"No, darling, that's a waste"

[DitaVonCheese]

I find myself constantly taking things off DD so she can't waste them - right now I've stopped her using my little wristband tape dispenser thing and she's using brown tape instead, but I mean things like loo roll (to play with, not wipe!), address labels, those little Polo-shaped stickers to go on file paper, wrapping paper etc etc.

It's partly that pennies are tight and I don't want to spend all our spare cash on replacement sellotape and loo roll, partly that I just hate waste!

Am I being mean and stifling her creative urges but preventing free access to random household products? And anyway I can get across the idea of something being "a waste"?

Either hide the lot or buy her some stickers, tape etc to keep for herself.
Kids do love this stuff, and for years.

She might like this.

You can get the message across about something being a waste. My DCs have grasped this notion and will ask me to cut up something so they only have half of it so the rest can be 'saved for another day'. When we clear up they look at the cut bits of paper and decide whether they are big enough to be used again or should just go in recycling.

But is it really a 'waste' if she is being creative with it? Agree with Rosemary, if you want to be sure of always finding the things when you need them, she needs her own box of tape, stickers and maybe a cheap loo roll or two. (Does she make bandages for her soft toys?)

Then you can also teach her about respecting other people's belongings. If she runs out of something, she needs to ask to borrow yours and return it.

I'm not sure she is being creative really, I wouldn't mind so much if she was. Use largely involves sticking stickers all over the house/shredding loo roll while sometimes shouting "Snow!". Though she did just try to fashion herself a dress out of wrapping paper and tape. Also she likes to wrap presents for pretend birthday parties (I did get her her own roll of cheap paper for that).

Good idea about getting her her own supplies, will try that. She does have over a million stickers (I'm not sure I've actually overestimated that) but obviously my plain white address ones are more appealing!

Same as lots of stuff, some things are not available to them to play with.

How old is she?

When DD was 2ish the best thing to do was to give her a small amount of supplies at each craft session because otherwise she would always want to use it all. She is a bit better now she is older, but still not great, no we talk about savings things for later/another time.

I keep the more expensive stuff away from her usual craft supplies, too.

We have a budget for 2.5 y.o. DS's 'art/craft/activities/random stuff'. It's not much, and is supplemented by random stuff we ask family for as birthday presents. On his list for next month is electrical insulation tape, duct tape, masking tape, a tea strainer, etc.

That way I don't worry about him wasting our tight household budget, and I can try to explain that if he uses lots of stuff unnecessarily, we won't be able to buy other things for him. He's been interested in money/finances for ages, so it's something we've talked about quite a lot and I think he's beginning to understand a tiny bit of it (though not lots obviously).

I think that children's creativity doesn't always look like 'creativity' to us.

You could buy her a craftbox from poundland and fill it with things for £1 that you don't mind her using, pens, stickers etc

I always happily give in to the loo roll requests, nothing better than 15 minutes piece while DS2 unravels the whole thing.

She wants yours because they are yours, so more valuable.

I would say yes a couple of times, then she'll move on. DS2 usually only wants these things a few times then moves on.