Sometimes I have to get my Waldorf on (former Waldorfers out there, you know what I mean). I feel the need for some Stockmar decorating beeswax welling up and I must surrender! And does that stuff ever last, I still have a package from my teenagehood. Great for decorating plain candles or making little figures out of. But I digress. The point was … ah yes … Rudi’s kindergarten class’s June show-and-share task was to make a craft and talk about how it was made, giving everyone (read: the teachers, clever creatures!) new ideas for the summer. He doesn’t go to Waldorf, but I insert wonder and beeswax and wool and gnomes and heavy-duty watercolour paper and primary colour exploration as often as possible/necessary into his little life!

I felt a challenge rising in my heart, and it included beeswax and natural materials (mostly). I needed to meet the task with my usual over-do-it, turn it up to 11 attitude, though my 5-year-old-appropriate crafts arsenal is rather lacking. So of course I googled and found a lovely site that I’ve bookmarked for heavy future use, The Crafty Crow, a children’s craft collective, what a fantastic idea, which led me to Small World Land’s Walnut Shell Flotilla. Brilliant. Sorted.

Then I couldn’t find walnuts in the shell, what with them not being in season and all, but eventually I sussed out some extra-organic, vaguely rotton, excessively priced ones at the health food store. I covered my sails in packing tape, the poor (wo)man’s laminating technique, not very Waldorf, ah well. I do secretly yearn for a Laminator, I cannot lie. I used the beeswax to secure the masts. Then Rudi pointed out that we needed a pirate. And yes, I still have mad skills. Behold the wee man, built in the last minutes before bedtime, 3-cornered hat, silver sabre, ah-thank-you. I am feeling smug and awesome, secure in the knowledge that I can still craft it hard when push comes to shove — or show-and-share, as it were.

Note: from my description you may have noted that 5-year-old Rudi didn’t particularly take part in the craft. Ahem. But he could have. He just doesn’t really care to that much. He’s likes watching me and I like crafting. At a 5-year-old’s level. So it works. He cracked a few nuts and jammed the masts into the wax, that counts, right?!

Note also: I should admit that because it too me so long to find walnuts in the shell, Rudi’s scheduled show-and-share day already passed. I made beads with him out of polymer clay — remember Fimo? Yeah, they still make that! So he already showed and shared those. But I’m sending these ships in, show-and-share rules be damned, once I have a craft-bee in my bonnet it’s settled. I am turning into a nightmare parent, I can already see his teachers’ long-suffering faces …