Here’s a mantra to repeat to yourself when doing crafts with kids: process, not product. It will turn you into the craft whisperer. Especially if your child (like mine) swirls paints and blends play dough until each art work takes on the brackish hue and glurpy consistency of a murky bog.

Making bugs from bits collected from the recycling bin ended up to be a good project for everyone in my house, plus some friends. And the end results (not that I would be so superficial as to care, dear craft whisperer) were kind of cute. Plastic milk caps, bread tags, paper clips, pipe cleaners, popsicle sticks, ribbon, and scraps of paper turned into an pleasant infestation of creepy crawlies.