The Best Things About a Crafty Birthday Party

The best things about a crafty birthday party are endless. Fun, creativity, silliness, glitter, no clean-up for you and so much more! We just had a Crafty Birthday Party at the shop. Meet Sadie! She just turned 10. Double digits baby!  I am so lucky as she happens to be my niece too. 

She came to the shop this past weekend to celebrate her birthday with some crafting and friendship.  She loves crafting, it’s in her blood, after all, both her mom and I love to craft also.

So I’ve been crafting for as long as I can remember. I learned how to sew when I was about 5 I think. My grandma was always making something – her handmade Christmas ornaments are family treasures.  Sadie has the bug too and I love that we share this. 

Kids are naturally creative

Children are naturally creative (in fact we all are! Read more about that here). I created my DIY craft space so that all the fun stuff is open and accessible to ignite creative fires. My hope is to have the shop set up to spark creativity by having free access to lots of different tools and mediums and fun things to craft endlessly.  I add new things all the time and get super excited to find new things to add to the shop like this awesome paper I found 70% off!

So I kept Sadie’s party crafts very simple.  I gave them a few ideas to get started but I didn’t want to stifle their creativity. Opening up the workshop to them was fun to watch as their little eyes lit up over free access to glitter and paper and googly eyes!

No rules

I have had a life-long challenge overcoming a drive for perfection and often find myself tied to a lot of “shoulds” and “not good-enoughs”. At this age things start to change, remember that? You start following social rules about what you should do and be and act like. Your creativity is stifled so you aren’t judged harshly by others. School teaches you to follow rules and conform. You start to ask “did I do that right?” instead of saying “yes! I love how this looks”.  So I really loved watching the creativity flowing as the kiddos picked up different tools and supplies to do whatever they wanted.

Kids need some structure, sure, but when it comes to creativity we need a little more freedom! When we are allowed the freedom to create without rules it is really powerful.  Some of my favorite projects recently came from people who claimed they weren’t creative! But given free access to lots of tools and inspiration they created amazing art that they were really proud of. Anyway, back to Sadie and her amazing day celebrating 10.  Here are some pictures of her celebration. Dancing and singing with her friend Piper.  Eating cupcakes!

And the glitter. Let’s talk about glitter for just a second.  I love glitter but oh my word is it messy!  I leave the glitter out for the kiddos and it always comes out! The thing about it is that it will attach itself to everything, you, your hair, the floor, other projects, your mom, everything! Even with aprons on it sneaks its way all over. The girls even have glitter on their painted pillow cases – but they really didn’t seem to mind. So, after this party, I decided to set up a glitter town spot, at least that way it can be enjoyed and a tiny bit contained.  That way glitter can be used even more freely without worry.  Thank goodness for that.

Sum it up to say freedom from rules (and access to the music choices!) ensured the girls had an amazing time. And went home with beautiful cards and beautiful pillow cases and loads of glitter stuck to them. I posted a video over on my Facebook page, go check it out!

If you want to plan your next party at the shop – we’d love to have you. Contact us for more information, and read more here.