to thnk sone people are just not cut out for craft

[lecce]

I have just come back from the sale with two bargins - a craft box (an 'imagination' one, not a kit) and a dough set with assorted cutters and moulds etc.

We have had it out for 5 minutes, ds (5) has tried to make a dinosaur with pom-poms and pipe-cleaner things and, despite my 'help', is now in tears as the fucking things just will not stick together. I have had this so many times and remember it from my own childhood - is there any glue that actually sticks??? I am not much help as I find it so frustrating and find it hard to hide this.

Meanwhile, ds2 (2.10) has opened all the dough and, as usual, is just mushing it all together in one huge, multi-coloured ball. Sorry, but what is the point? If I show him how to use the bits and try to make something - even something very simple, it turns into me doing it and him watching, otherwise it's just him making a giant ball. For what?

Doesn't help that last week we went on a playdate with a perfect crafty mum whose daughter was making amazing stuff and the glue, you know, stuck stuff. Said Mum made an amazing, award-winning har for the YR jubilee hat comp just weeks after giving birth.

Dh is ill, it's fucking raining, the house is being photographed to go on sale tomorrow and I just feel like tipping the whole lot into the bin and cracking open the wine. AIBU?

Signing in, but it no longer matters (DC 12 and 10)

I have been there though. Bought half of Hobbycraft because it would be fun and five minutes later everyone is crying including me.

DS1 always had ideas that would never work and when it didn't he would lie star shaped on the floor on his front screaming. Fun times.

'playdate with a perfect crafty mum' Oh dear lord, she is my nemesis.

Craft kit: Two of the most dreaded words in the English language.

Dvd, wine and open: Three of the nicest You know it makes sense

YANBU, my ds1 (6) gets so frustrated with this kind of thing.

I think he gets an idea in his head of what his creation will look like and then gets cross when it doesn't work whereas my ds2 who is 4 will just go for it and and end up with a glorified blob but to him it is a masterpiece!

PVA glue is quite good but you do need quite a bit and then leave it to dry for ages. But pipecleaners just don't really stick to anything, stapling is better or make a spider by colouring a toilet roll carton, poke the pipecleaners through the cardboard rather than sticking them. (can you tell I work in a pre-school and spend my life doing this stuff!)

And embrace the dough mushing, it's all about the sensation of mushing and rolling it at that age.

I was and am the most uncrafty mother going, only been into Hobbycraft one and came out in a cold sweat, glitter, glue, card, paintbrushes, aaahhhh

Never did anything artsy and crafty with the kids when they were small, it turned out to be shit and stuff trod into the carpet, didnt have the space or patience for it.

DS2 wants to be an artist when he leaves school and is brilliant at drawing and has an amazing imagination for crafts, so having a craft retarded mother didnt hamper him in anyway

get a bit tarpaulin and lay it all out then leave them to play and stick alone!

double sided tape and sticky fixers (from pound shops) are great for sticking - clean and doesn't need time to dry.

at the end you can just roll the tarp up and get out the next time!

We discovered the only glues that worked were completely child unfriendly, Bostick (makes DCs high) and a hot glue gun.

Oh thank god! I thought I was all alone with my cack-handedness an uninterested toddler. At playgroup the craft table is always full of kids sticking and painting and glittering stuff and my son just wants to play on the slide. I usually feel guilty but the times I try and sit down with him he does that turning-to-jelly thing and refuses to engage.

I shall force him no more! Away with thee, foul craft crap!

Thank you, my having 'time-out' on MN once a tantrum (mine) was looming has worked. They are both now playing well with it by getting it all out and doing god knows what with it all.

Ds1 is playing 'dinosaur postmen' with it and ds2 has just handed me a huge ball of dough with a straw rammed in it - it's my croissant, apparently.

It's very good to know that pipe-cleaners don't stick, I honestly thought it was me. Why don't they tell you that? Thank god for MN .

Also good to know that they can be creative despite having me as a mother. I will stick to not getting too involved from now on .

OMG I used to hate all this craft shite stuff. My DC's not at all artistic and my heart used to sink when they were given those awful jewellery sets and card kits. I think we still have some unopened boxes in the attic and they're 15 and 13 now.

another one here!

