To whomever makes the 'Do It Yourself Craft' kits for children, I would like to say, that if a parent cannot make the craft, it is not a children's craft. If the craft requires a tool that comes from a real tool box, it is no longer, by the rules of childhood, a child's craft.
Today our child's craft was making a bug house. I was immediately against this craft since I do not want bugs in my house and I certainly do not want to make a special house for the bugs that will then be in my house.
Step one of the bug house child's craft was "sand all pieces in the direction of the wood grain." We don't keep sand paper in the toy chest so we jumped directly to step two.
Step two was "using a screw driver, screw the round door, onto the square end piece." Obviously I had to get a screw driver out of the toolkit in the garage and it took me five minutes to try and screw the thing in while steadily holding the round door over the square end with my third hand.
Step three, "apply a thin layer of wood glue along the length of the bottom piece of wood." In our adhesive box, we have Elmer's school glue, good for kindergarten decorative paper creations and scotch tape, good for gift wrap. We do not keep wood glue handy amongst our craft adhesives. We skipped this step too.
Step four, "Nail, the square end piece with the dowel rod, into the length of the bottom piece, blah, blah, blah, blah." Are you kidding me? The nails were minuscule. I could barely hold onto the nail and hammer it while holding all of the pieces in place.
We now have a bug house that I made with adult tools as a child's craft. I told the children that it seemed like a better miniature mobile garden than a bug house. Hopefully they will be more inclined to put flowers inside of it which will surely die, rather than bugs, which would also surely die.
For the record, please note Mr. or Mrs. Child Craft Creator, a child's craft requires crayons, stickers, maybe a glue stick (but not a glitter glue stick) and imagination. And that's it.
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