From Screens to Dreams: The Frustrating Moment That Sparked GlueStick
My daughter and I making a paper crown.
The Breaking Point
It was one of those days every working parent dreads. My daughter Greta was home from school, I had back-to-back calls all afternoon, and I'd asked my husband to do something creative with her. We had a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf brimming with art supplies downstairs. Greta loved making things. It should have been simple.
Instead, when I emerged from my last video call, I found a familiar sight: Daddy and daughter on opposite ends of the living room, both absorbed in their individual screens. The art supplies remained untouched. Nothing creative had been done.
Angry didn’t begin to cover it.
The Hard Conversation
In my frustration, I asked my husband one exasperated question: “Why is this so hard for you?” His answer surprised me. He wasn't ignoring my requests. He was overwhelmed. "I don't know where to start," he admitted. "What projects will she like? What skills does she need to practice? What's too hard? Where are the supplies even stored? What is she allowed to use?"
Here was a tech-savvy, highly intelligent, capable parent who felt completely lost when it came to making simple crafts with his child.
The Lightbulb Moment
The Lightbulb Moment
I started asking our friends how they approached this problem. I quickly realized he wasn't alone. Nearly every parent said they wanted to do more creative activities as a family, but it was just too hard to find the time, energy, or budget. Many of our friends told me how exasperating it was to spend hours planning activities only for kids to lose interest after five minutes. They hated how expensive kits were. They hated the fight to get kids to clean up again when they were done.
The more I heard, the more I got excited about trying to solve these challenges for the families I cared about.
Creative inspiration had always come easily to me. I grew up doing homework at the big table in my mom’s craft store, listening in on the classes she taught, surrounded by people excited about the potential of the supplies she sold. I’ve always considered myself crafty, but also loved all things tech. One of the reasons I studied Computer Science in college is that I love the way coding uses technical tools to solve creative problems. As a former Google engineer and product manager at several high-profile startups, I started asking— how could we use technology as a tool to help kids find projects that inspire them instead of just as a convenient distraction? Inspired by apps like Ravelry.com, I got to work building GlueStick in 2024.
A Family Journey
Building GlueStick hasn't been a straight path – we've rebuilt our entire codebase three times to get it right, but along the way it's become more than just an app for our family. My daughter inspires and contributes animation ideas and tests our projects. My husband consults on technical challenges and is beta user number one, and I’m the app’s primary developer while also managing all the business ops.
What started as a solution to one frustrated afternoon has evolved into a platform that helps families everywhere build confidence, creative thinking, and connection through arts and crafts. Through building GlueStick, our own family has practiced all the skills we wanted Greta to learn through crafting – persistence, problem-solving, and the joy of creating together.
Join Our Creative Revolution
Today, GlueStick helps families turn everyday materials into extraordinary moments. Our ad-free platform guides parents and children from setup to cleanup, with features like:
Step-by-step tutorials written at a first grade reading level
AI Supply image recognition that lets you get inspiration with the snap of a photo
Digital rewards like unlockable pet avatars that motivate kids to keep creating
Safe in-app Art Gallery sharing to keep the fridge clutter free
Sustainable project suggestions using materials you already have to prevent an expensive trip to the store
Every feature we add solves a problem that my family has personally experienced in our creative journey. Every supply animation is designed to make me smile, and the unlockable avatars were named and given personality traits by my daughter. GlueStick has been a labor of love that I’m so proud to bring from my family to yours.
I can’t wait to see what your family makes together.
-Abby
Ready to start your family's creative journey? Sign up for a free trial today.
