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D-Man started 4K! I am so excited for him to be in school he is so ready for it and excited about learning. The organization of our craft table needed some work to be a usable space for his homework. Reusing a 6 pack turned out to be a frugal and simple way to organize his table.
For the past couple years we have had a nice kid’s table and chairs set up in the dinning room. It has been a craft table, snack table and random stuff table. But lately it has become a hot mess of art work from school, coloring books, paper, stamps, glue, crayons, markers, pencils and stickers.
Lately D-Man has been more interested in writing and coloring activities so I wanted to try and give him a better more functional space to develop these skills. I also wanted to keep it easy for Big-C to use since he loves to do everything and anything his big brother does.
I started with a good search session on Pinterest looking at homework stations. There were some great ideas out there. Most were for older kiddos, places that could be truly dedicated to homework, or doing some construction to our home. I was in search of some kind of portable easy to use tool that did not take up much room. My boys are 2 and 4 so at this time we are not needing a true desk/homework space, but more a space for creativity. For my sake a space that can get organized in a hurry, because we all know they will have no trouble getting it messed up in a hurry.
Supplies needed to help get organized
The husband and I had recently finished a 6 pack of Third Shift Amber (try it, it’s a nice beer). I thought this would make a great container for the kids stuff, 6 spots and doesn’t take up much table space. So I assembled my materials and snapped a pic. My first item of business was to reinforce the bottom so the empty beer holder would stop collapsing. Used a little bit of transparent tape along the bottom. I tried not to come up the sides too far or else I didn’t think my homemade Mod Podge would work.
Yep, homemade, I used my old empty Mod Podge container and mixed myself up a new batch using this tutorial. I ended up using 2 containers of glue rather than one, I felt that using only using one was too watery and not adhering as well as I would like. Also of note it is a matte finish not glossy. ( I believe you only have to add some gylcerin to make it a glossy finish).
Second I lined the inner walls with left over adhesive borders I had from my scrap-booking days. You could also use duct tape or glue and paper on the inside. These long strips worked well, I just had to double them up to fit the widths of the openings.
Third I traced and cut out the paper for the different sides and began to slap on the glue. Again I used left over scrap-booking paper. The paper stuck on easily. The handle turned out to be pretty easy too, just a quick trace then fold in half. The end tucked neatly behind the separators in the container. To adhere the paper: spread an even layer of Mod Podge over the sides and place the paper. Flatten out to eliminate any air bubbles and allow to dry. Add another layer of Mod Podge to seal.
Lastly I put some simple line drawings to indentify the contents of the container. I found them on at a great web site that has many freebies for visual schedules and resources for completion of ADL tasks (see my Therapy Thursday posts, to know why this interests me). They didn’t have glue or markers, so I found those on a image search and printed them off.
Back to the recycling bin
I noticed once I stocked the craft organizer that the crayons and glue were a little lower than I wanted. I decided to do a little recycle bin diving and came up with some cardboard from an egg carton to build a mini-lift to hold up the crayons at a more visible height. Seems to work well and was an easy fix. The organization of our craft table was falling into place.
Now my boys have their supplies, that they can keep organized and I will never have to deal with a hot mess craft table……oh if only.
