Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Lisa Frank vs. the Imagination

As a kid, I was never really the crafty one in my family; that role was mainly claimed by my little sister to the extent that she had all of her craft supplies organized and labeled a label maker. Crafting was not a terribly thrilling prospect for me other than the occasional Lisa Frank craft kit from which I could weave multicolor potholders on a loom or oven melted stained glass window art. My domain of crafting if it could be defined as such was my imagination. My sister and I would envision extremely complex stories for our Barbie games which varied from Oregon Trail to houseboat, but my Barbie houses were always built from different materials I could gather around the house. A simple item such as a contact case could be turned into a food/water dish for a Barbie pet or a swatch of fabric could be cut down into a rug for a room or a bedspread. If I was given the materials my imagination would allow me to craft it into something quite elaborate. When my little brother received some large wooden building blocks, my sister and I used them to build various pieces of furniture for our dolls varying from couches and tables to mattresses and bathtubs.

Not only did my imagination lead to wonderful Barbie games, it could also turn a simple wooden child’s puzzle into a baking sheet covered in a bunch of small cookies which could then be used to create a bakery specializing in cookies or make horrid household chores in to something remotely enjoyable. Through my imagination, I traveled the world and back while accomplishing an astounding amount of feats such as going back in time to the colonial period or rock climbing. Although my form of crafting was not quite as tangible as drawing a figure on paper, it allowed me to do anything I wished.

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