The Maker

Today, I realized that my younger child is like me in a way that my older child is not.

When D was little, we spent a lot of time at the library. For a small town, the Sherman library was not too shabby. At some point, D figured out that there were craft books at the library. Man, I hated when D picked out one of them. Although we had a lot of supplies, a specific craft inevitably meant a trip to Michael's or Hobby Lobby, and even though I've spent hours in many of them, I still don't understand how they're laid out.

D LOVED to make things. D still loves to make things. What all has D done? There was a beads phase.

It coincided with the Harry Potter phase.
I'm laughing about D asking the Easter face painter at my parents' church to try a snake.

There was a papier mache phase.

A Maya ceremonial plate. D also made a fish and a thunderbird, among other creatures.

And then there was the time that D became a self-taught balloon-animal maker.

When Mal was about 9 months old and D seemed securely out of craft mode, we donated 3 under-bed-storage boxes full of supplies to our local unschooling group for use at a retreat.

But then D moved on and learned (alone, no lessons; maybe some YouTube tutorials) how to sew. And how to sculpt clay, from forming to firing to painting. 

Throughout all of this time, D has also drawn. A lot. Thousands and thousands of pictures, and I haven't seen one of them in about four years. Ahh, teenagers.

Facilitating D's creative passions is what we do. Even when it's made me really tired, wandering clueless around a big box craft store for hours.

Mal... is a consumer more than a creator right now. I know that consuming gets a bad wrap (I just had to stop reading an interview with some author in Texas Monthly because she was bagging on that kind of thing), but it behooves creators to have consumers, doesn't it? Anyway. Mal is also right on brand with my lack of desire to complete crafting projects.

James's work is having a create-your-own Mario Kart contest. This should be right up Mal's alley because, Mario. I asked him if he wanted to do it, and for about a day and a half didn't get an answer. Then he said he did want to do it. We got a box, and I asked him how to design it. He said it needed to have a white circle with an "M" on it, like Mario's real car in the game (which we don't have).

Mal also said that the car needed to be red, like Mario's in the game. I asked, "How will we get it red? Paint? Or construction paper?" Faced with the extra work, Mal decided, "It doesn't need to be red." Later, we were talking about the wheels. I had a few plates to use for wheels, and asked Mal if he wanted to put some sticker letters on them or something. He said, "There aren't letters on the wheels in the game." I said, "That's okay. We can do whatever we want." "I'll just leave them plain." "But they're white. You just want white wheels?" "Never mind. We don't need wheels."

Needless to say, what we came up with was extremely minimalist, because Mal was just not interested in investing too much time into the project.

This is exactly how I've approached his Mario "kingdoms" that we've been making out of cardboard boxes. I've realized that he's at an age that even suggesting something poorly seems like magic to him, and he's pleased with whatever I do, even if it's messy. He's also willing to overlook inaccuracy, to a degree.

Anyway, here's what we came up with.

He did want the steering wheel to turn, so I made that happen.

Adventures in Frugality and the Home Arts (?)

After the money-hemorrhaging late fall, I made a deal with myself when we got back from our trip to Arizona that I wasn't going to buy anything superfluous (i.e. other than groceries and medicine, basically) until after the New Year. It was sometimes a challenge, especially because Mal doesn't understand that kind of thing. But it was nice to reset and reflect on purchases I thought I wanted to make during that time.

For instance: I'd done a trial subscription to Grove, and like the products... but decided that now that I have the glass dispensers, I can buy the cleaning products at Target and save a bunch of packaging and the delivery as well as some money.

Another thing I really wanted was a very large suitcase for times when we fly and can check bags, or even when I'm traveling alone with Mal and it would be nice to have one big bag to maneuver instead of a couple of smaller ones. I had looked online, and am enamored with hard-sided luggage, and Away's specifically. There's also a luggage store at the outlet mall that is always having sales. But even for soft-sided suitcases, I wasn't seeing anything under $100, and mostly over $200, for the size I wanted.

I spoke with my parents about borrowing one of theirs, but our next trip is scheduled within a week of their travel, and I didn't want either one of us to have to make the return during that time either pre- or post-vacation.

I also looked at Goodwill, which seemed to have gotten an influx of off-brand, new soft-sided bags in three sizes (carry-on, regular, and large) just in time for Christmas. Even those were $50 for the biggest.

After perusing Craigslist for a bit, I found an ugly, brown, 30-inch American Tourister suitcase for $25. It sells for about $160 new, but I'm sure they don't sell it in that color anymore, because why would they?

I arranged to get it, then had the idea that we could personalize it a bit with a few patches. When I mentioned this to Mal at the craft store, he took charge and picked out enough patches that I almost could have bought a new bag at Goodwill, but at least this is a brand I know and trust, and it will be thoroughly ours.

We picked it up yesterday, and the cats were interested.

Looks like poop!

Too bad it doesn't smell like poop.

Mal got bored with the affixing process after deciding where everything would go. After ironing the whole lot, I realized that apparently the backing did not want to adhere to a synthetic fabric, so... I used super-glue.

Now our bag is ready for its inaugural outing as part of Team Dave's. Too bad it will have to wait a few months.

Mal picked out: A "Minecraft" heart (really it's just pixelated, but whatever), BB-8, and a slice of pizza for the front. The heart came with a "full battery" patch, too, which I think is a cool allusion to how you should feel recharged after a good vacation. I used it to cover the scuffed-up logo; we'll see if it sticks!

I am the one who picked the "seek adventure" patch. And we affixed the luggage tag we formerly had on Mal's now-too-tiny backpack to the handle of the new case.

Mal's second food pick, French fries, on the side mean we should be able to locate our otherwise boring brown suitcase from any angle.

Also, there was a slight tear in the back (disclosed in the sales post), so I taped it up inside and the outside, and added a little flair to that, too. Mal said, "Thank you for giving me a heart!"

As you can see: Cat hairs already.

I'm not remotely a crafty person, but this was fun, especially since Mal took ownership of the design and was super excited about getting it together.