Fuel Your Creative Flame

I'm nerdy. I am not creative. When I draw pictures, they are usually composed of standard geometric shapes, like squares, triangles and circles. When I paint with my daughter, while she experiments with colors and textures and freely swipes her paint brush or paint covered fingers or feet, I paint letters or spirals. So, when I realized that topic of this month's Mother's Renewal meeting was Unleashing Your Creativity, as described in Renee Trudeau's book The Mother's Guide to Self-Renewal, I was doubtful. I led the group discussion with a bit of apprehension, how was I supposed to encourage other moms to unleash their creativity when I couldn't unleash my own?

Our discussion was centered around three questions- What creative things did you do before having children? What creative things do you do now? What creative things can we do that involve our children and partners?

As always, the group was full of insights and ideas. I was not the only one who denied having any creative talents, and I left the discussion with a great list of ways to foster creativity in myself and in my family. All the answers to the three questions we discussed are posted to the APMC Yahoo Group message board for members, but below is our answer to the third question- What creative things can we do that involve our children and partners?
Garden
Tell stories and encourage story telling
Create puppet shows
Build forts
Play with dry beans
Create an ever-changing toy cupboard
Paint with water- can use Buda board or Aqua Doodle, or just water and a sidewalk
Create themed books with magazine pictures, exp. sleep time, animals, outdoor fun
Play with buttons- kids can string them and sort them
Learn and teach sign language
Play hide and seek- little ones can play some variation of this by 12 months
Dance! and make dance compilation cds
Make movies, scripted or not, shot around town or not, make a compilation of
movie clips you already have
Go geo-caching or letter boxing
Complete 3-D Balsa wood puzzles, sighted at Michaels craft stores for $1
Visit Teacher Heaven for inspiration and purchases
Repurpose cardboard boxes

By the end of the evening, we determined that each of us has creative talents, we just don't all have creative talents that are easily recognized. When we day-dream about fantasy vacations, the projects we are going to complete, the businesses we will some day start, or the fun family activities we will do as soon as the kids are old enough, we are being creative. Any time we come up with a solution or alternative solutions to problems, we are being creative. I headed home with a creative spark shining brighter than usual and I was excited about all ways I was going fuel my creative fire. Our next meeting will be at the end of August.