I hate them. I hate glitter, stencils, paints, crayons, construction paper, felt, and glue. I hate Michael’s and Jo-Anne Fabric. I hate all of it. I do not do crafts with the children.
The only thing I hate more than crafts is when people tell me how “easy” and “fun” crafting is and how I’m probably better at it than I think. They’re wrong. I’m as bad at crafts as I think I am. Also, I hate doing it. Can’t we just sit around and drink wine and chat? Why do we have to be doing something all the time? Or any of the time?
The only thing I hate more than people who tell me I should like crafts is when I am forced to do crafts.
It happens. It pisses me off every time.
Monday morning there was a sign outside the twinkies pre-school classroom that their “paper bag costumes” for the “paper bag parade” were due Friday. This annoyed me for two reasons. First, I hate that we can’t just call it a Halloween Parade. I try to be sensitive to other religious beliefs. I really do. But shouldn’t there be some kind of majority rule? Should we all have to give up a traditional Halloween (Christmas, Birthday, or Easter) celebration because of the beliefs of a small minority of people?
Do we have to add insult to injury by forcing all the parents (Read: Mom’s) to do a craft? Frick on a stick. I hate crafts.
I did some internet research and came up with stuff like this:
There is no chance I could make something like that.
I asked the boys what they wanted their costumes to be, Reese said “Spider-Man!” I told him I couldn’t make Spider-Man. He said, “OK, you can just make Batman then.”
No.
The bag is square so I suggested an iPhone or SpongeBob. Reese said his friend Chandon was being SpongeBob so he wanted to be Patrick. I figured I could do Patrick. Jackson said he wanted to be “GREEN SpongeBob.”
Sure, whatever kid.
Making the costumes was the worst 20 minutes of my life. Seriously. Getting the twinkies to try on and take off the paper bags without destroying them was nearly impossible. I got paint all over my clothes, the table, my hands, and the computer. The boys kept climbing all over me and trying to mix orange and blue to make red. They must have eaten the red paint.
Five minutes into it I almost called the pre-school and offered to just buy everyone in the class a costume at Target. Instead I took a deep breath and focused on my craft.
This is the picture I used for inspiration.
These are my costumes.
Nailed it.
That’s pretty lame that they have to have a paper bag costume instead of a normal costume. I also hate when the minority take away our fun holiday traditions…oh, and the costumes were so good I could hardly tell which one was the actual picture!
Haha, sure you couldn’t.
I..can´t…stop…laughing….BWAHAHAHA!
I promise you that I will never use the word easy on a crafts tutorial again. But if I do I will include: not for Bridget.
Thank you for that!! I promise not to complain about your crafts then:)
You definitely nailed it! What with the craft-hating rant, the end result is world class. We never did have a smooth relationships, me and anything art-sy related. I have quite a good singing voice, this is only I could show off as anything relevant to art. Art and Music do go together, right?
As long as you can do one thing well, you’re golden!
And might I say, you got really cute models for the “world-class” work of art you’ve made. They are growing cuter.
Hey, wanna join the craft-challenged society?
Yes! I didn’t realize we had out own society!
Still laughing! I am not very crafty either. This reminds me of when my daughter first started school at 4 months old. Yes school, codeword for daycare, I like it so go with it. Her teacher told me I needed to make a book for her with family pictures that the teacher could read to her when she was sad. I was thinking…sure. I am a new mom trying to go back to work without a breakdown, my husband is deployed, and you want this done in s few days. Right, got it. And then they showed me the examples. Fricken scrapbooking perfect pages. Needless to say I got as crafty as I could and spent hours on that stupid book when I got home from work everyday for a week. It actually turned out pretty good. And that is the last time I have touched that scrapbooking stuff.
Why do teachers insist on parents making stuff? For my second child, I will go online and make a photo book where you drag and drop the pictures. Now that I can do.
Because they’re mean and they need something to laugh about in the break room.
I didn’t think Halloween was a religious holiday… I was under the impression that it was a carry-on tradition from the Celtic Samhein, which was renamed to All Hallows Eve with the spread of the Roman Empire in the late 900s. The dress-up and trick-or-treating is loosely based on a-souling that was done in Britain the middle ages, but is really a cultural American holiday (it’s not done by most people in Australia).
My point being: What the frog is wrong with proper costumes and a Halloween parade??
All that being said, I think your costumes rock. Of course, it would be “easy” and “fun” to add a few more “decorative touches” to them…
It would be “easy” and “fun” to just skip the whole thing and go for a beer instead!!
See? “They” were right… you ARE better at it than you think!!!!!
Nope, I’m as bad as I think I am!
I knew there was a reason we clicked so well. I also hate crafts, hate hearing about crafts, hate doing crafts, hate things devoted to crafts, etc. And the real problem here is not that they had to do a craft in preschool. It’s that said craft was HOMEWORK. In preschool. Eff that. I think you did a bang up job. Really. I might have drawn some eyeballs and hair on a bag with a sharpie and called it a day.
I was really hoping they would go with an iPhone so I could do it all with a marker.
We non-crafters have to stick together!
I swear you took the words right out of my mouth! i hate crafts! Absolutely cannot stand it!! I am not good at it.
I feel bad for the twins so i even attempted (and continue too out of some unexplained need to bring fulfillment in their little lives) to give them colouring books with crayons. They ate, tore and destroyed said items. I dont know why I even bother! Its a sign I tell you!
My goal is for the kids to hate crafts as much as I do. So far, it’s working out pretty well.
