Nurture Your Kids’ Creativity & Independence With an Art Box

a guest writer — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:00:08 +0000

Photo by Amanda

Amanda writes at Kiddio, where she writes about fun projects, ideas to bring the creative spirit into your home, links to neat stuff on the web, and ways to make daily life with your children more enjoyable.

I admit it. I have an art supply habit. Pink marker gone missing? I’ll happily pick up a new box on our next trip out. Can’t find the safety scissors? Ditto. With two creative children and an infant, my addiction was indulged more and more, until my mother reminded me of my art box.

I was the youngest (by quite a bit) of three, and spent a lot of time sitting around at my brothers’ sporting events, scout meetings and the like. Thanks to my mother, though, I was always recognizable by my orange tackle box filled with bits and bobs that were guaranteed to keep me busy for several hours.

Since stocking an art box for my own children, we’ve managed to significantly pare down our art supply budget (since things just don’t get lost any longer), and the children are able to easily pull out the box, make what they like, then – get this – clean it up independently. They tote it outside (where it occasionally gets left in the rain, but is no worse for wear), on road trips, and to nice restaurants where they’re, much as I was, occupied for hours making books, boxes, collages, writing letters to their friends, and whatever else they imagine.

I picked up our box from Let’s Explore, but you can use a tackle box as my mother did for me, or a specialized art bin from the craft or art supply store. In outfitting it, think about what your kids like to do.

Ours always contains some basic supplies:

scissors
tape
glue stick
crayons (I like Crayola Twistables – lots of colors, they don’t break, and don’t melt)
small pad of construction paper
small pad of drawing paper
stickers (we like colored hole reinforcements and gold stars)
unlined index cards or squares of cardstock
small ziptop bag of collage-able sequins, buttons, paper scraps, pompoms, feather bits, etc.
small ziptop bag for collecting trash

Depending on the kids’ interests and ability levels, these other items are rotated in and out:

stamps and a stamp pad
glitter glue pens (more reliable and less messy than glitter)
small ziptop bag of plastic beads and precut lengths of elastic cord
squares of craft foam
spool of lanyard lacing
small ball of yarn
bottle of white glue
paperclips (they make great axles for tiny cars or clip-on earring bases)
chenille stems
mini stapler
hole punch

These items are used in ways that I would never have expected (for better or for worse) and the children do a lovely job of caring for what they have, since it is so easy to manage and organize.

What are your children’s favorite art supplies? Do you keep them in an accessible location or does it work better for your family to pull them out for specific times?

CURRENT SPONSORS:

Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

Nurture Your Kids’ Creativity & Independence With an Art Box is a post from Simple Mom

© 2008-2012 Simple Living Media, LLC | All rights reserved - This feed is provided for the convenience of Simple Mom subscribers. Any reproduction of the content within this feed is strictly prohibited. If you are reading this content elsewhere, please contact hello@simplemom.net to let us know. Thanks.

Another Non-Scrapbook Project with Scrapbook Paper

Tsh — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:47:19 +0000

I guess all this scrapbook paper my mother-in-law brought with her has gotten me inspired again. Here’s my latest art project:

The colors are more muted in real life. The orange isn’t so orange, and the robin’s egg blue and chocolate brown really complement our room’s colors. Oh, and the splotches aren’t accidental – that’s the way the paper is, and that’s how I like it.

I completely, 100% got this idea from the wonderful Heidi at Mt. Hope Chronicles. She’s so crafty – I love everything she does. Go spend time at her blog. Here’s hers:

It’s better than mine.

I was going to write a how-to tutorial on this, but it’s too easy. I simply cut out circles (using a cereal bowl as the template) and glued them on. They’re all the same size, and they’re all (mostly) evenly spaced on the canvas.

Frugal, original, easy artwork to fill an otherwise blank wall in the master bedroom. Check.

A few hours exercising my creative juice and refreshing my bones. Check.

I have so much scrapbook paper, I may have to do one of these for each room in our place.

Works for me!

CURRENT SPONSORS:

Plan to Eat - meal planning made simple.
The Justice Conference - Justice hangs by a thread.
Lil' Soak - Sewing hope with handmade goods.
Treed - A simple, flexible, effective project planning tool.

Another Non-Scrapbook Project with Scrapbook Paper is a post from Simple Mom

Simple Mom » art

Nurture Your Kids’ Creativity & Independence With an Art Box

Ours always contains some basic supplies:

Another Non-Scrapbook Project with Scrapbook Paper