The inspiration for this little children’s story started when my three youngest girls were small. I loved to sit to the side and just listen to their chatter between themselves in their pretend play. Sometimes I’d join in and we’d make up stories together.
A friend gifted my children a DIY cardboard playhouse that had black and white pattern to follow that had to be coloured in. It turned out to be one of the best gifts that my children ever enjoyed. We put it together bit by bit and over the time period that it took to colour it all in, the kids went through several stages in their interests which progressed and took a few new turns. We had many hours of fun colouring in that playhouse bit by bit.
By the time we had finished with it, we had taken those patterns to a whole new level. I so enjoyed listening to my children talk, dream, and imagine as they coloured and played inside it. I loved watching them express their artistic creativity in all their colourful designs which they spread all over the roof, windows, shutters, walls, and door decorating that cardboard playhouse.
Chatting about all the crazy things we imagined together was amazing fun. It was during those many conversations over crayons, felt tip markers and splashes of paint, laughs and chats together that we imagined our way to our perfect little pretend-car, one that we could paint, do-up, and decorate, just as we had done to our little cardboard playhouse.
We finally settled on a little red round car. Then we’d imagine how we could do-up our favourite car to make it better, prettier, funnier, or just a bit more interesting. We imagined painting ladybug spots all over it! Then, we kept right on imaging all sorts of funny bug cars and patterns.