Journal Walker

If you have decided that creativity is important for your child’s development, now is the time to start doing everything you can to encourage that creativity. One of the best ways is to provide arts and crafts for kids while also giving children an environment that is open to artistic and creative self-expression. Below are some additional exercises you may want to consider implementing in your home to achieve the desired results in your child.

Combining Music & Art

Part of providing the right environment for encouraging creativity is by joining your child in exploring the fun of arts and crafts for kids. One activity is to take a sketchbook and some oil pastels (they produce better results than crayons) and turn up some great music. If you love classical music, that’s a good choice. However, any type of music will work as long as you feel it’s appropriate for your child. Now using these arts and crafts for kids create a picture of using the music as an inspiration. When the song is over, compare your efforts and talk about the types of emotions you both felt from the same song.

You can repeat the activity with different types of music and compare those results, too.

Cloud Inspiration

We all know that some people can see shapes and designs in clouds, right? Well, practice with your child for a few days and get in the habit of talking about the shapes you see in the sky. Then take your trusty arts and crafts for kids outside, including colored pencils or paints and some paper, and each of you should draw something you see in the clouds. Don’t talk about what you’re creating on the paper until you’re both finished.

Magazine Story

If you want to encourage both your child’s artistic skills and writing ability, gather some old magazines and start clipping out pictures together. Then bring in the arts and crafts for kids. Let your child glue some of the cutouts into his or her sketchbook. Then using colored pencils write a story to go along with the images. The story can be written right on the page or can be type of up neatly, printed off, and glued in as well. By combining both of these elements, along with the arts and crafts for kids, you’ll be challenging your child to definitely think outside the proverbial box and come up with something truly unique. Then you can share your stories with one another.

The Story of the Day

If the two of you aren’t together during the day, take about 15 minutes each night before dinner to recreate some of the highlights of your days using arts and crafts for kids. Then you can share them and talk about them over dinner. This can be a great way to work out any stress or negativity either of you are feeling if you’ve had a bad day. It’s very therapeutic no matter what age you are.

Smalltime Child offers a great selection of arts and crafts for kids in addition to Toddler Toys. Check out our arts and crafts for kids today!

If you’ve ever had the opportunity to go to an art museum when children were present, you know that most of them aren’t interested. The same is true for classical music concerts, literature, or anything that was never shown on MTV or some other cable channel. That’s a shame because these parts of our culture have much to offer them. The good news is that you can use arts and crafts for kids to encourage your children to have a greater appreciation of art – one that will last a lifetime.

Talk about Your Child’s Artwork

One way to encourage children to have an interest in the arts is by taking an interest in their art. When you dismiss their creative efforts with arts and crafts for kids, you are sending them a message that these things are not important. If you don’t care about their efforts, why should they care about the efforts of dead strangers?

Instead, when your child shows you something he or she has created using arts and crafts for kids, talk about the results. Ask your child questions about the color or the subject. Treat their artwork as the work of a creative mind because that’s exactly what it is. Then when you go to the art museum discuss the same types of questions about the art there. Your child will be much more engaged in the conversation.

Appreciate Art from Your Child’s Perspective

Children are generally very practical when it comes to art. If you’ve seen their creations using arts and crafts for kids, you know most of them stick to realism. That’s why they may not always be impressed with some of the art you’re going to encounter in the local museum. If you child dismisses an important work of art as ugly or stupid, don’t chastise him or her. Instead, ask for concrete reasons for the dismissal. Say, “What don’t you like about it?” instead of “Don’t say that! This is a valuable piece of art!”

Remember that not everyone is entitled to an opinion and that includes your child. The more he or she feels able to express that opinion the more creative he or she will become and the less likely he or she is to hate the museum.

Learning to Love Other Types of Art

While arts and crafts for kids can help your child gain an appreciation of artwork, there are other ways to instill a love of other types of art. For example, if you want your child to love literature, don’t hand him or her a dusty book. Instead, read to them from the book or watch a well-done film version or listen to the story on tape. These alternative approaches will make the literature more accessible to children and you can help explain what’s happening step by step.

Learning to Love Art

One of the best parts of arts and crafts for kids is that they can give your children a reason to love the best of the world’s culture and art while possibly giving them the skills to make their own contribution.

Smalltime Child offers a great selection of arts and crafts for kids in addition to Toddler Toys. Check out our arts and crafts for kids today!

Although most parents are the ones who provide their children with the arts and crafts for kids, there are other places where these useful tools can also be found. For example, children may get some valuable time with these tools at the babysitter’s house or in kindergarten. If you are running any type of facility for children whether you’re watching them for parents or educating them or both, you should definitely consider adding more arts and crafts for kids. Below are several great reasons to make this change.

Boredom Free

One thing you never want when you’re working with children is for them to become bored. That’s when the trouble starts. Of course, you also don’t want them to be running around a playground or sitting in front of a television all day either. By giving them arts and crafts for kids you can provide both mental and physical stimulation in one package. You can have complete control of the arts and crafts for kids they receive so you can take precautions to keep your home or facility from being destroyed by paint or markers (colored pencils are a good alternative).

At the end of the day, the children can return to their parents with some nice artwork or finished craft projects which makes everyone happy.

Learning Potential

While most people think arts and crafts for kids are all about fun, they can also be very useful for real learning. For example, if you give each child a handy sketchbook and some colored pencils you could end up with the tools for learning. Here’s an example. If you want to work on the alphabet, draw a letter on a whiteboard where all of the kids can see it. Don’t say the letter but ask all of the kids to draw a picture of a thing that starts with that letter. If you had an S on the board, for instance, the kids might draw a snake or a stereo.

