For the love of crafting

You never expect to have a child with health issues or how your life will change in an instant. When my

son was born 10 years ago my life was forever changed. Sebastian was an amazing beautiful baby who

came out of the womb with breathing issues. My husband, Lanny, had suffered from the same issues, so

we knew we had a long road ahead of us and that our son would face many obstacles.

Sebastian had been diagnosed with severe asthma. He was unable to participate in normal activities that

other healthier kids could enjoy such as baseball, soccer or just running and playing. So, to replace those

activities, we began teaching him arts and crafts at a young age. It started with Home Depot/ Lowes

craft workshops for kids, Michael’s Saturday arts class, and community art events. Along the way I

found myself learning and even teaching myself an abundance of craft activities. I was able to share

these fun crafts with my son and our new daughter, Milly Rose, each week. As Sebastian grew older and

started attending public school, he was constantly ill, even going to the hospital. We knew we needed to

do something, so we decided to home school both children. This was a big change for all of us, but it

worked! Home schooling reduced Sebastian’s hospital visits and asthmatic episodes.

Home schooling brought with it a whole host of worries. We were really concerned about our children

learning and developing without other kids or ‘normal’ activities. One thing that remained constant for

us was crafting. Our homeschool schedule included a daily art lesson in addition to our weekly arts and

crafts we had been doing since Sebastian was 2 years old.

In the beginning we did small crafts such as brown paper bag puppets, cutting out animals for a scenery

box, paper hats, animals from foam, pine cone turkeys, clay pot chickens, and pine cone wreaths. Many

of the projects involved cutting pieces of paper or felt for feet, nose, and ears of the animals as well as

clothes and ribbons for decoration (depending on what the kids wanted). We also made picture collages

for our homeschool room, using them as wall art! Then we started making greeting cards, name tags for

our home school room, and learned how to cut shapes and make stand/pop-out art for cards.

As the kids grew, so did their interest and ability to learn. We graduated to bigger projects using clay

pots. They learned to use regular (non-safety) scissors and hot glue (although this was still something

watched closely). We created light houses, famous women in history face silhouettes, dream catchers,

painted canvas and used materials from around the house to cut shapes and make the canvas stand out.

Eventually we tried crocheting, knitting and quilting. Through this process we learned that the kids

preferred making quilts, so we started making quilts and donating them to the Native American

humanitarian project at our church. Not only were the kids crafting and learning but they were also

learning the importance of helping others.

Throughout this process we wanted the kids to find their own passion and interests so we started letting

them pick the craft project for the week. My daughter usually wanted to do something fun, colorful and

in fashion. She requested we make hair accessories. We cut our own ribbon and used pipe cleaners

underneath the ribbon to create cat ear headbands, made hair clips, butterflies, and vintage flowers.

Sebastian even helped make puppy head bands for his sisters’ birthday. Milly Rose wanted to make

pillows, faerie cottages and purses during her chosen activities. When it was Sebastian’s turn, he wanted

to make terrariums, candles, and pen flowers. The kids would excitedly show me new crafts each week

and we would keep going.

Eight years have passed since we started crafting with Sebastian (and Milly Rose). The creativity flows

through their spirits and we are doing more crafts then ever. We make costumes for festivals, and even made gnomes for the holidays. We handmake all of our own gifts during the holidays and pass them out

to senior citizens and kids in hospitals. All of these projects, big or small, have gifted my family with

bonding, taught them lessons of sharing, and created memories that we will all cherish.