What a great quote to start off this blog from Club Creative Studio. I welcome you to take a few minutes to watch this video and be inspired from a nine year old boy’s creativity.
If you have ever wanted inspiration to create and use low-cost materials then take a look at what this YouTube sensation video has to offer. You’ll witness simplicity of dreams from the eyes of a child, using his creativity and cardboard. It’s CREATIVITY at its best. Bringing tears to my eyes having heard about this a while ago and then again as I post today on the Club Creative Studio blog: I share this highlight, as I continue to watch the wheels turn and confidence grow in creative thoughts of a young boy, Caine. Be inspired! Be CREATIVE!
Club Creative Studio shares information about creativity in this blog and each Tuesday is reserved for learning about a low-cost thought or project. Creativity never has to be expensive. For this reason, creativity is available to many when you call upon simple or commonly used items to help you in the process.
The ideas today stem from a few different places. First, I recall my own childhood memories of using creativity during play and secondly, I share a few ideas for you to use at home to help spark children into more creative play, specifically when they are making tents, or forts from furniture and cushions. Make sure you view the video, it is awesome!
Imagination sometimes needs a gentle push. It takes courage to be creative. It takes confidence to step outside the lines, do things in a unique way and be different. Even in playtime situations, it is sometimes difficult to do what you feel like doing and act out of the norm. When we use our imagination as children, we are free. We know no boundaries and we are expressive in thought, process and play. We are free to be bolder, and maybe even happier as we transform to a place that is exactly how we want it to be and no one else!
I remember as a young one, using out outdoor clothes line as a supportive structure for a home-made tent. I took two people to make this “house” but, simply tossing a large blanket across the wires and then securing the ends of the blanket to sticks in the ground created the “walls”. Pillows and other blankets were needed to make the playhouse more comfy, this was truly a low-cost, low-budget way of being creative making an outside fort.
I hope that you had the chances to make forts or tents when you were growing up. If you allow children in your home to use the existing furniture for their imaginative play, they will return the favor with hours of “out-of-sight” play periods. See what is created when you let them use their own logic in construction. Making a tent can become their little escape area where although you can still hear them inside a blanket structure, you can also allow them to be out of your direct line of vision, but you still know exactly where they are and what they are doing. It is a hide away in their make-believe land, and you can share in the fun of constructing or touring it as well , if you are allowed, that is!
Creating an island for your children can be as easy as helping them use the couch cushions or a large sheet to drape across two chairs or the dining room table. Who wouldn’t love to find a little area all to themselves with peace and quiet? I think as an adult, I might even appreciate my own tent nook to hide with a good book or earphones what about you?
Allowing your children to “hide” from the real world gives them some freedom to be creative in their own personal space.
Let me know if this blog post brought pleasant memories back to you. If you did not grow up constructing your own hid-away place with a sheet and a few chairs what is stopping you from doing this NOW?????
Do you spend time making oodles of doodles? It is not just a waste of time. Actually, they are a terrific exercise to help you become more creative and remain more creative. Your thoughts become more imaginative. It becomes easier for you to brainstorm new ideas and the exercise of doodling unlocks your creative mind to be free to explore creative fun. Doodles are very simple lines that become drawings that eventually evolve into other images. They may start out as a few meaningless lines but, after adding your own lines – and color if you like – your drawing becomes anything you like. The point of a doodle is not to create art, simply to use your creative vision. This vision is often unplanned but it can have great outcomes. They are fun to do and you can see yourself evolve and your thoughts unfold almost before your eyes, as you create doodles.
When I was younger I used to play a game that involved doodles. It was mainly a “car game” but, it was adaptable whenever two or more gathered. Low cost, you only need paper and a writing instrument. A simple line is drawn on the sheet of paper by one person, then the pencil and paper is passed to another. The second person adds an additional single line to the original line drawn and then passes it back. The image that is a transformation from the first line drawn is part of a collaborative creative process. The “players” feed off of each others vision. It is fun to see what the final outcome turns out to be. It may be a totally nonsense image or it may end up being a recognizable image that together you both build upon with combined doodles. As an example, if a few lines turn into the outline of a house, each of you may recognize that and your additional lines become details of that house. It may end up having detailed shingles on its roof, curtains in the windows, a mailbox in the front yard and so on and so on. The outcome will show creativity in all aspects.
When you become creative with visual brainstorming activities like this you are collaboratively generating ideas without using the spoken or written word. It’s a fantastic exercise. To spice up the game, you may add colored markers and find that a sort of masterpiece is created in the end after all. Create oodles of doodles and see where your creativity takes you!
Club Creative Studio 