I finally managed to produce a usable art space for the kids. Yippee!! I have had SO many failed attempts at this, but I think I learned from my mistakes. First, the art area has to be
the art space. The
only art space. The place where
all the art and craft supplies are gathered. Otherwise, random acts of art will crop up all over the house. We are trying to avoid this. Second lesson, the old adage" out of sight, out of mind" is so very true when it comes to children. Around this house, we have tons of empty cigar boxes. Just tons. I used them for art supplies. Perfect, huh? Well...no! If the kids can't
see the pastels in the cigar boxes, they will never
ever use them. This time I used small open baskets to hold chalk pastels and oil pastels. The baskets were on sale at Joann's for about $2 each. Sweet deal. I am working on getting together old magazines for them to cut up, but unfortunately we recycled all of our old magazines before we moved.
The shelving is the ones I made for Rudi's now-defunct man cave. The glass blocks were on super-sale (they're normally very expensive, like $6 each and I got them for 75 cents each) and the boards are just plain wood that I stained. I love do-it-yourself!
Also, being located in the kitchen, they have the whole dining room table to work on, and they get to be "near the action". They have plastic mats to work on to protect the table. The floor is easy to sweep of scraps of paper and random art mess, which is a far sight better than having to vacuum the sewing room after one of their little art explosions.
I also created an art gallery for them. There is a huge useless wall in the hallway that I can see through the kitchen window (yes, we have a window
inside our house) that I thought would be an ideal place to display their art. However, letting them loose with pins or tape to hang up their art was not an option. So, I got two spools of 50 cent ribbon and ran them vertically, securing one end close to the ceiling with a push pin, and the other end near the baseboard. They have a jar of clothes pins on their art area, and they just pin their artwork to the ribbon, and I get to look at is while I do dishes for the fifth time in one day. Win-win.
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| Avery trying her hardest to get in the shot! Mission accomplished! Yes, those are pink streaks in her hair! |
The girls have really taken to embroidery, and I am quite impressed with their skill with a needle, and endless patience. Seriously, they have spend hours on end embroidering. Riley, like me, tends to be a little too ambitious when beginning a new hobby (I
hate starting with beginner projects!), but she perseveres!
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| Avery has very good stitch control. Very impressive! |
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| Riley plugged away for hours! |
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| Watercolor time! |
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| Totally pinchable tushie! |
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| Close-up of Riley's almost complete bookmark! |
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| Avery is almost done. I did the middle of both the girls' flowers, at their request. |
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| Avery's flower |
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| Riley's flower |
So, in short, this is what the girls have:
- watercolor paint
- tempera paint
- fabric paint
- basket of fabric scraps
- basket of paper and thread scraps to reuse
- embroidery hoops
- ring of embroidery floss
- needles
- yogurt cups for brush-rinsing water or for pouring out materials (to get that blue bead at the bottom of the jar, for example)
- Jar of pony beads
- jar of perler beads
- peg boards for perler beads
- jar of various shaped pasta
- jar of mixed beans
- jar of yellow split peas
- jar of green split peas
- jar of acorns and acorn tops
- jar of small seashells (we hope to add more "found" nature stuff once the world is no longer covered in 3 feet of snow!)
- oil pastels
- chalk pastels
- basket o' stamps
- 8 stamp pads ($1 each. Score!)
- markers
- colored pencils
- paint brushes
- rag scraps to blot brushes
- jar lids to use as paint pallets or to mete out dry materials like the split peas (Riley's idea!)
- jar of buttons
- 5 corked glass bottles of colored sand...red, yellow, green, pinkish-purple, and blue (not as offensive as glitter!...and much cheaper)
- funnel for colored sand bottles
- various glues
- tape
- 2 plastic craft mats to protect the table cloth
- Ed Emberley drawing books (although Riley lent some to her teacher)
- several books of stickers
- origami paper
- 1/4 sheets of construction paper (they only cut up construction paper, so smaller is better)
- 1/2 sheets of watercolor paper (to cut down on waste. They go through paper like there's no tomorrow!)
- 1/2 sheets of sketching paper
- wide multi-colored tongue depressors
- natural popsicle sticks
- scissors
- permanent markers (yes, permanent. Best for lettering in books and outlining for watercolor illustrations for our budding author/illustrator Riley!)
- aprons that they decorated themselves
- a ribbon to hold art-in-progress
- spool of elastic cord for beading
- jar of clothes pins for displaying art
- and more?...I might be missing something LOL!
Phew, I think that's it!...For now! I can think of a million things I'd like to add to the art space, but alas, funds and space are both very limited. Ah, well, we do the best we can!
