What’s In My Hand Can be Child’s Play
Before I get to the kernel of this week's post, let me say thank-you to those of you who left encouraging comments on last week's post. They mean a lot to me. One reader thanked me for the little pep talk, and I want you to know that these sorts of posts are reminders and pep talks (and sometimes a stamp on my toes) for me, too. I read back over somethings I wrote about frugalities a few years ago in preparation for this post, and I was reminded sometimes of things I had long forgotten we used to do. I need that booster just as much as any of my readers. Please feel free to come visit me and my family at our regular blog anytime.
Last week I explained how and when I learned to ask 'what's in my hand.' It is a very useful question, and not just for frugal reasons, either. This week my son came to me and wanted me to play with him. He really wanted me to play legos with him, but they are perhaps my least favorite toy to play with in the world. Besides, they were upstairs, and I was downstairs nursing a sore back and sore legs from an overly ambitious field trip. As he smiled winningly at me with those big brown eyes and pleaded, "Play with me, pleeeeze?" I looked around the room where we were sitting and wondered, "What do I have in my hand, here?" Happily, what we hit upon was not only available, but incredibly frugal.
Here's the main ingredient. What do you see?
I'm not being a patronizing,, nor is this a rhetorical question. What do you see? Just a bunch of acorns? You see, besides asking yourself what you already have in your hand, it helps if you can look at what you have in your hand with a little flexibility, some creativity. That's the part that intimidates a lot of people because they think they aren't creative. Maybe not. The neat thing about creativity is that there is no cap on it. There is not a limited supply in the universe and so you can never develop more of it tomorrow than you had last week. You begin where you are, thinking about things in a new way, stretching your ideas, and asking yourself more questions. God will never tell you, "I'm cutting you off from the creativity well. You've used your allotted ration for your lifetime." Instead, the more you use it, the more you get.
What's in my hand?
What's it like?
Carrots are like sweet potatoes are like pumpkins- and you can use them in similar recipes. The tab on a can of soda looks like the picture hanger on the back of some pictures- and you can use it the same way with a bit of tape, a small nail, or some super glue.
And an acorn is shaped sort of like a teapot.
This isn't a fancy one, but you didn't need me to tell you that. And since I made it with my son, it's actually not a teapot at all. It's, um, a
camping coffee pot that you can heat on the fire. Real men cook with fire, I guess.
We used a bit of pipe-cleaner I had handy- I snipped it to the proper length using regular scissors. The dab of clay at the bottom is primarily to keep the pot from tipping. To make the pipe-cleaner stick in the acorn, I first poked holes in it using the pointed end of a small metal compass (the kind you use in geometry class, not geography). I could have used a nail or a thumb-tack, but I had the compass in my desk. I used a bit of toothpick, also snipped with scissors, for the spout of the second little acorn tea kettle.
With kids it seems to be process over product that matters, and mine certainly didn't want to spend time playing with the little coffee pot. He wanted to make more things. So look at the acorns again. What else do they look like?
How about the body and head of a small, odd, acorn creature?
I do apologize for the poor visual quality of this one. I think it's the reflection from her cap, which was made out of a gum wrapper because that's what we had in our hands- or at least within reaching distance of those hands. This time we used a small acorn for the head, and we attached the body and head by snipping a toothpick down to size (again, I just used scissors). I put one end of the toothpick in the top of the body, then pressed down the head onto the top. Arms and tail are from bits of a pipe cleaner. The face was drawn using permanent marker.
The boy was interested in the faces, so he made a series he called The French Peas (from Veggie Tales). He added clay hats and they were adorable, but they were bashful and didn't want their pictures taken. As least, I assume that's why I couldn't find them.
Does it seem that I've spent a lot of time using this blog for show and tell about my playtime with my youngest child this week, and not too much time helping you with frugalities? The thing is that frugality is a state of mind more than a list of dos, don'ts, and what to buy. Frugality begins with open-ended questions that help you probe the possibilities. What do I have? What do I want to accomplish? How could this work? What does it look like? What does it remind me of?
This made a better birdhouse before the cap fell off, but you get the idea. Toothpick snipped to the right size, dab of clay, and later, a bit of glue to put the roof/cap back on.
r the cost of a pipecleaner and about a dime's worth of clay (both actually purchased at thrift shops), we had an afternoon of free fun. But it's not over. All of these spur of the moment projects could be refined and improved on by more artistic folk than I. Acorns could by painted, pipe cleaners replaced by vines or bent twigs or smoother wire, or wrapped in polymer clay and baked for a smoother, shinier handle.
The acorn toys could be used in a dollhouse or as part of a seasonal display. You could gather acorns, put out a few possible supplies and use them as party favors or a game activity with several youngsters at your house for some festive celebration. You could put together 'kits,' using ziplock bags to hold the supplies. Include a few pictures of possible projects. Use your acorn toys as tags for packages or ornaments for trees.
What's in your hand?
What can you do with it?
What else can you do with it?
What else can you do with it?
What else can you do with it?
Want more like this post? Read on!
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5 Responses to “What’s In My Hand Can be Child’s Play”
September 14th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Great post! Very creative, and he’ll remember the “camping teapot” forever, I’m sure! When my son asks me to play with him, I feel guilty that I wasn’t the initiator, like if he has to remind me to play, I’m focusing too much on the household instead of the reason I’m home in the first place! I posted recently about SAHM’s needing to remember to schedule quality time with their kiddos.
September 14th, 2007 at 10:26 am
I used to keep a “craft box,” wherein we stored all the odd bits of interesting things that seemed as though they could be used to build things.
Straws, an empty egg carton, toilet paper tubes, a salt box or baking powder container, empty match boxes, an old magazine, thrift store glitter, etc.
With a bit of paint and glue, we could do wonders with this. Another grand forgotten tradition that ought be reinstituted.
September 16th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
This is a great reminder of what you can do with what is in your hand. Very inspiring- thank you!
September 18th, 2007 at 6:32 am
[...] Frugal Hacks had a very unique conversation with a son – and taught him a lesson about frugality. [...]
September 25th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
What cute way to engage your child’s imagination.
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