Unleashing Creativity + Energizer Free Their Imagination Contest

I’ve always been a creative type… I love fashion, art galleries, drawing, sewing – you name it. So, it’s no wonder that my kids love getting creative too. From a very young age, I’ve had them trying all different sorts of things to expand their imaginations and unleash their innate creativity.

This was a painting my daughter did when she was three. I wanted a huge piece of hanging art for our living room, but it wasn’t high on our priority “spend” list. So, I went to the art supply store, bought a canvas in the appropriate size and mixed up some paint colours that were complementary to our decor… voila! The beauty of this is that we can paint over it every few years and have a fresh, new work of art to display!

This past Father’s Day, I had both my kids make works of art for their Daddy. When my daughter was in preschool, she had made a painting with her hand print in the corner and I thought it would be wonderful if my son could do the same. That way, there would be a great memento from them at roughly the same age… their small hands forever immortalized in paint. 🙂

The finished masterpieces!

In addition to painting, I love that my daughter is old enough to take to art galleries. We just visited the Picasso exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario this past weekend, and it really inspired her. She brought her sketch book and was drawing away the entire time we were there. They also had a fantastic children’s area where kids could really unleash their inner Picassos!

My little guy loves to get dirty (what little kid doesn’t?) and I find that his creativity is unleashed through dramatic play at the park. He adores the sand box and relishes playing “construction site” with all the great diggers and dump trucks there. He gets right into it, making the sounds of the vehicles and constructing sand castle buildings. It’s so fun to watch him!

There are so many activities to help your kids unleash their creativity and free their imaginations. Here’s a round-up of our favourite supplies:

• paints (I like Crayola; washable = sanity saver!)
• dollar store paint canvases
• paper and crayons
• puppets (especially love finger puppets… you can take ’em anywhere)
• modelling clay
• felt
• sandbox/water table (my son could play there for hours)
• building blocks (foam or wood)

No matter what you do, just remember – there are no rules when it comes to creative play! Let your kids think outside the box. You never know, you just might get some inspiration from them!

And, speaking of inspiration… the folks over at Energizer are hosting a Free Your Imagination contest now through October 1st. Visit them on their Facebook page and enter to win a prize *every hour* until then (yes, you heard me right)!! They want to help your kids free their imaginations with the amazing prizes that are up for grabs, like Crayola crayons, PopArt Pixies art kits and more!

But there’s more! Before you enter the contest, be sure to grab my exclusive PIN for Fab Frugal Mama readers: PERFORMANCE.

With this, you’ll receive an extra entry for each hourly draw! How fab is that? Be sure to check out all the other awesome Canadian bloggers* who are also participating in this campaign. You can grab their exclusive PINs, too, for more entries!

Disclosure – I am participating in the Energizer program by Mom Central Canada.  I received compensation for my participation in this campaign.  The opinions on this blog are my own.