the readers’ experience and interpretation of the work” (Lindqvist, 2003). Vygostsky did not regards art as something spiritual and metaphysical, which raises the artists genius above the shape and contents of the work being created. Instead, he saw art as a reflection how society touches the people’s lives and how society developed. Art is an excellent tool for studying not only society, but emotions, and psychology. According to Lindqvist (2003), “Vygostsky regarded the psychology of art as a theory of the social techniques of emotions. His analysis reflects the artistic process.”

Art

The Britannica Online defines art as “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.” The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has stayed closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to “skill” or “craft,” and also from an Indo-European root meaning “arrangement” or “to arrange.” In this sense, art is whatever is described as having undergone a deliberate process of arrangement. Art can describe several things: a study of creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience’s experience with the creative skill. Art is something that visually stimulates an individual’s thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas. Art is a realized expression of an idea – it can take many different forms and serve many different purposes.

Using this last definition art would be a good tool to used to help students acquire a sense of belonging in their environment. According to Wekipedia, the common characteristics displayed by art are:

encourages an intuitive understanding rather than a rational understanding, as, for example, with an article in a scientific journal; was created with the intention of evoking such an understanding or an attempt at such an understanding in the audience; was created with no other purpose or function other than to be itself (a radical, “pure art” definition); is elusive, in that the work may communicate on many different levels of appreciation; may offer itself to many different interpretations, or, though it superficially depicts a mundane event or object, invites reflection upon elevated themes; demonstrates a high level of ability or fluency within a medium; this characteristic might be considered a point of contention, since many modern artists (most notably, conceptual artists) do not themselves create the works they conceive, or do not even create the work in a conventional, demonstrative sense (one might think of Tracey Emin’s controversial My Bed); confers particularly appealing or aesthetically satisfying structures or forms upon an original set of unrelated, passive constituents.

Art Educational Program

But if you ask what is the good of education in general, the answer is easy; that education makes good men, and that good men act nobly.

Plato

            Many schools are now learning how to deal with the diversity among the student and teacher population. Greenman (2007) suggests that art, music, and language are a good way to embrace cultural diversity. Art teachers, need to incorporate the art of other cultures throughout the schools curricula. Just as the scientists that wanted to change the world with their theories on human development artists, art teachers, art historians and other enthusiasts appreciate and value the art of other countries, so perhaps we may facilitate the education of others. Since according to Greenman (2007), “We’re all aware that when you know and understand something, you come to appreciate and value its uniqueness.”

Design, Implementation, and Teaching

A child’s education should begin at least one hundred years before he is born.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Infants. Infants are children classified from birth to 2 years of age. Through the use of many practices, specialized schools, and educational program for parents, caregivers can start educating their child from infancy using art. Art exposes the child to a world of imagination while it introduces him/ her to the riches of our world (plants, animals, places, etc.). Since infants can’t speak exposing them to bright colors, pictures, cartoons, and other forms of art is the best tool to use. During these delicate years of infancy, the child is developing their sensorimotor skills (uses of all the five senses). Color are the best way to help develop hand and eye coordination by obtaining toys, tools, education material that is bright and contains the main primary colors: red, blue, yellow, green, white, and black. The exposure to more colors helps the students learn to define and identify not only the colors but the objects containing the colors, using their appropriate names if taught by the caregivers.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Oscar Wilde

Toddlers. Toddlers in the other hand are children from the age of 2 to 5 years old. These children are active and have been able to identify colors, shapes, object, and their functions. As the child’s caregiver this is time to expose the children to watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, long white walls, mud, clay, and so on. The student will learn to make lines and circles, which are the basic principals for writing. The use of watercolors, brushes, and color pencils will refine the motor skills they will need in the future. The crayons would teach them to stay in between the lines while making their own masterpieces to share their feelings and their view of the environment.

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

Aristotle

Once a child enters the school system it is the teachers task to become the second parent, the guide need to enhance the lives of the children. At this stage of development, the children are able to identify and recognize variations in their environment. They are able to create art, enhance it, mimic it, copy it, and interpret the art, the culture, and the origin of it. The students learn how to express their feeling, emotions, sentiments, problems, solutions, and soul through their colors. At this ages they also try to experiment by creating their own colors, mixing and matching to create their own identity.

