The legacy project

I’ve always considered myself a creative. It’s in my genes (not my jeans), really. My mother always joked that it skipped a generation with her, but she sold herself short. She marched to the beat of her own drummer and she oozed creativity out of her cool, hippie chick self. Think long flowing hair and skirts, embroidered denim jackets and handmade silver jewelry. We lost her too soon, but her legacy is alive and strong .

My kids are her legacy, and yes they are creatives too. I’ve seen it from a young age with both of them. But they grew up and got involved in other things, so the craft projects, paintings, and hours of dress up and friendship bracelets fell by the wayside. If anything positive came out of the COVID-19 pandemic for my family, it was heightened creativity. Last spring, my daughter was finishing her junior year of high school and trying to create a virtual independent study project for honors credit in her STEAM class. Not easy to do without access to labs, tools, teachers and teammates to lean on. So, she relied on what she knew, and what resources she had easily available - her sewing machine, scraps of fabric, and our tried and true orange handled scissors (aka the good scissors). Out of this her idea was born - a recycled stuffed animal project based off of something my mother had made me as a kid. Man, my mother would have LOVED this.

Let me talk about the scissors for a minute. The orange handled scissors have come a long way baby! The orange handled scissors in my house are like gold. Seriously. I have trained everyone in my house to keep their filthy hands off these babies unless they are using them for an approved project (approved by me of course). They know that they will be disowned if they ever use them to cut a piece of paper. I know, gasp! When I see the scissor drawer (yes they have their own drawer) open and a pair missing from their home, I run through the house yelling “where are my scissors???”. My family knows I’m crazy when it comes to scissors. If they are lucky, I let them go crazy with the one pair of pinking shears that have the broken handle. And this is only because I have a better pair! If I learned anything from my crafty Grandma and creative Mom, it was the value of a good pair of fabric scissors.

Ok, back to my daughter’s STEAM project. The more I think about it, scissors were literally our quarantine savior and they may have gotten my kid into college. Those stuffed animals she made, they brought her, and me, so much joy. So much. She even sent one to a young cousin because she just loved making them. The fact that my own daughter wanted to make them for other people she loves. I mean, I can’t even.

My mother never got to meet her grandchildren. It sucks - big time. But I see so much of my mother in my own daughter. I have always had dreams of things I’m going to create in this world, but when I see my daughter, her passion for creativity, and her love of the orange handled scissors, I realize that she is truly my biggest and best creation. Hard to top that. But the legacy lives on and is waiting for the next generation. Yup, I’m looking forward to being a Grandma someday, so I can pass down all my crazy scissor rules - and maybe a little creativity - to the next generation .