Recently, I have discovered FIMBY, and it has become a new favorite blog, largely because of the way Renee’s family makes creative arts a priority. The projects are awesome (check out her daughter’s Japanese doll and a handmade chess set), but even if we never make those sorts of things, I want to do a better job of encouraging creativity in my family. I’ve long admired the way Jimmie encourages her daughter’s creative side, too.

When I was a kid, I oozed creativity — but I’ve lost most of it since then.

I can’t seem to find where I read it, but I recently saw statistics from a study that showed how drastically creativity declines from age 5 to age 18. I believe this is largely because of the traditional school system. Too much conformity, too much other “necessary” learning crammed in to allow free time to dream and explore and create. {Just my two cents.} Anyway, I want some of my creativity back! And I want Kathryn to keep it, and Lindsey to have an opportunity to explore creative pursuits, too.

I’ve been doing a great deal of thinking on how to accomplish these goals.The biggest ideas I’ve come up with so far are:

1) Make time for creativity.

This means we’re scaling back on anything that feels like busywork. We’re still doing history, nature study, math, literature, and more, but with less just-so-I-can-prove-you-did-something work. This is still very much a process in progress. {That was fun to say.} More on that later, as I figure it out and continue making gradual changes.

2) Make supplies available.

Buy art/craft supplies. I can’t count the times we wanted to make something and didn’t have proper supplies, and by the time we went supply shopping, we didn’t even remember what it was we wanted to make. I don’t want that to happen any more.

3) Make it easy to find things – and to put them away!

I get crazy when things are too cluttered, and I’ve been guilty of discouraging Kathryn from projects simply because I know it’ll be a cluttery mess that will make my brain overload. Plus, we need our table surface for other things sometimes, so craftiness has to be able to put away.

Tomorrow I’ll share a very practical first step towards doing this!

If you follow me on instagram or facebook, you may have seen the old chest of drawers I bought cheap. It’s done, so come see what I did and how it turned out!

Jamie

Wife, mom, J-ma. Introvert who enjoys good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand – unless it’s lost yet again in the microwave. Read more »