DIYing Over Here
DIYing over here.
As summer goes, so goes with it the comfort of routine for those with school-aged children. Some are better at planning summer activities than others, but just about everyone is better at planning than me. I’d scoff in April, when other moms signed up kids for up to six weeks of various camps, righteously thinking, why so much structure? Summer is a time for kids to decompress. My procrastination was partly intentional. It leaves things breezy for spontaneous beach runs, swimming and frolicking with friends, with the added benefit of not having to rush out of the house. Summer is why I’d chosen to leave advertising for academia after all (it certainly wasn’t for the paycheck). Laura was up to her eyeballs in home renos and college-shopping for her oldest, so our normal summer fun together with all the kids was seriously truncated to a few free days here and there. Still, I really did want my 10-year-old son to figure out ways to amuse himself, recharge in the sun and generally hang loose. Summer is for taking things as they come.
Yet each year, by the end of June I start paying for my perennial oversight. I shouldn’t have been surprised when, by early July, he’d gone limp from boredom and took to draping himself over furniture, like a wet noodle, in front of the PS4. One boring day, while I was distracted and wasting time with whatever nonsense, my son stood in front of me and said, “Mom, I’ve been watching ‘die’ videos, and I want to try it.” My ears got hot and tingly. The blood left my head; I was dizzy. Had I become this disengaged with his media consumption? It was all my fault—he wasn’t busy enough, I hadn’t made enough time for him. I calmed myself and asked him to show me one. He scrolled through his phone and pulled up, “Harry Potter Room DIY.”
D-I-Y. Not die. It was a new term for him and he’d sounded out the acronym. He just wanted to get crafty, and he wanted us to do it together.
Doing It Yourself, Together.
With relief and release, the blood returned to my head. We cuddled on the couch (he’ll still cuddle sometimes, and I’ll take every minute) and watched countless YouTube videos on how to totally Hogwarts his room one craft project at a time. A former fine arts undergrad myself, his whole life, he’s been watching me tinker. Everything from renovating our old Weber grill to collaging, to…installing flooring. Don’t even get me started on Halloween costumes. So, he’d picked a great partner. Together, we approached it with the verve and enthusiasm of HGTV design hosts. But moreover, we were going to do it on a budget, and make it our own. The next day we went to Michaels, and the day after that, too. By day three, the final supplies were coming in from Amazon. It was time to fire up the glue gun and get the party started.
Pom Poms and Patroni
He warmed up with a softball: a pencil holder made from pom poms and a Solo cup. It was off-Potter theme, but more of a skills test, and he completed it with one of Laura’s daughters, so there was no back-and-forth with me on the learning curve. Win!
Hands-on glue gun tutorial, courtesy of Laura’s crafty kids. Check.
The two of us love lighting, so we resolved to build a lamp reflecting my son’s own Patronus. For all you muggles, a Patronus is, as Pottermore cclearly explains, “a defensive spell which produces a silver, animal guardian, used to protect a witch or wizard against Dementors.” Duh, of course it is. Years ago, we also learned my son was a Ravenclaw from the Pottermore all-knowing sorting hat. Using a lamp-making kit from Amazon, we harvested two old lamps for parts and printed out a picture of a hummingbird from the internet to create a fine pinhole lampshade, perfect for defensive spells and all-around good energy.
High on glue gun fumes and accomplishment, we upped the ante and decided to make something more complex—an ambient lamp in the shape of the Deathly Hollows symbol. We’d seen what was out there on YouTube, and remarkably, there was no 1:1 for what we wanted to build. The best part of this process was stitching together the ideas from a number of similar projects, then improving—ne, perfecting—them with our own creative prowess. How’s that for a teaching lesson disguised as fun?
Once we started, my son also had to learn that some projects need to happen in stages in order to let things dry, etc. He’s generally grumpy about delayed gratification, so the life lessons just kept coming, and he took them in stride. Our creative energy was so infectious, we even got dad involved for a while. By the end of the Deathly Hollows lamp, we felt invincible, craft-wise.
The next one was not only ambitious, I also got the chance to buy (and use) a staple gun. It was an Ikea hack for the books—turning the Ikea Skruvsta chair into the famous Hogwart’s Monster Book of Monsters, which looks like…a monster. After covering the chair with brown faux fur, we’d planned to craft the mouth, eyes and teeth from polymer clay, but the kid lost steam and that one has yet to be finished. I’m sure we’ll get back to it, someday.
For weeks, my dining room has looked like a cross between Basquiat’s SoHo studio and a Design Within Reach catalogue. If you don’t have a dedicated craft room, I suppose being comfortable with a certain amount of disorder is part and parcel of the DIY lifestyle. As lessons go, I got the unsuspecting chance to work on an aspect of resilience and acceptance I didn’t even know was possible – especially with regard to people’s opinions when they enter my home. By this point, it’s almost a superpower.
It turns out, DIY is exponentially more expensive than just buying whatever store-bought thing made in China. But where’s the fun in that, when you can buy a bunch of things made in China and put them together to make new things? This summer, we took it as it came, together, and we have so much to show for it. What developed was so much better than I could have ever planned, which was my plan all along.
