It has been six months since we began this slow and steady journey into the world of Waldorf. Often when I look around on the internet for ideas and inspiration in putting together my weekly “curriculum” for Master C, I see jaw-dropping works of art, play spaces that look like they fell out of a fairy tale, and homes that embody that perfect blend of whimsical magic and decorative functionality; all using natural materials and each one unique from any other. I catch myself bemoaning my weakened creative centre: “if only I had one ounce of that person’s talent!”.

It’s easy to feel intimidated by how far we still have to come before we’ll have the skill/talent/money to produce the stunning and inspiring pieces that grace the pages of our Pinterest accounts. But then I hear a voice inside that pulls me out of my ego trip pity party and reminds me that creative ability is something like 2% natural gift and 98% time and practice. Creating things using my hands used to be one of my greatest joys when I was younger; it filled all the hours of my days and filled my heart with a sense of achievement and pride that I haven’t experienced much in the last decade or two of my adult life. I’ve only recently realised that it is because I spent so much time being creative and making things when I was younger that I gradually became quite good at it. Why? Not because I had any particular talent. I simply worked at it everyday.

Time passes and life pulls us in other directions, and rightly so. Being present with our children takes up a huge amount of our energy, and our creative juices can often be exhausted by day’s end. I know I personally wandered off my creative path once I left formal schooling and became concerned with supporting myself financially. There is nothing more dulling creatively than the weariness of a minimum wage, average 12-14 hour shift, labour intensive yet tedious working life. These days however, I find myself in a situation that offers a return to creative fulfillment. The past 6 months have been amazing in re-igniting my creative flow. What has changed? A few small but important things: no TV in the house means more free time once the kids are in bed; a baby who is no longer waking several times each night means that making something now feels like a pleasure instead of yet another “have to” that stands between me and my bed; and perhaps most importantly, creating a weekly plan of activities and crafts for Master C has had the happy effect of causing me to schedule time in for myself and my own projects each week. I know that for me, purposefully setting aside time a few nights a week to work on something creatively is the only way to get that momentum going. Once one project is complete, you have that incredible pride of achievement that spurs on more creative output. Momentum is one of the most important aspects of creative success. If you don’t keep that momentum going, projects started with enthusiasm sit collecting dust in the craft room for months on end. And there are few things more sad than a half-finished and dusty felted gnome.

The nature crafts that we have been making lately that I will share below have been a great means of re-connecting with creative energy. Because Master C is only 3 and the crafts that I set out to complete together are focussed almost entirely on the process rather than the end product, this has given me the “permission” to create something that need not be perfect. During the day, when we are making things together, Master C and I work quickly in short spurts since his attention to one task is not terribly long. I make every effort to present the craft to him in a way that will allow him to see the fruits of his labour as immediately as possible. This might mean that I need to prep crafts ahead of time so that he isn’t involved in the more mundane bits like priming, or painting base colours or whatnot. Like me, he gets a surge of accomplishment when he is able to point to something and declare with pride: “I made that today!”.

Nature Crafts to Brighten the Backyard

Because children learn best by imitation, it is not always necessary or even advisable to tailor craft projects specifically to them. Often the best kind of craft for a child is simply to create, unguided, with whatever materials are available at the time. A caregiver busily working away on a project of her own may inspire her child to join in in a capacity more suited to their own age. While I personally am not ready to hand over my felting needle to Master C just yet, he will happily occupy himself with the wool roving for some time while I create a new fairy for the nature table. But for those other times where you DO choose to set aside time for a craft just for the little man or miss in your life, here are a few ideas, using objects found in your local park or at the beach. We have been making an effort to bring more beauty and colour to our outdoor play space and these craft projects have accomplished just that.

Painted Sticks

Big Daddy took Master C and Baby J on a nature walk to our local coastal park and returned with a boot full of driftwood, pinecones and sticks for us to get stuck into. I selected three long pieces of driftwood for this project and primed them the night before setting them out for Master C the next day. This was a multi-stage process as I needed to let the primer dry on one side before flipping the stick over and priming the opposite side. The next day, I set out one colour of paint and a thick brush and let Master C have at ‘er (we used acrylic paints from our local $2 shop). He mainly painted in long chunks before moving on to painting his hand (hahaha). Later that night I filled in the colour where he had painted, covering all areas that were still white and adding more colour as necessary. The following day I presented him the sticks again and gave him a finer brush and guided him to paint only in certain sections (“can you paint only on the red bits?”). He added accents in a few colours and was ready to get on to the next thing. These kinds of bite-sized arts and crafts sessions are more his speed. I added accents to my own stick and the next day I propped up all three in the garden. They have jazzed up our deck and brought more colour to our yard and also have become a well loved tool in Master C’s backyard play. For anyone who has ever read Elsa Beskow’s beautiful story Children of the Forest, you will understand Master C’s obsession for wielding a giant spear in search of Vara the Viper. 🙂

Pinecone Bird Feeder

Not really a craft, but a nice visual addition to the garden nonetheless. We followed this tutorial when creating our bird feeders. There has been a HUGE increase in the amount of birds visiting our garden since their addition, much to the pleasure/chagrin of our two (indoor) cats!! In an ideal world we would have large established trees to hang these from in our yard but that is not the case, so a high branch on our shrubs near the fence line worked fine for us.

Simple Stick Flower Weaving

One of the longer sticks that Big Daddy brought home had a fantastic V shaped fork near the end. While an older boy might immediately think “sling shot!!!” upon seeing such a sight, I am grateful to still have a little boy who has never heard of such a thing and who will happily help me weave flowers, then carry the finished product around all afternoon declaring it his “Flower Wand”. Oh, please, little sir, always stay so young and beautiful!!
This was very, very easy to create. You simply need  a bit of thread and a stick with a fork at one end. Tie the thread off at the base of one side of the fork and then bring it across and wrap it around the opposite side twice before returning back to the first side and wrapping it around again (twice: for strength and to increase tension). Continue doing this in a zig zag pattern up to the top, keeping the thread as taut as possible. Tie off once you near the end of your fork and then set off with your child searching your backyard or local neighbourhood for small flowers or foilage to weave into the threaded part of your forked stick. A young child will enjoy searching for a bouquet of flowers to include and can carefully weave them in to the thread with little need of assistance. They can immediately take their finished Flower Wand and begin casting magic spells straight away.

Painted Stones

Over the course of many morning walks, we collected several rocks to use for this project. Similar to our painted sticks, these needed priming the night before, and were a bit more labour intensive as they did need a few coats of paint to make their colour sing. I completed a few the night before we began this project, which I have found to be the best approach for us as it gives Master C an idea of what we are working toward when he sits down to create his own. I painted a few more rocks while he added his stamp of creativity to his own and after they dried overnight we brought them out to the garden. These have been used as props in play with smaller toys; as building blocks; as markers in the veggie patch and for sorting, pattern making and even as a small garden mandala. Beautiful!

With time, I imagine our garden to be an oasis of colour and nature combined. Some stunning natural playscapes can be found on my Pinterest board, if you are looking for inspiration yourself. I remind myself to be patient and confident in the knowledge that as my own creativity returns and as time passes we will create little by little until our home resonates with the kind of magic I see from so many other inspiring Waldorf homes. A mile is made up of a thousand smaller steps.

I would love to hear from others who may just be beginning their Waldorf journey, or those who are re-igniting their creative energy generally. Or perhaps you are a seasoned pro at creating beauty but can see how far you have come over time. What steps have your taken toward cultivating your craft?

Next post I shall unveil some of my latest creations on our Winter Nature Table. Come back and visit us again soon! 🙂

xx

Robyn