Another idea for a learning activity using arts and crafts for kids is to ask the children to create a visual interpretation of a math problem. For example, if you want the kids to find the answer to “2 + 2” then have them draw a picture to help them. The child might draw two ice cream cones and two dogs then can count the pictures and know the answer is four.

Alternative Activities

Having arts and crafts for kids is also a good idea if you want to make alternative activities for some kids. Not all children will want to do the same things at the same time. For example, some kids may want to watch a DVD before nap time, other children may want to play games, but some prefer quiet time alone. Having arts and crafts for kids is a good way to meet the needs of multiple kids at the same time.

Meeting the Needs of Children

Having arts and crafts for kids at home, at care facilities, and at schools is an important way to encourage creativity in children and to inspire good behavior.

Smalltime Child offers a great selection of arts and crafts for kids in addition to Toddler Toys. Check out our arts and crafts for kids today!

Choosing birthday and Christmas gifts for children can sometimes be a real challenge. Clothes are a nice choice but most kids don’t appreciate them, plus there’s the issue of knowing the right size and picking an acceptable style. With toys and books, you have to worry about duplicates or picking something that interests the child. For all these reasons, arts and crafts for kids can be a great alternative. Below are some considerations to keep in mind.

Knowing the Age

Obviously, you want any gift you give a child to be age appropriate. You definitely want to make sure of that when you’re buying arts and crafts for kids. However, if the product isn’t listed there are some clues to look for that might mean it is inappropriate.

For example, if the arts and crafts for kids have a lot of small pieces then you wouldn’t want to put it in the hands of small children. You might also want to check for anything that could be toxic. Most art supplies for children are made with non-toxic materials but it’s always better to be safe instead of sorry so check those labels.

Shopping

Another question you may have is where to find these items. There will be a selection of them at almost any store but if you want a big selection with the most choices your best bet is to browse online at a store specializing in items for children. You could also go to a brick and mortar crafts store but the prices are going to be a bit higher and you may not find many things for young children that are truly examples of arts and crafts for kids.

When you’re shopping online, you can always drop the company an email or give them a call (most have toll-free numbers) if you have questions about the right age for an item. Some offer free shipping and even free gift wrapping, too.

Children Preferences

When giving arts and crafts for kids as a gift, you’ll also want to think about the preferences of the child. With lacing cards at Smalltime Child, for example, you can choose between three types of pictures: insects, vehicles, and pets. You want to think carefully about the best choice for the gift receiver.

The same is true with almost any arts and crafts for kids you choose. One exception might be a sketchbook and some colored pencils. A nice idea is to purchase the colored pencils in a matching tin so the child also has a convenient place to store them after being creative.

Parents Preferences

Even though this gift of arts and crafts for kids is for the children, the parents should play a small role in your decision making process. For example, some parents may prefer colored pencils over water color paints or oil pastels because they are less likely to make a mess. Think about these factors when you’re choosing arts and crafts for kids as gifts.

Smalltime Child offers a great selection of arts and crafts for kids in addition to Toddler Toys. Check out our arts and crafts for kids today!

Video Production is a service business, and selling creative services can be complicated.

For one thing, creative services are hard to quantify. Creativity is subjective. Creativity is hard to price. Variables include time to deliver, interpretation of client’s needs, creative approach, technical prowess, and of course rates.

Then there’s competition. There’s plenty of it, at all levels of experience, in all market-niche variations, with various staff sizes and equipment investments.

So how do you get or increase business?

In the past 30 years, I’ve started or marketed four different video production businesses. Here are five sure-fire ways to increase your business, on a shoestring.

1. Focus on your strength. There may be 50 video producers in town, but are there 50 that know, say, audio the way you do? Are there 50 that do their own scriptwriting? Are there 50 that specialize in interviewing people? Or maybe you really know a certain market– say pharmaceuticals. Don’t be shy about letting people know– niches are the fast way to riches.

2. Sell by example. If the video you make is often made for the big screen, selling it on an iPod may not reflect its true value. Rent a hall or a nice conference room, spring for coffee and cookies, and hold a seminar. Note– this is not an open house– it’s a seminar. If your specialty is wedding love story documentaries, invite wedding planners, brides, etc. Take an ad out in local shoppers, place listings in local newspapers (they will feature free event listings that appeal to their readers) and spread the word on appropriate forums on the internet and Craig’s List.

Then fill the room, discuss the need, and show your stuff as the solution to the need.

3. Create a demo video that’s short and sweet. Well, you produce video, right? Better have a good demo video. But in today’s world, you’ve got to keep the demo short. This appeals to today’s busy pace, but also allows you to show only your best stuff. Pick a piece of music and clip together your best segments. Keep it down to a minute and make sure it ends with “fireworks’. For a good example, see this past demo at http://www.vimeo.com/452143.

4. Don’t have a demo? Do a Freebee. You may not get paid, but you’ll feed your passion and prove you’re good. And you’ll have an official “client”.

5. Get the word out via email, snail mail, your website, forum postings, and various public service and business groups. Don’t worry if the competition sees your stuff– maybe you’ll scare them a little, and in the selling process, they ma have to begrudgingly admit you are a “respected competitor.” Consider that an endorsement.

This is necessarily only an overview, but it’s a good start. If you have a strong talent, a belief in yourself, and the energy to be “out there”, you will succeed– even in today’s crowded video production environment.

Brien Lee is President of Brien Lee VideoStory, Inc., a New Jersey based video consulting, writing and production company. He had more than 30 years experience in the creation of audio-visual materials for meetings, DVD, and the web. His book “Tribute Videos for Love and Money” can be found at Videostoryschool.com along with links to his blogs and other articles.