Straws no longer just for drinking

Dear Blog

Who knew that a box full of plastic straws could keep kids busy for hours, and I'm talking hours on end! 

With the weather being as it is over these holidays I upended the box in front of my two crafti testers one morning and left them to it.  These straws come with lots of little connector points which join all the straws together.  Before long they had built a jail big enough for them crawl into.  It even had a flag on the top.

Dad ventured home around lunchtime, and immediately joined in the action.  Not to be outdone by the jail his children had constructed, he proceeded to built a rather large tower with a triple helix as it's support structure, he had to climb to the top of the stairs to continue building the top of this tower.  Spot the engineer!

My three testers then made a rocket, some large balls, and the next morning I came down to find the lounge being turned into a zoo!.... They had constructed a large zoo entrance which you could walk through, along with cubes containing animals (granted these were stuffed animals, but animals none the less) scattered around the room.  I had to pay money to enter the zoo/lounge of course, it's lucky we had being playing Monopoly the night before, I managed to convince the kids that $1,000,000 note in Monopoly money was a fair enough entry fee.  It was that or chocolate and I'm not one to share my chocolate!

If you were looking at the learning aspect of these straws and connectors, our kids spent hours using their imagination and creative thinking to build different shapes.  They worked on their fine motor skills and hand eye co-ordination, which for our 4 year old, is something we're focusing on with him at the moment.  Overall Blog, they are a lot of fun.  The kids come back to them time and time again, creating new shapes to build. 

We have Straws and Connectors kits now available at http://www.thecraftibug.co.nz/, they come in 230 pieces or 400 pieces.   Until next time Blog..... keep on crafting.  

 

The Great Box Rescue of 2012

Dear Blog

As I write this to you, I'm sitting in a box.  Now to some this may be quite a normal occurence, however for me it seems to have become an occupational hazard.  It appears to have happened again, and I'm currently waiting on another rescue. 

We're expanding our Craft Supplies range and had some rather large boxes arrive just before Christmas.  You can imagine the level of excitement this caused in the Crafti Bug household.  Diving into the closest box was a great idea in theory, however the execution of it wasn't as graceful as I'd hoped.  Picture this folks, headfirst, closely followed by shoulders and waist, ending with feet poking out the top flayling madly. 

A successful rescue attempt was made, and goodies were finally expelled safely with no harm done.  Check some of these out!



Art Start Kits



Bouquet Paper





Coloured Alpha Noodles



We now have a great range of supplies to help with a multitude of projects, however at the current minute, as I repeated my swan dive into the 2nd big box, I'm still waiting on the Great Box Rescue of 2012.... can someone please send chocolate!

As always Dear Blog our goodies are available through http://www.thecraftibug.co.nz/, and until next time... keep on crafting.

Boys vs Girls - The Gender Wars

Dear Blog

It's been brought to my attention, in rather a harsh way I might add, that what is severely wrong with this country (New Zealand) is that girls are persuaded to love all things pink and fairy related, while boys are persuaded to love all things blue and dinosaur related.  I ask you dear blog world where is this written?

Without getting caught up in the whole mess of what is or isn't wrong with this country, I'd like to address the apparent issue (and this is one expressed opinion by one person), that the media are stereotyping our children into their genders, persuading girls down the pink road and boys down the blue road?  

Interesting issue I hear you say, but what does this really have to do with The Crafti Bug?  Well, apparently here at The Crafti Bug we are enabling this gender stereotyping by categorising our crafts into boys and girls rather than age related.  Now I rapidly pointed out to this person that our crafts are in fact categorised in girls, boys and age related groups, simply for the ease of our shoppers. 

But this got me to thinking, how could this possibly be considered a serious issue causing chaos in our country?  Are our children in fact being persuaded to like certain things?  Surely there are other serious things going on that are more worthy of our time.

Isn't this in our general make-up?  Already embedded into our subconscious?  Girls generally gravitate to pink and boys generally gravitate to blue, but nothing as far as I can tell stops our girls from venturing into the blue side or vice versa.

We have a pigeon pair in our Crafti household, and I can assure you that from no persuasion from us whatsoever, our daughter loves sitting down playing with trains with her brother, and our son will have no hesitation playing happy families or tea parties with the dolls and soft toys with his sister...

Honestly I was astounded that this was even raised as a contentious issue, but it was, and now I'm very interested to know if this is in fact a popular consensus?... are our media and large corporate conglomerates brainwashing our children into being a girlie girl and a rough and tumble boy?  I don't really expect an answer, just putting it into the blog world. 

On a personal note, our website will continue to be categorised into Boys and Girls along with the age appropriate groups, simply to make it easier for Nanna and Poppa, Mum and Dad, Aunts and Uncles, and all who seek our crafty goodies to find what they are looking for regardless of who it is for. 

So dear Blog thanks for listening and until next time... keep on crafting. 

New Year: Old Beginnings....

It's the 4th of January and I'm sitting here wandering about New Year's Resolutions and all those sorts of things you think about when all the celebrations come to an end.  I used to make lots of resolutions come the New Year, and I used vow that the new year would be a lot different from the last, however I've come to realise that things are going to happen regardless if you've made resolutions or not, and it's how we handle these things that make the year different from the last whether it be good or bad.

Anyway, the one Resolution we have made here at The Crafti Bug is to keep our blog updated more regularly so let's get stuck in.  We've got lots to tell you about....

Hands up those that remember playing string games in school.... I do I do....

My 6yr old daughter came home from school one day with a piece of wool drapped around her neck.  When I asked her what that was for she mentioned they were playing Cats Cradle, and she proceeded to make the Cup and Saucer (or so she thought it was the cup and saucer).  She then ploughed through the internet looking for instructions on how to do some of the games. 

That's when we came across this Cat's Cradle kit from Klutz.

Our daughter was going to be the very best person to test this for us, and when we handed her the book her eyes nearly popped out of her head.  It comes with a very cool colourful and sturdy piece of string along with step by step illustrated instructions on how to make the Witch's Broom, the Cup and Saucer, the Eiffel Tower, Jacob's ladder and how to play the Cat's Cradle game (which is a two person game). 

She sat down with the book and away she went, after reading through the instructions for each one she had them memorised and became very skilled at completing each one....let me show you what I mean...

I'm blowed if I could follow what she was doing, but I was very surprised how quickly she picked it up and has remembered them all.  She's taken the string to school and having a lot of fun with her friends, especially as they attempt to go through the Cats Cradle game.

All these things that I used to play as a child apparently never died, maybe I just outgrew them, but I must say it's fun reliving my childhood through my children.

This book is available through our website of course, so head on over to http://www.thecraftibug.co.nz/ and check it out.