Solving the Craft Crisis

I once heard Martha Stewart advise an audience member to build a new kitchen when asked how to create more space in one's pantry.

The lady simply stared blankly at ol Martha, presumably while she attempted to comprehend that this talk show host was indeed suggesting adding on to a house in order to create more room.

Obviously building on to one's house does indeed create more room, but the majority of us are not residents of the Hampton's nor do we have unlimited funds that allows for home renovations simply when spaces get tight.

Lately, our craft area has gotten out of control. At the beginning of last summer, I cleaned out a portion of my china cabinet to devote to the children's craft supplies. This worked for awhile, until things started to become untidy and I had to yell, "Catch that crystal glass before it breaks" to Isaac as he attempted to free a box of markers from the jumbled mess.

The craft chaos became so extreme I began dreading requests to do a craft. I *heart* all things involving creating, gluing, and cutting so if I was dreading craft time....the mess was out. of. control.

Finally I decided to move some decorative items out of the way and placed our crafting supplies in the shelves of the cabinet. Each child has their own craft bag, which can easily pulled down when the creative spirit fills their little souls. The red box contains paper while one of the jars holds feathers and the other holds tiny square scraps of paper (when we have scraps left over, I cut the pieces into tiny squares to use for mosaics). Isaac's workbooks sit on top of the red box.

I still keep our larger crafting items inside the china cabinet, however we have been much happier with the new arrangement. It is easy for me to pull down one of the craft bags while cooking dinner to allow someone to watercolor or draw and I never have to fear for the life of my Christmas dishes again.

And, Martha, I managed to do all of this without having to build a craft room off of the kitchen.

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This morning we had quite the time crafting Valentine's cards for those that we love. Evelyn's attention span is still a bit short for a lengthy crafting project, however she sat at the table with Isaac and me the entire time (about an hour and a half...like I said, I love to craft!). She painted, colored, glued, and stuck stickers on all her Valentines and greatly enjoyed herself.

Isaac worked terribly hard on one particular Valentine, putting great thought into his work. In the end, he decided that such a Valentine was so good it was surely meant to be for himself as opposed to giving it away. There is no lack of self-esteem in that little boy.