Education is not received. It is achieved.

Anonymous

Adolescence. Teenagers are a strange bread of individuals not quite adults, yet not quite children. These students are full of energy, passion, rage, anger, emotions, problems, and should be taught to use art as a means to release, fix, or neutralize these emotions. The students can at this age create a art festival in which they show the techniques and skills they have learned in previous years. Since art teachers are natural leaders according to Greenman (2007),  high school students can create an “International Festival” in which they can exhibit various works of art from diverse countries, make creative bulletin board of different languages, have a dance contest in which P.E. class are incorporated, use diverse cloth from different cultures, after-school activities, special meals, among other things. As a high school teacher, “students could wear special costumes from their country of origin at the event. The colors, designs, and patterns would add much to the festive occasion. Wearing art from around the world … a feast for the eyes” (Greenman, 2007).

The Classroom experience is changed when you’re close to the age of the professor and bring similar life experiences into the leaning process.

Gay Clyburn

Young Adults. As a young adult, there are many ways that you can enhance art education among the students population. Personally, the students are looking to enhance their knowledge of the world and environments around them. As the instructor a creation of a diverse art curriculum that includes making colors from scratch, how to make paper, in depth study on how colors where used in Egypt, Greece, Paris, US, Latin America, China, Japan. In these courses, go into depth on how to interpret, appreciate, and create art piece that could teach the students how to blend in to a diverse settings. Teach how to tell a story through time using only colors and art.

Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.

Henry Peter Brougham

Senior Citizens. As an educator, while teaching an art to senior citizens incorporating acrylic painting, watercolors, and other techniques to help them express what they have seen, lived, and experience through life. Learning how to leave a legacy of love for their loved ones, long discussions on the topic will lead to philosophy, acquisition of others knowledge and the teacher would become the students and the students would become the teachers since their experiences would be much greater than the educators. A deep discussion on the Mona Lisa, could lead us to solve the Dan Vinci code, while trying to create their own mysteries, while realizing that “If you educate a man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman you educate a family” (Manikan).

In conclusion, art education has many benefits for the students and world that we live in, but what has the educational systems have been doing to ensure the survival of these programs since they seem to be the first eliminated when the budgets are cut in schools. According to Holcomb (2007), “as a growing consensus of policymakers, educators, and parents agree that the arts are integral to learning, some districts are seeing a policy shift on the local and state level. In California, education and arts organizations have worked to secure a windfall arts budget that, in theory, would guarantee arts education in every public school in the state. The monies – $105 million in ongoing funds, and a one-time, $500 million line item for classroom equipment – are a legacy of the California Teacher Association’s successful lawsuit on education funding.”

References

Clyburn, G. (2006, November / December). Listening to Students: Dusting Off a Life of the Mind. Change.

Ferrari, M., Pinard, A., and Runions, K. (2001). Piaget’s Framework for a Scientific Study of Consciousness. Human Development, 44: 195 – 213.

Hakvoort, I. (2002, January). Theories of Learning and Development: Implications for Peace Education. Social Alternatives, 21(1): 18 – 22.

Holcomb, S. (2007, January). States of Arts. Art Education. Retrieved February 1st, 2007 from Neatoday.

Greenman, G. (2007, January). Tried & True tips for Art Teachers. Retrieved January 31, 2007 from www.art5andactivities.com

Lindqvist, G. (2003). Vygostsky’s Theory of Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 15 (2-3): 245 – 251.

Lourenco, O., and Machado, A. (1996). In Defense of Piaget’s Theory: A Reply to 10 Common Criticisms. Psychological Review, 103 (1): 143 – 144.

Malerstein, A.J., Ahern, M.M., Pulos, S., and Arasteh, J.D. (1995, Spring). Prediction and Constancy of Cognitive-Motivational Structures in mothers and their adolescents. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 25(3): 197 – 208.

Murray, M.E. (2007). Moral Development and Moral Education: An Overview. Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago. Retrieved on January 25, 2007 from http://tigger.uic.edu/~Inucci/MoralEd/overviewtext.html

Nagarjuna, G. (2006) Tracing the Biological Roots of Knowledge, in Rangaswamy, N.S., Eds. Life and Organicism. Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture (PHISPC).

