Love Your Leisure: Children’s Art & Craft

The Women’s Web ‘Love Your Leisure’ series will consist of interviews with a few female bloggers with fascinating hobbies, who’ve enthusiastically developed and fine-tuned them – and what’s more, write about them for the benefit of the rest of us! We hope you enjoy reading more about these bloggers and their passions. Presented in a Q&A format, this one is with Children’s Art & Craft Enthusiast, Shruti Bhat who blogs about her passion at Mindful Meanderings.

Intro: Tell us about yourself

I‘m Shruti Bhat, a Quality Lead in a leading MNC during the day and an avid crafter during the night. I stay at Bangalore with my husband and 5 year old daughter nicknamed Lil P on my blog.

Q1. Tell us a little about how your interest in art & craft for children came about and what made you follow it up so dedicatedly?

We (Lil P & I) make a lot of crafts. I find it to be an amazing way to spend quality time together. When I started posting the crafts that we made together, I got a lot of emails from mothers that they were inspired to try the same with their kids and how happy it made them. This in turn inspired me to try out more.

Q2. What do you find most satisfying about this hobby of yours?

Firstly, the joy on my daughter’s face when we make something new; and the fact that I can write about everything going on in my world and be able to reach and inspire an audience that understands what I am saying is a very humbling experience.

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Q3. Given the short attention span kids have, how do you get them involved in art & craft projects?

The first rule is to keep the craft interesting and then get down to their level and become a kid yourself. Mess up a little, laugh at silly stuff, just have fun!

Q4. Your Monthly Artsy-Craftsy Challenge has become a big hit in the blogosphere. How did it begin? What has the journey been like?

Back in January,2010 I was exploring various thumb print and finger print crafts, when a lot of readers commented about some of the crafts that they had made…  and The Artsy-Craftsy monthly challenge was born! Each month, I try to focus on a theme, for example the theme for June was “Exploring the Folk Crafts From Around The World“. It has been the most artistically enriching experience for us so far.

Q5. Which are some of your favourite art & craft blog posts from your own blog?  Also what other related blogs/ sites do you enjoy or find useful?

My favourite crafts from my blog would be Thumb Print Aquarium, The Potato Stamp Warli and Rainbow Fish. One of my favourite craft blog is Disney’s Family Fun.

Q6. What advice would you give to those who want to introduce their kids to craft? Where to start and what could be some basic projects to start with?

Kids are very curious by nature. And they love to get messy. The problem arises when we try to bind them.  I have seen many mothers strictly warn their kids – “colour within the lines”,” leaves are not purple”…  Why limit their imagination? I let the kids start off with what interests them.

For very young kids try messy play activities with flavoured yoghurt on an A4 sheet.  Kids in the age group 2 – 4 love to stick stuff; give them a glue stick and pieces of colour paper -make collages. Kids aged 4 – 6 can try to draw and paint the stuff around them; water colour pencils, tempera paints are a good option. Ages 6 and above, get them introduced to folk craft like Madhubani, Warli and Gond. Supervise, don’t interfere.

Previous Interviews With Hobby Bloggers:

Movie Enthusiast: Amodini Sharma

Crossword Enthusiast: Shuchismita Upadhyay

Poetry Enthusiast: Saru Singhal

Baking Enthusiast: Monika Manchanda

Gardening Enthusiast: Priyanka Goel

Wildlife Enthusiast: Radha Rangarajan

Needlecraft Enthusiast: Nima Titus

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