Craft kit??!!

It's funny because I love art. Go to see it, was always good at it and my dd1 is also very talented too. But craft kits and home crafty stuff just turn me right off and I'd no more join a scrap booking circle than fly to the moon.

If of any of us wants to draw or paint we do and I keep nice paints and paper about the place, but the minute it comes in a kit and I feel we 'should' I'm off

We use both Marvin medium and Copydex at school - both stick better than PVA. I wouldn't use Copydex with wee ones though. Too toxic.

I love crafting. Sorry but I do and I am also good at it. The glue in those kits needs to be chucked in the bin...I never bother with them actually...the ONLY thing that sticks pom poms together is a hot glue gun. So unless you're willing to go for that then forget it!

Get prit stick and paper...let them stick scraps of magazine and coloured tissue to sheets of paper...decorate tin cans with the same stuff...then they can use their "Beautiful creations" for their pens etc.

We also do pinecone stuff a lot..glittering them is great! I use PVA glue in a dish, watered down....paintbrush for dabbing.Pine cones can also make nice animals if they want to make models.

Stop stressing about making it loom the same as the one on the box made by a Post-Graduate student in Fine Art and let them get messy.

Love that your 2.10 yo made you a croissant, most kids that age haven't got past birthday cake and endless singing to people with a "candle" you have to blow out...

You're doing Imaginative Play. The fine motor skills can come later

I enjoy it, but we keep craft sessions to a minimum or we create too much crap!

As for the glue, I keep some wood glue/No More Nails and Superglue handy and, once DD has finished, usually end up squeezing some of that onto whatever she's made, so it holds together.

With little kids I find double sided sticky tape better and more instant than kid friendly glues.
Agree with the dough mushing it's frustrating but at this stage it's a learning thing about texture & touch rather than actually making masterpieces. I admit I'm a crafty parent (but I did study architecture at uni which my DH declared to be a 'Blue Peter degree' as I made an awful lot of models) but I've managed to get cack handed DH to help make masterpieces with DS - the trick is to not worry about the outcome and just enjoy the process, I know that's easier said than done but once you relax, the kids relax, you enjoy it more and it'll show in what you make.

there has been craft here today for 3yo DS, induced by guilt that the new baby is being very needy and I've been a Bad Mum lately

He has drawn on the wall, pritt-sticked the cat and also applied glitter to his two snot runners so now has a disco moustache.

Fucking godawful activity. I've put Finding Nemo on.

I need gin...

Must admit I've never bought a kit in my life tho - I am kids craft graduate from pre hobbycraft days; bottlecaps, sweet wrappers, cotton wool, saved scraps rule our house.

'The learning is in the doing not in the finished project' my favourite saying as i hand a parent a tissue box dripping with glue and one bottle top hanging off it (evil nursery nurse) but craft at home i spent Sunday making flipping crowns (Ds1 stuck on 1 jewel on one crown, had 8 to make)

YANBU. Craft is hell and creativity is overrated I am not at all jealous of people who can do that shit.

at Furcough's DS's disco moustache though... surely there's a photo to capture for his 21st

applied glitter to his two snot runners so now has a disco moustache

Fantastic!

FurCough to the disco moustache.

I put my hand up to being very crafty and having the patience to sit on the floor with kids and do it, but, the one thing that kept my kids amused for hours was:

a catalogue of any sort, craft scissors, pritt stick and a large scrap book each.

They would cut and stick to their hearts (and ours) content making pictures and collages up. I still have the scrap books!

That would be me Lecce.I'm just so rubbish at any craft stuff.A bit of a pain as DH and DD1 have degrees in the art and craft field. Mx.

Does anybody remember Plasticraft?

It was a moulding kit - a bit like setting stuff in aspic. You were supposed to be all artistic and set things like flowers and shells in it.

Some well-meaning relative bought a set for my dear bro - who started off well and made some pleasant trinkets with daisies and pansies from the garden for Mama.

Next thing we knew, an old teddy bear was minus its eyes and Action Man was going to be joining the Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association. The final straw was when I had to chip my week's pocket money out of a sodding lump of solidified acrylic.

You are correct, lecce - some people should be banned from Hobbycraft altogether