What do you get when you combine burgeoning math skills, family time and a shared enjoyment for making pretty things?

The mother-daughter crafting duo of Dresden's Katrina Willey and her 5-year-old, Jessie.

“When she was little, she'd try to help, but now she's really a big help,” said Willey, 36, a mosaic artist.

The family moved here earlier this year from Arizona, after Willey's husband Neil Willey took a job as head coach of strength and conditioning at Bowdoin College.

Katrina and Jessie Willey manned a table together at last month's craft show at the Wiscasset Community Center. Their colorful items included jewelry, prisms and the elder Willey's mosaics, made from small pieces of glass or tile; some are wall art, others functional art on bureaus and end tables.

Her daughter sometimes has input on colors for the mosaics, but most of the youngster's design work goes into other items. For earrings, the Dresden Elementary School kindergartener will pick beads and put them onto headpins, in patterns she has been learning at school like the alternating AB pattern. Then her mother attaches the pins to the earrings' posts.

The younger Willey said she likes all the beads they use, from the sparkled ones, to the metal ones and the gemstones.

Katrina Willey said her own love of color and art comes from her grandmother, an accomplished watercolor artist.

“She was a wonderful artist, and she kind of taught me and got me hooked,” Willey said.

“It's an honor to carry that legacy into the future,” Willey said. “It was a gift that she gave to me.”

As Willey passes that gift onto her daughter, she said she doesn't know if the interest in making art will continue into adulthood as it did for her. “But if nothing else, it's something that she'll have an understanding of, and she'll have a foundation from this for appreciating art,” Willey said.

Willey can be reached at katrinawertheim@hotmail.com about her mosaics and other works.