Craftus Vomitus

I am not a crafty person.

There are those who would argue that point. I do sew, and I do knit and crochet, albeit inadequately.

But crafts that require glue sticks, craft sticks, sequins, glitter, stickers, construction paper, chenille sticks, googly eyes, or wooden multicolored toothpicks are beyond me. I can make a photo frame, maybe.

My kids did not inherit my lack of craftiness.

With 10$ of "craft" supplies from the local dollar store, my kids have created bizarre snakes, photo frames for grandparents that are pretty spectacular, dolls, houses for their dolls, play food (also for the dolls), caterpillar cutouts complete with sparkle, cemeteries for said-caterpillars when they die (they tend to play in a whole-life-cycle sort of fashion), and many, many other things. They are picky about color choices, shape, and size.

Who are these kids? I don't have a crafty bone in my body, and I certainly didn't teach them a single thing about art or crafts.

But I think I know where it comes from.

You see, Daddy's side of the family is arty in an extremely talented fashion. Daddy went to art school, and did extremely well in ceramics, Daddy's sister has created amazing painting-recreations on gowns, which she then wore for prom, and which went on display, darn near professionally. Daddy's mom is an art teacher, who is an incredibly talented sketch-and-paint artist. She's pretty darn good at ceramics too.

So they come by it honestly. And while neither one of them can draw anything that resembles anything (it's like sausages and stick figures), I have it on good authority (Grandma the art teacher) that many artistically creative people tend not to draw that way as children; they follow an inner eye we can't see. Aunty K drew that way till darn near Middle School, and only learned to "draw correctly" once she began to take classes specific to drawing. So there's some hope in me that they didn't inadvertently inherit my inability to draw anything but water from a well (yuck, yuck, yuck).