Piaget, J. (1976). La formation du symbole chez l’enfant. [Play, dreams, and imitation]. Neuchantel, Switzerland: Delachaux et Niestle. (Original work published 1946).

Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

How to choose style:

Quilts are crafted in the Feminine, Cottage, Victorian, Country, Scrappy, Lodge, and Conventional Amish, Modern, or Juvenile style.

The female and Victorian often has a mixture of flowery and smaller scales of coordinating patterns and colors. Cottage quilts have brighter pastels and prints on a smaller to average scale with off-white solids, such as beige, manila, fawn, or camel. The Country quilts include the reminiscent of dusty shades that stretch along scales of solid shades. The colors are solid and a couple of colors, such as off-whites, or flag colors integrate to make a fashionable quilt.

Lodge style quilts are made up of reticent, or silent shaded prints, or reminiscent of woody colors that are deeply imprinted in the quilt. The colors are offset by shades of plaid, and the variations combine green, brown, rust, orchra, red, navy blue, tan, black, etc, blending it to make the Lodge quilt.

The scraps means you can create any type of quilt you choose, as well as shades, tones, colors, etc. Conventional Amish quilts combine the penetrating shades of gemstones on a solid background with a mixture of black.

Modern quilts include the colorful novelties whereas simple lines are used to make up its squares.

Juvenile quilts is often made up of brilliant pastel, or crayon shades, colors, tones, etc, and includes prints as well as a solid background.

Once you choose your style, you will need to purchase your materials and measure your fabric. The fabric should be machine washable. Sometimes however, the fabric will bleed, which in this case you will need to continue wash, rinse, and continue until the dye remains in tact.

Once you purchase your yard bolt, or fabric you will need to learn steps to cutting your parts “On the grain.” This is a common phrase used by quilt makers. In addition to cutting, you will need to purchase fillers and learn how to craft them so they blend into your quilt. In quilt maker terms, “batting,” is choosing your style so to speak. For instance, if you wanted to create a traditional quilt you would choose ‘flatters” that match your material. When choosing batting it is ok to purchase polyester. You will have a choice of wools, cotton, and so on available as well. To help you make a decision consider the following questions.

How to choose:

Do you intend to craft your quilt on a sewing machine, or by hand?

What is the size?

How much time can you invest in making your quilt?

Do you intend to wash your quilt regularly, or design a fashionable quilt for your showcase?

Do you plan to make a quality quilt?

Asking the questions can help you choose your materials. You can find additional help by visiting craft shops and reading recommendations by the manufactured written on the batting label. In the meantime, visit the Internet to choose your patterns.

You also have the pre-packaged options, which you can purchase your batting, including the yard of batting. If you choose the pre-packaged, you will have convenience, such as elimination of cutting. The pre-packages are already cut to fit the average beds.

If you purchase yards of batting, be ware that it has not been pre-shrunk. This means, you will have bulks of batting to carry to your home. You want to keep in mind that yards of batting is suitable for smaller projects only, and is difficult to cut your patterns.

A few simple crafts can get your kids started on recycling. Here are some recycling projects for kids that your children may enjoy working on.

1. A letter holder from old CDs and packaging foam

One good recycling project for kids is making a letter holder from old data CDs and foam. Old data CDs are hard to dispose sometimes, and so is packaging foam.

To make a letter holder from these materials, you would need the following:

• Four old data CDs

• Packaging foam

• Scraps of decorative cloth, art paper or pages from a glossy magazine

• Glue

• Other decorative items like beads, silk flowers or glitter

To do this recycling project for kids, glue two CDs together to make them a pair. Decorate these CDs with your choice of decorative cloth, art paper or magazine pages, and then accentuate them with beads or flowers and other accessories.

The packaging foam serves as the base of the letter holder, so you can shape it any way you want and decorate it the way you did the CDs. Afterwards, cut panels into the foam where you could insert the CDs.

2. A bird feeder from milk cartons

This is another simple recycling project for kids that will also teach them to appreciate nature. This would work well if you live outside the city; you would have a greater chance of attracting birds.

