$0 Art center

When yesterday began, I had high hopes to clean my floors and scrub out the shower.  Then something interesting happened.  My sweet boy decided that he wanted to eat breakfast at his sister's little green table, so he hauled it from her room into the dining room.  So what?  It sparked the inspiration bug in me.  Do I dare ignore this creative prompting?  Not a chance.

The wheels started turning.  Hmmm...That table is too cute to be shoved in the corner of a bedroom, and it would be nice to have a spot where they could color.  The art supplies had been previously stored in a plastic tote and buried at the bottom of the pantry.  It was messy and inconvenient to get it out, so there has not been much art happening at casa Alloway lately. 

 The next thing I knew, I was emptying the art bin, and trying to find cool containers to put everything in.  It turns out, I have plenty of extra pails, jars and vases.

And if you promise not to tell my kids, I did manage to weed out quite a few coloring books etc. and snuck it all out to the garbage can.  Sneaky mom.

Here is a good view of the chaos.  It is always a disaster before it gets organized.  The spot to the right of the french doors is where it ended up.

I pulled this little shelf out of my entryway.  I thought it was cute there but it really was serving no storage purpose and was just in the way so over it came to the new art dept.

 I knew I needed something tall to hang on the wall next to the shelf, and I had the perfect frame in my stash to make a chalkboard out of.  Who knew I would have the perfect green spray paint out in my stash?  Love it!  A few trips out to the garage later, and voila,a chalkboard was born.  (Side note-before I knew it someone had colored on it with an orange crayon!!!  Darn kids) 

I brought this pillow home from the shop the other day and it ended up being the perfect little prop.

 Working with the "using what you have" philosophy, I filled a cookie jar, a vase, and two little pails with crayons, markers, and play-doh.  I like being able to see everything that is inside them rather than digging for gold down at the bottom of a tote. I have a couple jars I want to bring home from the store to replace some of those, but for now these work.   

 I made sure that there was no glass within Reese's reach.  She can't hurt anything on the lower shelves.  Which was a bonus until she climbed on to the top of the table. 

Here is the sweet boy enjoying the new setup.  Elmer's glue is all he wants to use out of all of those fun art supplies.  I am thinking it may have been smart not to make the glue visible.  That stuff is washable right???

I wish the pictures showed how cute this really is but just use your imagination and pretend these are fancy schmancy pics you see on other blogs ok?  Have a fabulous day, and thanks for reading!