Bright Idea of the Week

An idea is born.

I want to share with you a "Bright Idea". Bright Ideas are little things that are mostly simple and inexpensive and make life easier. Or prettier. I will try to post one a week but quite frankly, I don't have a good idea every week. So, we'll see how it goes. I will tag the Bright Idea posts so that you can reference them all by clicking on Bright Idea under labels on the right of the blog.

This week: Art box birthday presents
Can you imagine any gift better for a child than encouraging a love of art? If you buy the supplies in large quantities you can make several art boxes from your initial investment. Also, if you plan ahead you can purchase things when they are on sale at your local craft store and back to school sales are an excellent time to stock up on supplies as well.

I will be giving these out to all the children in my life as birthday presents this next year. If you know me in real life and you have a child whose birthday celebration I will be a part of, you can bet you will see one of these. This particular one is filled with: beads, pipe cleaners, glitter, pink felt, paper doilies, googley eyes, pom poms, jingle balls, feathers, glue, colored pencils, a ruler, scissors, felt butterfly stickers, clothespins, paint brush, a red pen and popsicle sticks. Ribbon, foam shapes, glue sticks, crayons and decorative scissors are also good additions. Everything is put inside a plastic box with a lid (I imagine the dollar store would be a good place to check for boxes) and a custom label proclaiming this art box belongs to the birthday child is attached. I printed this one out on patterned scrapbook paper and ran it through my Xyron machine to turn it into a sticker but you could just tape or glue the label.

Emma was so excited when she saw it that she asked me to make her one. She loves it so much that the first words out of her mouth upon waking yesterday morning were, Mommy, I want to make art. Could I be any prouder? Yesterday she asked if she can keep her art box in my studio. That's my girl. I believe my work here is done.