Nothing ever goes to plan. Not when you have three children who have strong ideas about everything and want to do it their way (no idea where they get that from). I had a lovely idea for a Pumpkin Halloween card kids can make. I like crafting cards with the children – it tends to be a quick craft and you get to send it to someone else so have no storage issues. I thought it would be nice to make some cute pumpkins using buttons. The girls all love buttons and it is great for practising fine motor skills. I set out some blank cards with a pumpkin shape drawn on some of them and some orange and green buttons. Perfect!

But no – five minutes in and I realised they were not going to do things my way. Charlotte coloured in her pumpkin with a crayon and then drew a pumpkin on every piece of paper she could find. Rose took all the buttons and put them into lines and poured them from one container to another. This is what Molly made for Halloween. Erm….

But this is why the adage “never work with children” isn’t true for me. If I was told by an authority figure to do something a certain way I would do it – and worry I hadn’t done it quite right. Children have so many ideas and usually, they are better than mine. It’s brilliant. Of course sometimes when you have a particular idea about how you want to do something then it’s hard to let go but sometimes it’s important to remember the creative process is the important part.

We did eventually get a pumpkin card made from buttons.

Of course, it is pretty cute. But next time I’m just going to give them a pile of pumpkin colour buttons and see what they do with them.

For a round-up of all our Halloween activities for kids look here.
Also, make sure you are following my Halloween and Fall Pinterest Board for lots of fun activities.