All you need to do with this recycling project for kids is to take a milk carton and cut an opening on its side. You do not have to throw out the portion you have cut out, though. You can fold it and glue it to the upper side of the opening on the milk carton so it would look like a flap. This flap should be stiff so it would not fall on the heads of the birds as they feed from the milk carton.

Once that is done, you fill the carton with bird seed and then prop it up where the birds can reach it.

3. A kite from paper bags

We usually throw away paper grocery bags, but these can be good materials for recycling projects for kids. All you need to do is to get your kids to paint these grocery bags any way they want, attach strings to it, and then go flying kites.

An important thing that you should remember when making your children do recycling projects for kids is to supervise them, especially when they are using sharp objects like scissors, so they would not harm themselves.

She taught us everything we needed to know educationally… and then she showed us how to do all sorts of fun crafts; Christmas crafts to Easter crafts to just-for-fun crafts. We made things from popsicle sticks, glitter, glue and crayons. We learned that we could invent at 9 years old! The sky was the limit, and every day held another adventure. I remember one such craft that I still have in my possession over 20 years later.

The morning was particularly cold, even for northern Utah. The snow was high and Christmas was on its way! My mom had sent me to school that day with a miniature sized picture of myself. A freckled little girl, I had never thought myself as beautiful. As I held that picture though, I remember the feeling of pride at how well my school pictures had turned out that year. I was anxious to take it to school for whatever project we were attacking next.

After completing our daily work, Mrs. Allen handed us a white foam ball the size of a softball. She then asked us our favorite Christmas colors. Mine were most definitely red and silver that year. Two neat little baggies of red and silver sequins were then placed on my desk. At that age, anything that shined captured my attention fully! Mrs. Allen then told us we would be making a Christmas ornament that would take several days to complete.

Each day I would come to school, so eager to continue working on my craft. Using little silver pins, I remember carefully sticking each sequin into my foam ball. I had come up with a terrific idea for a pattern and couldn’t wait to see it completed. When I came to the middle of the ball, Mrs. Allen gently helped me pin my miniature school picture onto the front. After that final sequin was put in place, we wrapped them in tissue paper to present to our parents. There was never a prouder little girl than I, that day.

Mrs. Allen loved crating with kids and the kids loved Mrs. Allen because of it. My ornament, roughed up with time still holds my little school picture neatly pinned on the front. I don’t remember much of what was taught that year, but I do remember Mrs. Allen teaching us to make crafts. Her passion for art and using imagination rubbed off on a young girl and has stuck with her through the years.

First things first. Make a list of things you think you would like to try. So many things are just waiting for your attention!! Once you make your list, put it in the order of interest. Take that one thing and find some online groups or you may have a local group that meets weekly or monthly in your area. Contact your local Chamber of Commerce or go to your local hobby and craft stores to search for announcements of up-coming classes and join them. You will be less likely to quit or give up if you have personal support.

Do not be tempted to go on a spending spree simply to indulge your most recent challenge. Completing your craft doesn’t require having the latest and greatest tools. Most of the time, if you join a group, someone will be willing to lend you supplies to try it out. Go to garage sales and thrift shops to find used items for pennies to get you started. You can also search online or at your local craft supply store for the supplies or to get a kit that will walk you through step-by-step and give you all of the tools you need to create your new craft.

Remember not to be frustrated as in our world of convenience; we often expect things to happen immediately. Crafting takes time. Set aside an hour or two each evening for some relaxation time and work a little bit more. Depending on the size of the project, in a few days or a week, you will have your creation and ready to show it off.

Once completed, you can give your creation as a gift, sell it, or display it in your home. Crafting can be so much fun for the entire family as well as relieving stress while possibly making a little bit of money in the mean time. Hand made gifts are much more appreciated than something you “think” they might like which could be thrown out or handed down later (unless it is clothes, of course). Crafts also create a feeling of accomplishment, giving you self-worth. Children love them and proudly display them on the front of the refrigerator or on the front of their door. If it is larger, it can be displayed in the yard or around the house. Don’t be afraid to try something new. You never know, you may find yourself a new passion!

Happy crafting!!

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