This season marks a time when many school projects will be showing up in the house. James’ wide eyes will stare up at me as he places a clay sculpture in my hands. “I made this for you!”
It’s all adorable of course, but by January, my fridge is buried under pictures of Thanksgiving construction paper turkeys, 3D Halloween pumpkin heads and acrylic painted Christmas scenes. My Frigidaire gasps for some air to breathe and so do I!
Because I can’t display everything from 3 kids, ultimately the uglier crafts get the boot into the recycle bin and the nicer stuff gets saved. (I’m allowed to write that some of their crafts are ugly, I’m a wicked step-mom.)
The problem arrives when one of them somehow comes across the pipe cleaner flower bouquet in the garbage and looks up at me with confusion in their eyes, “Why is this in here?”
Oh, man.
Yes, even my wicked heart melts. But I can’t keep everything!
Exhibit A:
For the love of God. Am I expected to keep this? The dog has mauled part of it and it was under James’ bed for nearly an entire year. We found it today and I explained to James a way that we could keep it forever without it getting wrecked. I would take a picture of it. He was fine with that!
Ta-daaaa…..
Having said all that, some of the stuff they make is pretty fuckin’ cool! I’ve taken those crafts and have found permanent places for them around the house.
Check it out: I found this in James’ Art scrapbook, tore it out and framed it. Now it sits in my “study” and I love it!
Here’s one that Erin made a few years ago that is so bizarre it’s awesome. Is it a spider? Is it a sun? Who knows! But it hangs high up in the corner of our bathroom.
This note is pretty cute too:
And last but not least, Curtis made these ridiculous sculptures and I keep them on a shelf in the living room.
You get the idea.
A word of caution. I don’t surround my bedroom with these things. Looking at kid’s crafts sort of kills the romantic mood that I try to keep in our love nest. But bathrooms, living rooms, and kitchens… all great places for handcrafted pieces of love!
So the next time you are feeling overloaded with kid’s creations and you only have so much room in your home, take a picture. It’ll last longer. Otherwise you will have 10 boxes that contain these things in your storage room.
- What the fuck is this?
Happy picture taking, folks!
Wicked Step-Mom 