Your Kids' Creations

Children Finding Help Through Stories

2011-10-19T15:54:00.000-07:00

The On Our Minds Scholastic blog recently featured an article about how in these tough economic times, children can find help in coping through the stories they read. The topic was brought into the spotlight by the NBC Nightly News when they ran a story about a little girl who found the courage to break her silence about her family's homelessness because of a book.

I agree that books can help children in so many ways, and children can see themselves, sometimes, in the characters they read about. That can really help them to cope with the variety of things that they are going through.

I also believe that sometimes telling stories can be cathartic for children. Even if the story they are telling is fictional, they can sometimes live out a fantasy or show someone else dealing with the same issue that they are, or even work through something through writing about it. Another method that writing can help a child deal with issues in his life is through poetry.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has a Young Writer's Program. It is free to join and it begins on November 1st and runs through November 30th. I wish more schools would get involved with it, but your child can sign up as an individual and start writing! I highly recommend it!

Creative Kids

2010-12-14T05:48:00.000-08:00

Since Your Kids' Creations is all about inspiring our kids to be creative, I thought I'd share some of the creativity my own kids have been showing.

Gabriella is eight years old. She has her own blog where she posts her drawings, stories she has written and poems she has written. She even makes and posts videos on occasion. Her blog is called Gabby's Art Gallery. She's had the blog ever since she was seven. You can follow Gabby's Art Gallery on Facebook. You can also find a lot of her artwork in several different on-line stores such as Through Innocent Eyes on Printfection, Through Innocent Eyes on Zazzle, or as a section of a larger store at Fyfe Photography & Design.

Isabella is only 5 years old. She too has been working creatively for more than a year. She has her own blog called Tangle Fairies, and you can also follow the Tangle Fairies blog on Facebook. She has several shops too. A few of her designs can be found at the same Printfection store as Gabby's art, Through Innocent Eyes at Printfection. Her designs can also be found in Imaginative Minds and Tangle Fairies. A few of her earlier designs can be found in a section of the larger Fyfe Photography & Design store too.

Connor is four years old. His blog and his store are very new, started only this week. Connor's blog is called Connor's Spirit Of Imagination and it has a Spirit Of Imagination Facebook page. His store is called Spirit Of Imagination.

Gabby has some books that are her own creation (with help from Your Kids' Creations) at Moonduster's Books. Isabella and Connor will have books available there soon too.

Another way kids can be creative is through photography. All three of the children have their own photography blog, shared between them, and a store too. Their blog is called Photography By Kids. The Photography By Kids blog has a Facebook page too. There is also a Photography By Kids gift store.

They also love to bake and create food desserts, so they share a blog called Kids Creating Cakes: Cooking For Kids and there is a Kids Creating Cakes Facebook page as well as a Kids Creating Cakes store.

And because they are so interested in creativity and in trying new things, they also have a review blog called Children Review where businesses can send them kid-products to try and test out and hear what children think of them. There is also a Children Review Facebook page.

Social media has a lot of avenues for children to express their creativity and to find encouragement. With a conscientious parent monitoring their on-line activity, there is a wealth of activity for a child to embark on the Internet.

Your Kids' Creations Is On Facebook! Win A Teddy Bear!

2010-04-17T06:32:00.000-07:00

Your Kids' Creations is on Facebook!

Become a fan of Your Kids' Creations on Facebook and be entered to win a teddy bear with your child's drawing on it. One random fan will be chosen via a random number generator to win a teddy bear with their child's drawing on its t-shirt (as in the photo above). The prize winner will be drawn on the April 24th, 2010 and no entries after the 24th at noon (GMT) will be counted.

For a chance to win a round magnet with your child's drawing on it, comment in the discussion boards adding a link to one of your favorite drawings done by your child at Your Kids' Creations on Facebook here on the Facebook page. Two winners from the comments will be chosen by a random number generator. The prize winners will be drawn on the April 24th, 2010 and no entries after the 24th at noon (GMT) will be counted.

What Your Kids' Creations Can Do For you

2009-12-17T03:17:00.000-08:00

Send me your child's short stories and drawings, and, for a fee, I will make them presentable in their own book at Lulu.com. Once the book is uploaded into an account at Lulu.com created just for you, you will own all rights to it. You will be able to buy as many copies from Lulu.com as you like. You can even sell copies of it to others!

