Are you a fan of scary stories? Were you as a child? I have always loved a good scary movie session, or monster stories around the campfire. I mean, who doesn’t love those cheesy, goofy spine-tingling tales? It’s not just these though, I mean, I love fantasy movies, mythical movies. Think about movies like Labrynth and Willow (excuse me while I go search for 80s movies on Netflix), and I’m not even talking about newer movies and shows like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, etc. My husband and son do not share my love of scary or mystical movies and stories, but my daughter does and oh my goodness do we have fun during her days off of school and we binge watch some scary movies together! My son and husband do believe in creatures that I don’t believe in though (bigfoot, chupacabra, etc.), so I feel like we are all on the same page here. Yeah, I know they are different, but they are both goofy and campy and I am happy that we can be quirky together!

Thanks to our love of all things quirky, our family has a ton of fun with themed movie nights, craft days, activities and exploring (yes...we have done a bigfoot hunt or two while out in the woods. For the record, our family owns hundreds of acres of timber land...we do our bigfoot hunting there, we don’t travel far and wide searching for sasquatch hehe.

I think because we all share such active imaginations, it makes it easier for us to love and encourage the arts and crafts side of our children’s personalities. We often set aside time for crafts and fun creative activities for the kids during their time off or for the whole family during family days. Sometimes the kids will get out their sketchbooks, sometimes they use packaged clay to design stuff and sometimes I give them fun arts and crafts kits that can can follow along to directions and create a masterpiece, while still being able to personalize it in their own ways. Even my teenager loves these kinds of crafts.

Here are some of my favorites that we have here on Sassafrass:

paint your own wizard - kids will paint this wizard in all sorts of wizardly ways! Wi-zards are among my favorite storyline characters. Some of my favorite movies include Wizard of Oz, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and the Harry Potter movies, so of course I have to highlight this one first. Growing up, my daughter’s favorite TV show was Wizards of Waverly Place, so even as a 13 year old, she has a love for wizards.

paint your own witch - eye of newt and toe of frog are cooked up in this witch’s cauldron! C’mon, every good story has a witch in it, don’t you think? What is your favorite witch story or movie?

paint your own vampire - fortunately, this vampire has already eaten dinner, but he’s ready for painting! Okay, I’m going to admit something to you right here, right now. The Lost Boys is one of my top 5 all time favorite movies. Seriously, it made me love all things vampires. I am an adult now so some of the more recent vampire hits weren’t my thing, but I still enjoy vampire stuff. My daughter is a teenager, but still loves the Hotel Transylvania movies. I mean, cartoon vampires are the best, aren’t they?

Paint your own monster - not all monsters are green! kids will love painting him red, purple and blue, too! This monster looks like Frankenstein, the classic monster, the classic monster movie. Who hasn’t heard “It’s Alive!” and wanted to hop right into watching monster movies?

I know I’ve gone on and on about my love for these these stories, but it’s for a good reason. I absolutely 100% believe that the scary, fantasy and mythical genre of movies and stories are great for building imagination and creativity in children (to a degree of course, I do NOT believe children should watch inappropriate or not-age-appropriate movies). Imagination and creativity, in my opinion are the most important traits for children to have. Without imagination, happiness falls by the wayside and these traits are incredibly important for other traits to thrive as well.