Awesome job! At first I really liked that you added a blue penis to one costume, kind of a statement to the folks planning a paper bag costume parade. But on closer inspection I see that it is a tie. I never knew Spongebob wore a tie, or I would have recognized it right off- I promise!
Go Super Mom!
Thank you for mentioning the little blue penis, Heather. I was reading every single post going “surely somebody else will mention it… I cannot mention this by myself… But I will be forced to… Surely someone else will mention it…” HAHAHAHA Men are pathetic with our body parts humor. We are all still stuck in second grade.
Tony, you’re lucky Heather mentioned it because yes, it would have been weird if you were the first one!
I knew you would be the first person to notice the blue penis!! I sort of hoped it would go under the radar…no dice!
Thanks, I totally miss you.
Miss you too!
You had me at the blue penis.
Figures.
Ha ha! That is awesome! U could always just print an oversized pic if the costume and glue it on. And majority rule…uh yeah. How about with the language too? I’m too old to learn a new trick and I’m not moving so I don’t think I should have to.
Exactly!! Majority rule and this majority says Target costumes for all!
Hahahahaha! Those ate awesome! I suck at them pretty much, too… Although, you don’t seem to suck…. They are a kind of vintage alternative spongbob!
I’m telling the teachers that at the parade, “umm, don’t you know about vintage alt SpongeBob? Geez…get with it!”
well, they look happy
even if they do look a bit like mouldy toast
HAHAHA! Moldy toast!! I might have to go with that at the parade:)
First of all, the kids are darling. Other than that, I have nothing touchy feely to say. My daughter went to a preschool where they said that Halloween was the devil’s holiday. The children could dress up – but no scary, dark costumes. One teacher passed out literature about Halloween, which was actually a reinvented version of the history. Fortunately, my child could not read in preschool. Anyway, we laughed it off and stuffed it in our memory…..As for crafts, get this, I am an elementary school teacher and I despise crafts. I am not working now, but if I was, that should be a firing offense. I was a teacher to teach content, not finger paint and glue. I was the most unartistic teacher on campus. All the teachers would say, “why aren’t you teaching middle or high school history?” I wondered the same thing. I am with you, I would much rather pay (even a lot of money) for a costume, if it means I do not have to lift a crafty finger.
Can my kids come to your school? Please!
So…you couldn’t convince them to go as a box of wine? Just kidding – you nailed it, alright. Patent it before Target gets a whiff.
A box of wine is brilliant! I might have to make that for myself…I just need a bigger shopping bag!
I think school projects requiring parents to make them should be banned from schools.
The boys look happy in their costumes so you did good.
I agree on the banning. They were pretty happy, they’ll probably cry when they see the other kids costumes though!
I hate crafs too, and I hate that it makes me feel guilty when I just want to buy something outright, but KNOW I could make it cheaper. Whether I like it or not, I can do just about anything I put my mind to, only it NEVER turns out like the picture….so I end up not getting something I really want either way because of the nutsy craft world in my head.
Sadly, mine turned out exactly like the picture in my head.
Hahahahaha! Too funny. This most important thing is that the boys like them. Since I am a crafty mom (I will never say it’s easy, since I don’t think cooking is easy and everyone else does) I will say, crafty mom’s with kids at this age are doing it to impress other moms, not the kids. Now if it was for the teenagers, ya, it better look good! (P.S. I’m only a 10 minute drive away and would have helped you out, just saying…)
I cannot cook either…I suck!
Put me on tap for next year’s paper bag costume then!!
I’ll make dinner while you make the costumes. Deal?
Yay! I’m celebrating right now….we are kindred spirits!! I hate crafts too…I thought I got out of it years ago but now my twins have started prep, I am forced to be crafty against my will and I loathe it. It stresses me and it is not a skill that I want to improve, which totally goes against the grain of many life coaches! I am the mummy that buys store bought costumes and pre-made bits and then throws it all together…and I’m ok with that.
I stresses me out too and I just don’t care enough to want to improve either! I buy whenever I can!
Okay, I think those are amazing. And now I feel confused ’cause apparently I’m out of the loop – what religion is against Halloween??
Some of them just don’t do holidays at all – I’m not naming specific religions (even though I think I know them) because I’ll get it wrong and then get smited or something. I’ve got enough problems. I’m sure Google can tell you.
You SOOO nailed it! And I HATE crafts! Unless it some kind of craft to put the charm around my wine glass?
That is a craft! Absolutely!
A. I hate crafts. Loathe. Despise.
B. Frick on a Stick? That’s awesome.
C. And……”Nailed it.”
D. I completely love you.
(Even before I saw the penis. Dirty-minded readers. Also hahahahahahah!)
A-D. I completely love you too.
I also love my dirty-minded readers.
Yup. You nailed it. How can you tell ? By the huge, wide smiles on the twinkies’ faces.
P.S check your email!!
What’s the saying? I smile because I have no idea what’s going on?
You totally nailed it. I’d have been running to Target to bail myself out.
Hey Bridget, We read your blog everyday and think its hilarious, you keep us going on humpday! We thought Joe might have been the funniest person we ever met, then we started reading your blog! you are funnier! so we just wanted to tell you……Happy Birthday!
Love- The girls at Titlemax in Newport TN
[...] on October 22, 2011 | by Bridget | No Comments Yesterday was the infamous paper bag parade. The boys didn’t look too bad. Hardly anyone mentioned the tie/blue penis. Sadly, there are a [...]
[...] did, I crafted for a very good cause Galentine’s Day. (I still hate crafts though!)I agree with Amy Poehler’s alter ego Leslie Knope, it should be a national [...]