I love those blogs where creativity occurs in beautiful surrounds. There is order, clean expanses, natural light, inspiring bits and pieces tacked up on walls. But in our household, the above photo is the daily, hourly norm. It's always a mess and sometimes, if I'm honest, I care more about the mess than about the creativity that generates it. I feel exasperated that Nina's penchant for snipping results in hundreds of tiny offcuts of paper and card all over the floor. Sometimes it feels like the week's recycling has returned with the addition of sticky tape and glitter. Quite often, rather than enthusing over the latest large creation, I quietly wonder where I will put it and how long we'll have to keep it.
I dread the day when the girls no longer want to spend hours making stuff, writing stuff, drawing stuff, even though, in the midst of it - the arguments over who was using the blue scissors, whether Ruby has to share her 'good' textas (she does), whether Grace has used too much cellotape, who left the lid off the glue, whether someone is copying someone else - I do contemplate confiscating all the craft stuff and asking them whether they wouldn't rather watch the telly.
So as a reminder that mess is not only mess, I see:
The Junie B. Jones book that Nina has just finished- her first chapter book on her own;
The pencil tin that Nik gave us, filled with biscuits, for Christmas years and years ago and which has housed our coloured pecils ever since;
A postcard reminder to make a dentist's appointment which I haven't done;
Grace's box house with roof. She's yet to master some of the basics of construction but she was terribly pleased with her roof;
The cardboard figures of the family that Ruby has been working on. She draws the picture on paper and then cuts it out and sticks it on cardboard and then has to cut the card to size. I've been biting my tongue because I so want to suggest that it would be easier to stick the paper to the card first and then cut them out together....
