Advice, Unsolicited: Made With Love

I'm a big proponent of DIY projects that save me money. I make my kid's birthday cakes and decorations. I get a little crafty around the holidays and when it comes to Halloween hand-made is the only way to go.

Luke as SpongeBob, Layna is Ariel and Jake was a "peanut".

Even when I want to be lazy and buy costumes, a stroll through Target's Halloween aisle reminds me at $35 a pop (x4 = $140... I guess we won't eat for a week), a little nighttime crafting is the only way to go for costumes. Made with love... in other words I burned my self with the glue gun 5 times putting together this Sponge Bob costume, I don't care if it's not cartoon accurate, you're wearing it.

My parents are DIYers. The difference being they had legitimate talent. My mom made our clothes, costumes and even my wedding dress. My dad made our dressers - one of which is still used by my daughter almost 30 years later. Unlike yours truly they made things that deserved to be cherished, and I did. Now my kids get the benefit of their hard work, with blankets, stuffed animals and clothes from grandma and wooden garages for the boys trucks, and a wood cradle for my daughters dolls. Amid rooms of store bought junk, I had to explain the special value in something made by hand. I asked my kids to imagine the item being made for them, how much time and effort it and the whole time it was being crafted they were being thought of. The time dedicated just to them - with them even being there, that's worth more than gold.

The things I make don't have the longevity to be cherished. The cakes are gone in hours, the poster board decorations last on their bedrooms walls for a few months and the costumes are lucky to last through the couple Halloween functions we attend. The kids almost always like the things I make them, and sometimes they even turn out "cool!".

I've found that one of the side effects of the affliction of parenthood is the evaporation of hobbies. I was asked at an ECFE class last week to introduce myself and share hobbies and interests, the only thing I could come up with is "I read sometimes, I think"... are karaoke and wine hobbies? I have the best intentions to resume my pre-kid hobbies, but now, time is always filled with school and work and the fact that my family feels I should prepare them dinner every single night.

For now my only real hobby is making things for my kids' birthdays, Halloween and holidays. Party planning their theme lets me harken back to my pre-kid creative craftiness. Making crazy cakes, drawing characters for decorations or figuring out how to make a 4 year old into a 4-wheeler for Halloween. It's glue gun burns, marker stained fingers and scissor cramped hands, but I love it... because I love them. I love finishing a project and setting it up in the living room so it's the first thing they see in the morning, their excitement is only motivation I need to do it again. I hope they can look back on the photos someday and laugh at the hilarity of some of the results, but mostly realize how much love and thought was in those goofy projects.

Here are a few of my favorite DIYs: