I work in advertising and it is not unusual for me to be working on campaigns at home with the kids around. But while I was working the other day my daughter Chloe announced that she had some great ideas for a campaign herself.

Apparently, she had started her own little ‘pop-up’ agency for the day with her sister and a friend and she wanted to share some of the ideas they had to sell - everything from coffee to cars.

There was a great campaign with Rapunzel for a hair care brand, something else with a monster for a snack product. And to be honest, they weren’t that bad (further proof that advertising is an industry for kids and people who don’t want to grow up).

It struck me then that sometimes we just say ‘why don’t you draw something?’ to our kids rather than explore other facets to creativity. I decided that it would be cool to teach them about ‘purposeful creativity’ - bringing ideas and images to bear for a reason, like selling and communicating rather than simply using creativity to express themselves.

They have fun and learn about the power of creativity to get results.

Activity: Get your kids to be an ad agency for the afternoon – give them products to advertise and see what they think is important, and funny!

Image via Pinterest

I have many memories of my sister as a child, sitting in our backyard, singing for hours and hours to her heart's content. Music is such a beautiful way for children to express themselves and there is also the possibility of it enhancing children’s learning (just think of the Mozart Effect). 

There are many ways to introduce music into your child’s world, one quick and easy way is to create instruments out of pots and pans. Maybe you can set up a corner where your child can create their own melodies. How about recording his/her songs or giving a concert for the family? Even the youngest child can compose music. 

However you go about it, music is a wonderful way to enrich children’s lives and if they’re like my sister can lead to an incredible talent.

Activity: Ask the music lover in your family to make up a song or a tune. Maybe his/her sibling can write some words to go with the notes or back them up on the pots and pans.

Image via Pinterest

Playing with the dictionary. That has to be the most boring family pastime imaginable, right?

Maybe not. Not if the game is played with creativity rather than 'elucidation' as the purpose.

We used to go through the dictionary to find the most obscure words we could find, then we would invent meanings for the word. Crazy, weird, funny and sometimes plausible meanings.

Best meaning wins, right or not.

Activity: Make fun of the dictionary.

Image via Pinterest

Have you ever played Pictionary, you know that game where you have to communicate a word with your team mate through drawings? Well, it is a personal favourite of mine. Every summer holidays I would badger my family to play with me. I loved it, and it turns out that communicating through drawings is a brilliant way to nurture your children's ability to express themselves. You don't, however, need the board game. All you need is some paper, all sorts of drawing materials and a little bit of imagination.

Activity: Take a large sheet of paper or other material to draw on, some pencils, markers, crayons or chalk and have a “conversation” with your child. The catch: You can’t talk or write words, you have to draw what you want to say. This might even turn into an ongoing visual dialogue or a pictorial story lasting several days. Ask everyone in the family to join in.

Image via pinterest

My kids are not that interested in exercise. Matter of fact, I'm not that into it myself. So much exercise is boring, repetitive, hard work. Clearly it doesn't have to be that way. Being a bit creative with exercise makes it endless fun rather than endless pain.

To be honest, play is my favourite kind of creativity - I love the crazy games and challenges my kids will set me if I take the time to play at exercise with them.  The walk that turns into a fantasy adventure is my favourite. We ambush each other, we take each other prisoner, we attack forts and trap dangerous beasts. It's all in the mind, but while we are at it we exercise our heads off.

Activity: Take a crazy, themed adventure walk in the bush somewhere.

Image via ABAD Hotels

Having fun in the garden goes beyond digging in the ground. I remember getting home from school on many an occasion to find my mum up to her armpits in soil and lawn clippings. She loved, and still does spending time creating in her garden. To encourage me to get involved in the garden, mum made my own little corner where I could plant whatever my heart desired. I personalised this little patch, planted the strangest combinations of flowers, made a painted flag out of an old white sheet to brand my little patch. 'Emma’s Garden' – not the most original of names I confess. Regardless, it was hours of fun for me, and an opportunity to get really imaginative.

Activity: Create a small area in your garden purely for your kids to decorate and plan. 

Image via Pinterest

Kids birthday parties. We have to do them. And boy do they cost.

The standard fare includes: bowling, going to a film and a jumping castle. Don’t get me wrong, these are all terrific, and genuinely labour saving - if a little lacking in creativity.

The next rung up the ladder seems to be things like plaster master, art or cooking classes. I always feel slightly better as both a parent and an organiser when the birthday heads in that direction.

However, the other day I heard about a really creative party idea for 10 year olds. Carnival Party. And the kids loved it.

The backyard was divided into different games such as toss the softballs into a laundry hamper, fishing for floating ducks in a tub and knock the bottle off the stool. Even the invite for the party was in theme - a carnivale style ticket.

We all love a baby-sitter, especially if there are 10+ kids to be sat. But using creativity actually gets the kids to do the work for you, so everyone wins.

Activity: Choose a truly creative theme for your next party

Image via Rockscissorpaper

I still have amazing memories of ballet class. At the end of the lesson our teacher would play a piece of beautiful music. We would leap and dance around, dance anyway we wanted. Anything was possible.

Along with improving children's physical and psychological wellbeing, creative dance for small children approaches many ways of learning. Dance uses rhythm, honing children's aural skills, and giving them a chance to approach conceptual ideas through their bodies. 

Activity idea: Turn the music up loud and dance like no one's watching.

Image via Flickr

Creativity. It can be an activity for a rainy day or it can be a way of life. 

If you are serious about creativity and the richness it can bring, then bring creativity to every decision, including dinner. 
For me, creativity requires an openness to different. Different ideas, different experiences, different combinations, and yes, different meals.
Meal times provide endless opportunities for experimentation and exploration. Sadly most households rotate around no more than five core dishes. Hardly the foundations of an intrepid culinary explorer...

You don't have to be a master chef, you don't have to cook, you just have to expose kids to variety and to the unexpected. The more they do it, the more they crave it, and the more you have created an open minded, inquisitive little human.

Activity: add a different, new, interesting food to try every week. They don't have to eat it.  But they have to try.

Image via Open Ideo

The very cute India and her teddy were so inspired by our 'What's in a box' blog from a few weeks ago that they decided to create their very own aeroplane from a cardboard box at home. India I can just imagine you up in the sky flying around with ted!

Special thanks to mum Sophie for sharing.

xx

If you spend a few minutes watching your kids play, you'll be reminded that they live in a far more extraordinary world than the rest of us. As I get home from work and race from one chore to the next, I think to myself how amazing it would be to have time to just play.

Research now reveals that there is a link between pretend play and the ability to get along socially in the world. So perhaps we should all drop everything, every now and then, and just play. Maybe the world would be a happier place. Read about The Power of Pretending.

Activity: Set up a crepe paper spy training course in the hallway and watch your kids get into spy character.

Image via Chicken Babies.

It's easy enough to have dress ups for the kids. Ballerina outfits, spiderman outfits, a bit of both. It keeps them going, but does it tap their creativity? I'm not sure. Maybe it does, but I have to tell you that I don't get much out of it.

If, like me, you'd rather not relive Angelina ballerina or have webs fired at you over and over, then give them access to the best dress ups of all. Yours. Your wardrobe is a treasure trove for your kids.

Watching my kids do impersonations of me or my friends, pretending to be adults, has not only been funny it has also been quite insightful. Hear them talk to each other the way you do it, or how you respond to a crisis - it's generally very accurate and sometimes unnerving.

Keep the good stuff to one side and watch your kids go crazy with being you, and maybe return the favor by pretending to be them. It's a good lesson all round, the creative way.

Activity: Give your kids access to some of your old clothes and watch them have fun at playtime!

Image via This Mama Makes Stuff

I am pretty sure that as a child most of us have at one point believed we were some kind of superhero. Well, at least I did.

I remember one afternoon putting on an old blanket from the attic, convincing everyone around me it was the invisible cape, and then jumping off pavements as though I was leaping off buildings.

Make-believe is more than child's play. According to psychologist Susan Linn, it is crucial to the development of creativity, empathy, learning and problem solving. Sadly though, due to the recent developments in technology, it is being squeezed out of the lives of many children. In her book, The Case for Make Believe: Saving Play in a Commercialized World, Linn says parents must limit their children's screen time and instead give them simple tools that encourage creative play. Like children of the past.

Activity: Add a touch of "Superhero" to your kid’s everyday clothing and watch their world transform. 

Image via Etsy

We all have moments of weakness. No matter how creatively motivated we might be there are times where we just don't have the energy to engage our kids in creative pursuits and we turn to the plug-in drug to help us through. And fair enough too. But maybe we can turn our moments of weakness into triumphs of creativity.

I am amazed at the creativity to which our kids have access. It is truly inspiring stuff. So why not use it as inspiration?
Instead of letting our kids consume movies passively, why not engage them in consuming actively?

The last movie I watched with my kids was about dragons. So afterward I set them a challenge to create the most awesome dragon they could. Draw it. Act it out. Make one out of cardboard. Just show me a dragon.

Activity:  Turn something you feel guilty about doing into a creative inspiration

Image via pinterest

My very good friend Dahlas, from Brisbane, emailed me through some photos this week of her kids playing with the cardboard box that their new washing machine came in. Will and Eddie made a cubby with windows and decorated it inside and out with stickers and drawings. It went from hours to weeks of fun.

This story from Dahlas has inspired this weeks activity. Kids love making things out of an empty cardboard box. The box provides a way for endless imagination and fun, it is an open canvas.

Activity: Collect old cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes. Hand them over to the kids with some masking tape and instructions to make anything they like.

First image via Dahlas from Brisbane

Second image via iKatbag

Jack and India interacting with The Love You Book at their home in Naremburn, Sydney. Thanks so much to their gorgeous mum Sophie for sending in the photo.

Creativity is a funny thing. Sometimes it needs all kinds of accoutrements to get the juices flowing, and sometimes it is the absence of creative aids that releases kid's potential.

Truth be said, I am a bit of a fan of mixing it up. So sometimes my kids and I go overboard, organizing things like our own master chef challenges, but sometimes it's stimulus cold turkey and we have to create games out of nothing.

A friend of mine goes half way, she gets regular household items and puts them in a box for her kids - things like spoons, colanders and chess pieces - she leaves them with her kids for a week then changes what is in there. Sure as eggs is eggs she always finds her kids have used the items to make up a game or scenario she could never have anticipated. Oddly her kids love it.

Activity: Have a 'fun box' with unexpected items in it. Leave it for a week and see what happens.

Image via Rotherham Children's Project

The Love You Book is now available as an eBook and has just been made book of the week by iTunes. Both Andrew and I are over the moon with this result. We wanted to say a very big thank you to our amazing publishing team at Murdoch Books in Sydney, for all their hard work in making this happen.

Andrew Wynne & Emma Scott

I remember being in year 4, home from school recovering from the chicken pox and bored out of my brains. So I set about turning the family living room into my own little palace. I pulled as many sheets and blankets out of the linen cupboard as I could muster. I grabbed all the pillows from my bed, the pegs from the washing basket, the deck chairs and clothes horse from the laundry and then created the most magnificent castle. The living room was covered from wall to wall with a roof of sheets and blankets, and underneath this lay a maze of tunnels created with the furniture, chairs and clothes horse, all held together by pegs! I made a flag for the highest point of the roof and allocated different hidey-holes for my beloved teddy bears. I was in heaven. And was entertained for hours, playing games in my palace.

Until Dad came home and tried to open the living room door, only to discover that it was jammed shut by a cluster of furniture and linen (my palace wall). I was in lots of trouble for making such a mess, and so my imaginary world quickly disappeared into thin air.

Many studies now conclude that to foster creative minds in children they need to be given the space to be imaginative, and unfortunately sometimes this means making mess.

Activity: Create a space in your home that is allowed to get messy. Put lots of craft material, paper, crayons, dress up clothes in the space and give your children time to be imaginative.

Read: The Importance of Creativity

Image via pinterest

Kids are endlessly interested in their own stories. But all too often we forget the things they said and the things they used to do. We are so busy with the day to day we lose their stories and the joy they get from hearing them.

I remember my daughter Sasha was in tears one day because her sister Chloe stole her imaginary duck. She was devastated. So much so I called Chloe down to give it back. She turned up with a dr evil face stroking the duck that wasn't there. I love telling them the tale as much as they enjoy hearing it.

Activity: So when your kids do something cute, don't trust the moment to your memory; write it down, take a diary note, take a picture, record a voice memo - do it on your phone - then make a point of telling them their own stories.

Image via pinterest

The creative spirit is a delicate thing. It can easily be stifled and wounded. There are things we do (often without even realising it) that can crush the creative spirit we are trying to nurture in our kids. Having too much structure all the time does not allow for the creative process to happen naturally. Sometimes it is just easier and faster to show a child exactly how to do something, or to just do it for them. This doesn’t give them any opportunity for creative exploration.

Activity idea:  Once a week let your kids choose what they would like to wear. 

Image via houseoflovelock

Kids love surprises; giving surprises, receiving surprises and being there when someone gets surprised. So sprinkling a few creative ideas into the minutiae of their daily lives pays back a hundred-fold for the effort that is required.

Some of my favourite little surprises are also the simplest:

Your children are unlikely to remember all the things practical and useful things you do for them every day because it’s all so expected; but they will remember the things that made their lives feel special.

Activity: Leave a surprise for them tonight and see what happens.

Image via www.katiaslunch.com

Have you ever sat around the dinner table, trying to pry out information about how your child's day was? I have, well with my step-daughter anyway. After a long day at school the last thing she wants to do is recap what happened hour by hour. So I have started introducing some simple creative games into meal time to get everyone talking on a different level.

Activity idea: One simple game we play is guess what ingredients were used to create the meal. 

Image via www.urbanmamas.com

Being creative is not just for kids. You may just find that those creative things you love to do, your kids will love too. 

Activity idea: I love collecting little plastic animals. (Yes something I have carried over from my childhood!) I have all sorts of animals sitting on the shelf in my drawing room at home. Each week I choose a different animal to carry around in my handbag. Kids love to discover which animal is having a hand bag ride this week.

I also found someone else that loves to communicate with children through plastic animals. Camilla Fabbri writes little notes to her children from plastic animals around the house. As she mentions, it sure beats having an argument over something stupid. http://cfabbridesigns.com/blog/?p=7738

Ensure you give your children time to use their imagination without any boundaries. It might seem like wasted time to you, however it is a great way to enhance your children's creativity. 

Activity idea: This week I posted a letter to my neighbour's little girl from our cat Billy. Billy likes to visit this little girl but with his last visit he got into a fight with her cat. The letter (written by Billy himself) said that he was very sorry for his bad behaviour, and that he has been baking a cake and would she like to come over for cake and tea. This little girl responded with a letter to Billy. The letter has sparked a whole world of fun and pretend between this little girl and Billy the cat.

Image via www.madaboutcats.com

The Love You Book didn’t start as a book. It started as a simple rhyming game with my kids.

Every night I would go upstairs to say goodnight and I would try to find a cool way to say ‘I love you’. We started doing rhyming couplets and when I had about twenty I realized that I didn’t want the kids to forget the game, or the love. So I wrote them down, and started reading them the poem before bed – and they loved it.

Taking it to the next stage was the bit that turned something everyday into something my kids will have forever. I persuaded my talented friend Emma to illustrate the poem, and when she had finished her work of art I knew others would love it as much as I did.

Not everyone has access to people like Emma, but I think that finding creative ways capture and celebrate your life with your children is about the most rewarding thing you can do.

The key for me was making the effort to take it to the next level – write it down, draw a picture, make a book, create a song - make a memory.

My kids now have a book about my love for them, a book they take to show and tell and that I will read at their weddings. It is the greatest gift I could give them, or myself, because now we have those moments together captured forever.

That’s the power of being creative.

Raff and Dan reading The Love You Book at their home in Shanghai.

The Love You Book welcomes Christos Pettaras into the world.

My sister Clare gave us The Love You Book when our gorgeous girl Penny was born. She loved this book the first time I read it to her, and now we read it to her every night - she loves the pictures and always reaches out to touch the page. Both Brett and I got a tear in our eye the first time we read it to her!!

from Lizzie Fuller, Sydney

Scarlett Affection is sisters Melia & Nerida Naughton. They have been writing songs together since they were youngsters singing into hairbrushes and playing tennis racquet guitars. After completing their musical and dramatic studies, they moved to Bangalow near Byron on the North Coast of NSW and began recording and touring. They have received several grants that have assisted them in touring this big country. They have toured internationally and were invited to perform at Folk festivals in the States and Canada. They are about to launch their new album in February 2012.

They have really enjoyed working on the song for The Love You Book and have been inspired by Emma's gorgeous illustrations and Andrew's lovely words.

Melia and Nerida like collecting tea cups and rickety old chairs. Between them they have 3 dogs, 6 chooks and a horse.

Melia and Nerida have also opened the Scarlett School, a contemporary music school for kids where they work with young songwriters and performers. They are currently part of the ArtStart Young Creatives Mentoring Project, where they are mentoring a young singer songwriter providing direction and support with their ideas and creative practice.

For more information about Scarlett Affection go to www.scarlettaffection.com

Or for information about the Scarlett School click here.