Mumsnet users share how they encourage their children to express themselves creatively with Crayola

[JustineBMumsnet]

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Whether your child is a young artist in the making or you sometimes wonder if their creations are even fridge worthy, children can be happiest when they’re expressing themselves through crafts and colouring. With that in mind, Crayola would like to hear about how and why you encourage your children to express their creative ideas using colour..

Here’s what Crayola has to say: “We believe in the power of self-expression via colour! Whether it’s providing tools to put a purple octopus on the moon, or inspiring arts infused projects to bring to life together as a family, Crayola is passionate about raising creatively alive children and unleashing their originality. Via a wide range of innovative colourful tools and crafting activities, especially designed for kids, like washable pens, markers and paint, coloured pencils and twistable crayons that last longer, Crayola gives colourful wings to the imagination that grows in the hearts and minds of the children”.

What are your favourite crafting activities with your children? Which colouring tools do your children like using most? Perhaps your children most enjoy being creative if they’re developing their masterpieces as gifts for others? Or do you have children that love drawing and painting so much any encouragement from you is unnecessary? Do more creative tasks like colouring help your children to be more mindful? Or perhaps you find encouraging your children to be creative or art a great way to get them to open up and share what they’re feeling?

All who share how or why they encourage their children to express themselves and their ideas via colouring on the thread below will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

A blank piece of paper, a stimulating environment and plenty of encouragement.

It's good to cultivate a sense of independence in your children and not have them follow others like sheep.

Chalk walls in the house and I allow them to chalk in the garden - on the fence and paving stones. I also encourage imaginative play by setting up role play games for them on rainy days or when they are getting a bit bored.

We have a crafts box which comes out regularly. We make our own cards. Play dog and sand are favourites too. A rainy day is made fun by stripping down to underwear and painting using our body as tools.

I love the Crayola Twistables. They have lovely blendable colours and don't make a mess. I do paper crafts with my granddaughters, and they love colouring and personalizing hand made cards and other gifts for friends and family. The Twistables are perfect for travel as they don't need sharpening but give you some flexibility to be creative and blends colours. We use the for colouring books too.

My pouch of Twistables have been to many a travel destination!

Mixing new words we are learning with art; writing the words in pencil first and then colouring around them to create a unique piece of art! For example, for 'shop' we had a snake, ladder, ball and lollypop (half eaten of course). It sounds random but it seems to just create a starting point, and it's entertaining to see the random pictures you end up with! Anything to help make spelling more fun and help bring it to life is good as well. Started off with letters on seperate pieces of paper to become familiar with them as well.

For my son's 1st birthday I got him the my 1st crayons and a pad of plain paper. His grandad is an artist and daddy did graphic design won in trying to encourage that side of him. With the added bonus of its a nice quiet activity we can do and he can get lost in when he is older.
So far he likes taking the crayons out of the tub and putting them back, occasionally biting one but sometimes he does some drawing!! But he certainly is excited when he sees his crayons!

My DDs love creating things - they don't need much persuasion to get stuck in, whether it's painting, crafting, colouring or modelling. I always keep boxes, cardboard rolls and scrap paper in our crafting drawers, plus large bottles of paint, air-dry clay, sheets of felt material and playdoh in various cupboards and drawers. My older DD often sketches little pictures or writes little stories, and my younger DD is properly into creating her own pictures to decorate her bedroom walls!

My daughter is 15 and severely autistic, her favourite thing (apart from YouTube) is a constant supply of colouring pens & Argos catalogues. We are unable to go the supermarket without buying a pack of Crayola, she is very "insistent" about it!

i mix flour water and food colouring and let them paint the patio with it

We have put up a drawing board the size of their bedroom room so they can scribble to their hearts content.

Always have lots of paper, paint, pens and crayons! We also spend lots of time outside collecting things to do craft with.

I keep letters we don't need and use as scrap paper for my daughter to draw on!

My kids are now old enough to be able to draw and colour properly so the current favourite game is to draw something, fold the paper over and pass it round and come up with wild and wacky creations.
When they were little, we set up a table and had all the paper and crayons out all the time so they could scribble whenever they wanted.
The Crayola pipsqueaks in the carry case were amazing, took them on every journey and they kept them quiet and happy for HOURS!

We have a big box of stuff- paper, wool, straws, buttons, sequins, sewing stuff, glue, paint, crayons, glitter, old cards, magazines-

we sit at the table and make different things- cover shoe boxes, create pictures, make new cards, paint/draw on t-shirts with fibre pens.
We use old necklaces/beads to make new ones or make pretty decorations to hang up.
We paint stones we have collected and make them into paperweights or plant pot decorations.....

Having a go at the crafts with them seems to encourage them.

loves getting the colours out.any kind of colouring whether it be creative from their own heads or trying to use propoer colour in the lines(yeh right) books.
paints is always extra exciting.and just sploshing them about on the page is fun.if we have seen a particular thing they are itnerested in we might try and draw or paint it/them but mostly we just go by what they want to do.
if anyone has a birthday coming up they love to create cards.or just make special one for mummy or daddy.
they do love dedicated craft sessions though where evrything is pulled out.but paper and colour is always accessible to them
chalk outsdie on the pavings stones is loved
also created melted down big multi coloured crayons out of all the stub of crayola crayons.

go to art school

making birthday cards for the family, painting on stones, making paper origami and writing a journal throughout the summer

We do drawings, paintings, crafty bits with whatever's in season and occasionally other bits like card making and scrap booking.

DD is still very young, so can't talk much but certainly knows her own mind!
We often get the crayons out and let her scribble on paper, or chalk on the pavement. In the warmer months, we get the paint & paper out in the garden and let her run riot in the garden. We collect leaves when we go to the local park to bring home and paint to make pictures, or collect pebbles and paint them to hide for other people to find.
I like to encourage lots of activities, this week we made fairy cakes and homemade pizza.

You can't beat a dressing up box

Lots of paper knocking around here, with felt tips and pencils always available. We were given a lovely easel by a neighbour whose children have outgrown it, and that's lovely for painting in the garden.

Pavement chalks are another winner, we decorated all of Grandma's patio when we were last there.

My girls like getting messy with craft. They adore painting and especially with anything metallic/ glittery. Best thing we’ve done in recent times was collecting shells on holiday then painting them when we got home. They found that so much fun.

I encourage my sons to experiment with different materials, mix colours and when they ask help. I collect a wide variety of materials so that everything is to hand to encourage experimentation. My sons love painting, I have shown them how to blend colours and look at complementary colours.