Rock, Paper, Scissors

I dare you to look into your trash can. Coffee grinds, orange peels, egg shells, juice boxes, paper. Now take a closer look. Is that a paper towel roll? A Chinese take-out lid that has mysteriously lost it's mate? Bill pay envelopes? And my personal favorite bonanza - a glass jar, complete with screw top?

You would be surprised by what you toss in the trash that can be re-used for family art projects. Why, just now I looked in my trash can and found that I had carelessly tossed the selvege ends of some fabric in the trash without realizing that this would be really cool for... something fantastic, I'm sure!

So often, we as parents are pressured in buying tons of toys for our children. They need a complete train set, a plastic kitchen complete with utensils and spice jars, and enough blocks or Legos to recreate the Empire State Building. Fortunately for us (and for our pocketbooks), this does not have to be the case. Kids are extremely creative little people - they can be completely absorbed in an envelope or pieces of yarn, they can make beautiful telescopes with paper towel rolls and magazine cut-outs, they will sit outside on the grass for hours making daisy garlands and thinking up stories. I think we do a disservice to our children when we overstimulate them with too many toys, electronic games, and DVDs.

I propose you start collecting items you would normally throw away and keep them in an art box. Baby juice and baby food jars, old t-shirts or towels, toilet paper rolls, scraps of yarn, extra buttons, stubby crayons, ribbon, cardboard... you name it. Because, as upcoming blog posts will demonstrate, you never know what throwaway item you'll need for a future art project!