What I will need from you: I need 12 short stories (anywhere from a paragraph long to a page long) that your child has written and a minimum of 12 drawings that your child has drawn. (Drawings in marker are the easiest for me to transform for the book, but I can work with some pencil and crayon drawings too.)

If your child is too young to write or type, you may have them dictate a story to you and type it for them. For very young children, you will often have to ask leading questions, such as "How did she get away?" or "What happened next?" in order to keep the story going.

You will have to provice a recent photograph of your child if you want a "author portrait" added in the back of the book.

I will clean up the artwork so that it prints beautifully in the book, set the book up with the right layout and format, create the cover, and add in a relevant description, keywords and title. It will take me 3 days to prepare the book for you, and it will cost $50. Then it will be up to you to purchase whatever number of books you wish from Lulu.com at Lulu.com prices.

For an additional $25 fee, once you've purchased your book, I will take a few of your child's best drawings and upload them into a few products in a store for your child at Zazzle.com. I will make sure the art is cleaned up and perfect for printing, resize it to fit different products, add keywords to the images, and add titles and descriptions to the products. Again, all rights to the art, the store and your child's stories will still belong to you, and ownership of the store will be in yours or your child's name. (For $100, I will add all 12 of their designs to products in their store, with or without your purchasing the making of a book.)

Examples of books created by children can be found at Moonduster's Book Store. Click "preview" under the books to see a few of the inside pages.)

Dreams Of Three

Dreams Of Four

Examples of children's stores can be found at Imaginative Minds and Through Innocent Eyes and Kyra's Art

The books are a great way to inspire the creative side of your child and inspire a love of reading and writing in your child. It's also a great way to boost their confidence.

The store is another way to inspire your child's creative side. It may also earn them a little money from time to time, which helps boost their confidence as well.

Buying gifts from their newly created stores and buying their book is a great way to find the right gifts for grandparents, parents, godparents, teachers and others for Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparent's Day and other occassions!

Example Of Some Of What I Do

2009-12-03T13:15:00.000-08:00

This, of course, depends on how much work you want done on your child's art and how much work the actual art requires to be presentable in a book, but this is just to give you an idea of the kind of work that can be done for your child's book and/or items in their shop.

I take something like this:

I try and clean it up for the book and along the way it starts looking more like this:

I could add a poem or drawing that the child has written.

And I come up with this:

Not all pictures require that level of clean-up for the book, but they often do for products.

About Your Kids' Creations

2009-11-24T05:42:00.000-08:00

I created this blog to showcase a little bit of what I do and what Your Kids' Creations can do for you.

Send me your child's short stories and drawings, and, for a fee, I will make them presentable in their own book at Lulu.com. Once the book is uploaded into an account at Lulu.com created just for you, you will own all rights to it. You will be able to buy as many copies from Lulu.com as you like.

What I will need from you: I need 12 short stories (anywhere from a paragraph long to a page long) that your child has written and a minimum of 12 drawings that your child has drawn. (Drawings in marker are the easiest for me to transform for the book, but I can work with some pencil and crayon drawings too.)

If your child is too young to write or type, you may have them dictate a story to you and type it for them. For very young children, you will often have to ask leading questions, such as "How did she get away?" or "What happened next?" in order to keep the story going.

It will take me 3 days to prepare the book for you, and it will cost $50. Then it will be up to you to purchase whatever number of books you wish from Lulu.com at Lulu.com prices.

For an additional $25 fee, once you've purchased your book, I will take a few of your child's best drawings and upload them into a few products in a store for your child at Zazzle.com. Again, all rights to the art, the store and your child's stories will still belong to you, and ownership of the store will be in yours or your child's name. (For $100, I will add all 12 of their designs to products in their store, with or without your purchasing the making of a book.)

Examples of books created by children can be found at Moonduster's Book Store. Click "preview" under the books to see a few of the inside pages.)

Dreams Of Three

Dreams Of Four

Examples of children's stores can be found at Imaginative Minds and Through Innocent Eyes and Kyra's Art

The books are a great way to inspire the creative side of your child and inspire a love of reading and writing in your child. It's also a great way to boost their confidence.

The store is another way to inspire your child's creative side. It may also earn them a little money from time to time, which helps boost their confidence as well.

Buying gifts from their newly created stores and buying their book is a great way to find the right gifts for grandparents, parents, godparents, teachers and others for Christmas, birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Grandparent's Day and other occassions!