Things Are What You Make Of Them

This book has been out for quite a while now – but it’s a really awesome resource for parents who want to get crafty with their wee ones – but are stuck for inspiration. There is a super great website over here – which features some of the projects that are in the book – and some that are not. Go look.

Ellen and Julia Lupton put the book together, designing some fantastic projects and using kids artwork to illustrate. It’s such a good idea – as it’s not about ‘adult’ perfection but rather ‘kid’ innovation. And we know that’s a rather important lesson to learn. It’s also super important to learn that it’s easy to make stuff. And way better then buying stuff. And things like printing and sewing and bookmaking are within the reach of everyone.

I especially like the simple Make Your Own Stickers activity – and the printing and bookmaking ones too. But there’s heaps of fabric art, sewing, painting and drawing too. My boys are REALLY into drawing characters at the moment – and this book has been nice to flip through for ideas about drawing characters – and what to do with those characters (put em on a sticker, put em on a shirt….!)

(Funny that you’ll also spot the original GRAFFITI SOFA in this book – before it was featured in another incarnation as a design piece on some of the big design blogs. I like the graffiti couch.)

If you’re at a loss, are hiding from the household chores and wanna do something fun with your kids – DIY Kids could be just the place for you. You don’t have to draw on the couch. There are more sedate activites too!

You can buy it here:

You can find more from Ellen and Julia at Design Your Life and also here. Did you know they are identical twins who write on a whole range of really interesting topics. Julia wrote this book about typography and they wrote Design Your Life: The Genius, Stupidity and Deceit of Everyday Things together (due out next year). I’m pretty inspired by the stuff they are doing.

xx Mikes