Monday, November 21, 2011

Rhythm In Our Home : Creative Spaces (theirs)

I admit that sharing my girls' craft cabinet may seem a bit odd for a rhythm post but stay with me here. Creating is a huge part of our rhythm, it is something that happens in an organized manner once a day as well as spontaneously several times a day. To facilitate this, we have a few creative spaces around the house.

I thought I would share the girls' main creative space with you today. It is the cabinet which holds our nature table display, located in our dining room. The cabinet itself is actually a kitchen island that was given to us for our home in Louisiana (back when we first got married), but it works perfectly for holding some of the girls things.



The (very shallow) drawers contains just a few items. The one to the left holds our travel crayon roll-up, a basket of popsicle sticks and our special 'family drawing night' sketchbooks.



The drawer to the right contains our bird watching supplies: binoculars, book of North American birds and Oregon specific bird literature.



You'll notice that the main doors have a child safety lock on them. There is a good reason for this. You might remember how my little C likes to view the world as her canvas, well, we found that keeping the crayons locked up helps her with her urges to color the floor, walls, table, fridge, dogs, what have you...K knows how to open it if she wants to get something out and she(for the most part) remembers to lock it back up afterwards.



When you open up the main doors you'll find on the top shelf: our crayon caddy filled with Stockmar beeswax crayons in both block and stick form, a branch pencil holder made by my blog friend Nicola, with twig pencils from Marina, and a tin filled with LYRA colored pencils .



On the shelf below you'll find drawing paper, stamps and stamp pads and a jar of stickers not pictured because we were out when I took these pics.





The door to the left of the main doors opens up to reveal more handwork type crafts. On the top shelf we keep our homemade playdough, fabric and wool scraps, burlap for sewing, embroidery hoops (to hold the burlap while sewing), and a jar with buttons, needles, and embroidery floss.



The bottom shelf hold assorted pom poms and pipe cleaners as well as a bowl of colorful wool yarn and K's knitting tower





And then over to the right hand side of the main doors is more creative goodness.
We keep the girls painting supplies on the top shelf, which include appropriate sized paint brushes, empty paint jars and holders, and painting rags. You'll notice that the watercolor paint itself is not in there. It's kept in the refrigerator to keep it fresh.



The shelf below holds their modeling beeswax, slate boards, travel chalkboard and chalk.





We keep their painting/coloring/creating boards behind one side of the cabinet for easy access, and their smocks hang on the other side.

There you, a tour of one of their creative spaces. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions about anything, don't hesitate to ask!

Please remember - this is just our family rhythm and what works for us at the moment. This isn't meant to be hard and fast rules on how rhythm should go in every one or any one's homes. I just thought to share it because I receive quite a few e-mails asking about our home rhythm, and I also just wanted it documented for myself so that I may remember these times when they are older and/or on to another rhythm.

Thank you, again, for joining me in the rhythm fun! Here is the linky list. If you have a (new or old) link you would like to share about your family rhythm, please enter it below so that we all may see. Then please link back here in your post. I look forward to seeing your inspiration!
Thanks friends!

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Comments (33)

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thanks for sharing this! we just got home today and will be re-doing our creative space soon. i appreciate the inspiration.
Galina Erkamp 's avatar

Galina Erkamp · 697 weeks ago

Hi, maybe a weird question, but do you really need to keep stockmar water paint in the refrigerator? I use stockman too but never heard this before, of knew that i should?

Thank you for your post, it inspires me to get more organized!
Galina
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
Wow, that's the cleanest craft cupboard I've ever seen! Some great ideas must brew in there. Thanks for sharing!
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
Loved peeking into the craft cabinet!! Galina, I've heard (from the Waldorf school where I bought it) that keeping the Stockmar paint in the fridge will keep it fresher. Nicole (or anyone else who knows), I have a question about the paper...I LOVE that it has rounded corners--do you buy it that way or cut it (by hand???) later? Help a novice, please!
Thank you for the post...I'm ready to dig into our art desk and start creating! :)
3 replies · active 647 weeks ago
Question - how do you keep modeling beeswax fresh and usable. I mean ours is sealed up and all... but after playing with it for an hour or so, it;'s all crumbly and in little hard balls and such from becoming so many things. Any tips?
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
Wow, I'm impressed. You are so organized. We just stuff and cram thing here and there. Doesn't work too well.
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
I think it looks lovely! We don't have room for additional furniture to house things in our current home - my sewing machine is stuffed in the last remaining corner of our dining room. I struggle with wanting to clear space on the bookshelves to make room for something like this for my daughter, and with not wanting to give up any more books to do so!
Ahh, you're inspiring me to simply our creating space - thank you!
Hello i'm french, so hope you understand my english! hihihi! it's look like a magic place for kids!
What a delightful setup. Right now we have a "secret" cabinet that was built under our chimney which is stuffed with craft supplies. One question I have is do you keep recyclables for craft projects? That is probably my biggest craft clutter that I need to handle. I am working on my studio which will hold my children's crafts and table as well as my own. Thanks for the ideas.
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
I wondered how your crayon caddy works for you? We keep our crayons in rolls like your travel one but find it cumbersome to maintain at home. What I do like is that the crayons stay clean in it. It seems like crayons in a basket rub on each other and the colors are not pure pretty quickly?
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
Your posts are inspiring. We have a milk-crate in the coat closet for crafts (everything else I've tried turns into a mess of lost crayons and dried-out paint). Our supplies are running low and I've been trying to think of what to get to replace them. I never would've thought of yarn scraps and embroidery hoops! My girls would love that.
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
Wow! Love your cabinet. Is is to clean and tidy. What an inspiration!! Where do you find all your glass jars? Love the lock idea too. My 3 year old son is into everything and would have that torn apart in 2 minutes! :) Thanks for sharing. You have given me lots of ideas!
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
It looks oh so organized! I love these rhythm posts Nicole, they are so inspiring! This definitely gives me the motivation to organize and clean our craft closet right now. I know there are bits of things in there that I'm missing that would be great for a simple project with my Cami. Noah too has the urge to color over many things.
1 reply · active 696 weeks ago
I love the craft cabinet. It gives me a really good idea for my girls, I really like the fact that they can get into parts and not others. Plus the organization is wonderful! Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for sharing and invited your girls to create. This is one area that causes stress as my 5 year old likes to make and draw but the 2.5 year old still puts things in her mouth and draws on anything. Lots of food for thought - I am sure that I will revisit this post many more times
What an awesome cabinet! Your organization looks so inviting and pretty. I'm inspired!
MamaKristie's avatar

MamaKristie · 647 weeks ago

When the girls create something, then what becomes of it? We have piles and collections of creations. Everything is so wonderful, and to them each one is precious and should be saved. I do want them to occasionally think about the end product, but more often than not we craft for the process. Although - Now that knitting is up-&-coming, it is more about the end product. Just curious as to your thoughts on this...
1 reply · active 647 weeks ago
Very inspiring post. Thank you very much for sharing. The way you organized everything looks very beautiful.

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