My Little Helper

Both of my parents have August birthdays, so my son and I have been making cards.  My son (who just turned 3) LOVES to play with my craft stuff.  He sneaks into my shape punches as often as he can and is beyond thrilled when I let him run his punched shapes through the Xyron machine to make stickers.  He helps me make cards for different family members on special occasions, and when I saw Simon Says Stamp is hosting a Summer Vacation Kid's Challenge, I decided to share a couple of his most recent creations here.

Now this is where the real fun happened...the cutting.  He's been dying to cut for a long time, but I keep forgetting to get him little scissors.  I realized that some of my old craft scissors really aren't very sharp, so I finally gave in and taught him how to use them.  He was in heaven.  All he wanted to do was cut and cut and cut some more.

And here is his card!  I know it may look like I helped him with placement of some of the things on the card, but I honestly didn't.  I had the idea of doing a fish and that is about it.  He punched out the fish head and tail (he LOVES using my punches and will sit for quite a while punching out shapes if I keep handing him paper).  I held one of his punched squares, and he cut it in half with the scissors for the tail.  Then he glued the pieces on.  He also used the crimper for the first time and thought that was awesome.  I did put the glue on the back of the eyes, but he placed them on the fish.  Then I let him put glue on the fish and put the sequins on.  If you look close you can see he put glue on the majority of the body, but when he put the sequins on he placed them all in a row.  He scored the card (another tool he really likes), and I helped him fold it over, but he definitely got in on the folding action.  And finally he inked up the stamp and stamped it on himself.  I didn't even show him where to put it.  I just let him choose.  I've got to be honest.  I was so proud when he finished.  It turned out way better than I thought it would, and I was so thankful I restrained myself and let him do it on his own.  He didn't put things where I thought they should go in my head, but I think his idea turned out way better than mine. :)

He wrote on the inside of the card, and then I asked him what he wrote.  Then I wrote exactly what he said.  I know my dad will love the card.  How could he not? :)
P.S. Many sincere thanks for your sweet words about this post.  What a blessing to have such thoughtful, kind blogging friends.