Day 5: Crafty Chaos

Recently my daughters joined a group of kids making Artist Trading Cards weekly. It's a really fun and quick project for our girls to do all the time.

Today was my turn to host. That meant the kids were all at my house. Today's theme was paint.

If one isn't organized, this can be a minor disaster.

Someone else had snack duty, so I didn't have to worry about that, but the paint, paintbrushes, tables, drop cloths, etc. were all my job. I began with the table and tablecloth leftover from my son's birthday party. As a matter of fact, just about everything I put out that wasn't paint and brushes was leftovers from his party. We used leftover paper cups for water to wash out brushes and leftover napkins for wiping hands and brushes. It was really nice to use all that stuff. We weren't likely to throw another Cars 2 party, so there was not another use for them.

Having everything out before the kids arrived wasn't really an option...or as it turned out, a good idea. It was nice to have everything ready to put out, but not actually out yet so the kids were listening to the instructions before starting.

Just because I happened to have a spare inexpensive canvas sitting around, I thought I'd throw in an extra project for the kids to do for a break from the usual 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch papers. I set up an easel with the canvas and all the kids painted a bit on the single canvas. It was fun to see it come together.

Another thing I did that really worked out well was having a small TV for the little kids in another room besides where they were painting for the younger kids when they got bored of crafts. I put on short movies so they could come back and work again when they wanted to instead of being glued to the TV.

Having all the supplies ready is a given, but having a place for the kids to clean up after themselves can sometimes be forgotten. As I took out everything while giving the kids instructions, I showed them where everything went when they were done so that they didn't have to be told again and again when they were done. All anyone had to say was "time to clean up!" and everyone knew just what to do.

My house is not very big. There were 8 kids here from ages 5 to 10 plus 4 parents. It didn't feel overcrowded, but there still wasn't much space. It could have easily gone crazy, though, without a touch of organization.