A crafting area for kids
If you've got kids, you would know it's all too easy for their belongings to quickly take over the house. It can be difficult to corral all the toys, books, dress-ups, art and craft supplies... finding space in the house to store everything can be a real challenge!
Of course, we always want our children to know this home space is as much theirs as it is ours. We made the decision about a year ago to create a dedicated kid's zone in our kitchen/living area, and it was one of the best things we've done. It's definitely the spot in the house the children use the most - whether it be drawing, writing, eating their snacks or listening to music. Here's a look around...
UPDATE: Get your free colourful labels for organising toy and craft collections by clicking on the button below!
This kids' area was built before I started blogging, so unfortunately I don't have pictures of the process. Basically we used the other side of our kitchen bench (sacrificing our bench seating area) to construct a child-size bench, with little buckets to hold their writing tools - pencils, crayons, textas, and magnetic letters. Isn't it cute?
I painted a strip of wood and glued letters (purchased on Etsy) onto it so that my son could practice letter recognition - he's always asking me what certain letters look like so this is a good reference point.
To the right of the table is this hanging wall organiser (which I shared when talking about kids' book storage). It holds paper, colouring and scrap books, stickers and a CD wallet.
These little chairs are from Ikea and are the perfect size for little ones/bums!
To the left of this table (in the kitchen), I have a dedicated cupboard for kids' supplies. The top shelf holds their bowls, plates, cups, lunchboxes, bibs and cloths. The bottom shelf is dedicated to craft supplies, in nice easy reach from their crafting table.
I categorized all the craft items into labelled tubs. Because the containers are clear, my eldest can be in charge of grabbing whatever he wants to play with for the day.
UPDATE: These free labels are the perfect solution for organising craft supplies or toys!
You can see we also have a large roll of paper for art and craft, a mini-whiteboard and the bubble collection. There's a lot packed into this cupboard, but we don't really have anywhere else to store these things and I want the children to be independent enough to grab what they need when they want it. It's definitely helpful and saves a lot of effort to have all the kids' craft supplies in one dedicated area.
Now if I could only find a quick and easy way to pack up painting, I'd be a happy Mama!