Anyone else got a 'Compulsively Creative' child?!

[ChiefFairyCakeMaker]

DD (5.5) is compulsively creative. She is driven to make things from first thing in the morning until last thing at night. She starts off cutting and sticking before breakfast, takes a break to go to school, and then needs a lot of persuading to stop to go to bed at night. She's been like this since she was about 3, although she needed more help then - she once had me making a bikini for Pingu at 6.30am.

Not being in the least bit creative myself I find it hard to understand her creative urges. I think she takes after DH who is very creative, and is also always making things. I'm pleased she's so creative but it's the compulsive bit that concerns me slightly - the house is bursting at the seams with her creations.

Has anyone else had any experience of this? And if so where will it end.

alyblackcat, my dd went through a phase of leaving notes for the fairies to which a response (in fairy writing ) was required

That was hard work

Lol at shitemum having to make a bog roll tube crocodile

A film crew Piffle, that sounds intriguing...

Lol at the 'presents' Armadillo!

Thanks for the tips guys.

My DDs are all like this. I asked DD3 (5.3) what she would like for Christmas and she said, paper, glue, glitter, felt-tips, pipe cleaners.
On the positive side we have been stuck indoors all half-term while she had chickenpox and they have made doll's houses out of shoe boxes and all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures out of scraps.
On the negative side, as you say, what do you do with it all. They have a huge (A1) folder each to store their best artwork, but the 3D stuff ends up covering every surface in the house. I feel guilty about throwing it out, but I resent the fact that mantlepieces, dressers and tables are covered in crumbling papier mache/clay/cardboard creations of distinctly dubious artistic merit.
And if I do try to sneak a particularly past it's sellby date artefact into the dustbin you can be sure I will hear
MUUUUUMMMM, why is my lovely model in the dustbin.
AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH

My dd is like that, as am I.

She was in school with me earlier in the week while I was catching up with paperwork.

I left her watching high school musical on my IWB and cam back to find she had created a stage and charactars from my display edging and various crafty bit she could find in my room.

We save paintings and things on paper to make wrapping paper from.

My son (5) is a bit like that.
We started making a puppet theatre yesterday, from a cardboard box. We cut the front so it is open, he has painted the "scenery" for the story, the cave for the scary snake monster, a house, trees, grass and berry bushes, we have made puppets from socks, with button eyes, feathers and other crafts material. He held one puppet show, then I told him we had to do his homework.

I was getting his school things ready, while he was scribbling something furiously, 3 pages full. I did not look until this evening. He has made a cartoon "story" covering 3 a4 pages. He has depicted himself sitting unhappy doing homework, and in other frames all the things he rather be doing.....

My dd posts us drawings to express her emotions! So tonight she did not want to go to bed and expressed her hissy fit through a cartoon that she threw down the stairs paper aeroplane like, it was of her in bed with huge tears down her face and she had written "I feel unloved"

Dp has requested that when I have a tantrum I do it in a similar silent way

DD1 does this too Twinset! I find reproachful little notes outside the living room door that she has sneaked down from bed to put there - or halfway up the stairs, or under my pillow!
!

They are very funny aren't they, I am yet to have one under my pillow.

Thewickercam, perhaps I should write her a thank you note (I do from the tooth fairy, I blame myself for all this fantasy-life just so y'know) or two - it will make me feel so much better for shoving all her creations in the composter!!!

My dd (6½) is like this too. Since she started in Yr2 it's quite obvious that they are doing less art/creative stuff because she will now spend a whole weekend just making things - usually cards, illustrated stories etc.

I get a lot of little notes too!

The Ikea box is a great idea, thanks Skribble!

Urgh, I've got two of them.
Ds is currently working on more comics but has a sideline in Halloween artefacts, plus Lego installations and a rather rickety piece of knitting, but it is dd who is the unstoppable art machine. Tiny "letters", bizarre collages that if I did post to friends as requested the Police might be involved, bows stuck around the house (ds calls these bowtruckles due to their scary aspect), Quanglewangle hats, etc.
As with others on here, my two aren't so keen on craft kits. They like to run amok.
I am a horrible warning from your future ChiefFairyCake. I have one of those Ikea units and it is already full of scraps, stickers, paint bottles, sugar paper, PVA barrels, sequins and scissors
Dh and I look up from our model aircraft making and knitting and wonder exasperatedly where they get this from...

mine like being creative, but it's the youngest who is very earnest about drawing...

she is 2 years and 3 months, but is practising drawing flowers (long lines, with circles at the top), colouring in and drawing the letter 'e' ??????

she is seriously scarying me!

she has the same skills as DS and he's 4!

we have a great system called the gallery (read - string with pegs on hung in livingroom), where all pictures from school etc go and hang in the gallery. the really good ones i scan ina nd keep digitally on the computer and then they go in the composter too. still wondering how to show off the 3D stuff, but there we go!

DD1 is 7 next month and is exactly like this - and has been for as long as she was able. Our house is drowning under the amount of sheer crap creativity...

Yes my dd is like this I can't throw anything out without her stopping me telling me she can use it to do art. She watches cbeebies Doodledoo,Mr Maker and Smart avidly and likes to give a running commentary of her work as she's doing it as though she's on tv.

oh, that's sweet!

Ledodgy - my dd does that too! She raids the recycling box for things she can use.

Fortunately she doesn't do a running commentary - she's a real chatterbox normally but is really quiet when making something.

Atm she wants to be a fashion designer - but I think she is just saying that to justify the number of times she changes her clothes each day.

My DS(6) is called Mr Sellotape by the teachers. They say he manages to find and use up all their sellotape. Everyday he is escourted out of the classroom with some creation. Today it was a Superman 'outfit'.

We got him one of those Ikea drawers like Skribble. Within an hour of putting it together he had taken it to his 'workshop' in the cellar and 'painted' it.

I think it is great and really encourage his 'making' although I occasionally lose my rag when I find everything has been used up before I've got to it. He has been made to make unusual collages by cutting up photos of us and combining them other materials Also he is very, very messy and tends to store his creations under his bed.

On the whole I think it's great and tend to encourage his creativity as it's a great form of expression.

I have Makers too.

The ones I won't bin are the figures dd made to mark their door when they were still sharing a room (so she would've been 5) - a boy & girl, weirdly Sempé-like in style, made from cutting head/body/limbs out of pink card & then assembling with sellotape so they articulate.

Favourite is the scrap of pink card on a sellotape hinge: "What's that?" I said. "Really, Mummy. It's a willy of course."

only read the OP, but that's so great!!!!!! I hope my DS turns out like that. You're really lucky. She'll probably be a top fashion designer or architect or something

I bin quite a bit of stuff

In my defence he comes out of preschool (3 mornings a week) with several different pieces a day. And then there's all the stuff he makes at home daily and the stuff he makes at gps houses.

Even if I had a mansion I'd quickly run out fo storage places.

Ds likes to pretend he's on TV too. It's cute.

My mum asked what i want for christmas the other day, i said "card, glue, glitter, sellotape, paper etc"

I have found that art can be very theraputic for some of the children I look after. I am a foster carer, and one of the first things I do when a child arrives is to let them loose with the paints, whatever their age. Then I spend the rest of the day clearing up!

Thanks Marina

Lol Issy at the tissue paper knickers and Bink at the pink apendage

Actually I used to like to pretend I was on telly too when I was little I think I fancied myself as the next Lesley Judd (oops showing my age there!)