The Outlawz Anything But a Card challenge for June is themed Lets Play. As a qualified Playworker my mind started racing with all sorts of ideas for this one!
Lets start with a definition of play;
“engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose” (AI) What do you think? Do you agree with this statement?
Jean-Jaques Rousseau said “Play is a very misused adult word. To a child it is a way of life. To an adult it often means unimportant recreational things we do when we are not working” (Play Scotland)
So it seems that play is for children or for recreation, but play is also “a process of observing, testing, trying, imitating, and enjoying the environment they are in and people they are with”. (Play Scotland)
Play England‘s Charter for Play says play is “what children and young people do when they follow their own ideas and interests, in their own way, and for their own reasons.”
This sounds a lot like crafting to me and I often say I am playing when I am making something. Especially if it is something I have not made before. Is crafting an adult version of play?
Creative play is defined by The Highlife Centre as “whether this is some colouring or using spare fabric around the house to make something like a key ring or charm. This is a great way to engage your child’s self expression and allow them to make their own choices on their creative project”
That is definitely one of the ways that we craft. Many definitions of craft say you need special skills and knowledge, ok but how do you learn those skills? Through trial and error mainly just like a child playing.
I never really think of myself as having specialist skills, so maybe to me that activity feels more like play. I don’t place much value on the things that I make as it is not a job and I see myself as less skilled that other crafters. Maybe this ties in with being unable to work and feeling that crafting is just a way of filling my time. I do often feel I should be doing something more important and be out working and earning money.
Anyway before this turns into an essay about play, back to the challenge. I wanted to make something that I have not made before so I could play around with it and learn from creating it.
I was looking for paper crafting that I could create with my Cricut and came across some 3d models that looked great. The ones I liked were to buy so I thought I would have a quick look what was on Cricut Access which I pay a monthly fee for and many of the designs are free as I didn’t want to pay out if it was something I wasn’t able to do. I found one that tied in with the play theme. The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Who remembers that book from childhood? A book and a game rolled in to one written by Eric Carle in 1969 “It has been acclaimed as one of the greatest childhood classics of all time and praised for its iconic art style, featuring collage artwork and pages with holes where the caterpillar ate through” (Wikipedia)
The file on Cricut Access was created by WowMom. Using Cricut Design Space I cut the templates from card stock and vellum. The segments are all slightly different colours as I didn’t have enough sheets in exact same colour.
The scoring tool on my Cricut Explore 4 does not score firmly enough, so the first job was to go over all the score lines again. Then stick in all the vellum panels using red double sided tape, this is a much stronger tape, it is useful for things that need a stronger bond. The instructions say to use glue, but there was no way I was gluing it all and holding everything in place until it was dry!
My husband helped with the scoring and folding. The red tape was added to the tabs on each segment, which were then folded into the final shape. See animation below as an example (from WikiMedia).
It’s a fiddly process and often needs more than one pair hands so was a joint effort. The model is supposed to have a head segment and 7 body segments, but I did 5 body segments and it still works fine and finished object is about 50cms long with the 5 segments. The cut file also includes eyes, nose and antenna. It wasn’t any easy process, but good fun and the finished object is so cute.
My photo of the finished Caterpillar is added to an AI generated background.
Or here with my cat!
I took the model to the Knit and Natter group at my local care home and he sparked a lot of interest and conversation.
“Creativity in and of itself is important for remaining health, remaining connected to yourself and connected to the world. ”Christianne Strang (Professor of Neuroscience). In todays world we could all do with more play.
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