Growing up I remember doing arts and crafty stuff a lot. My mom always made sure we had that stuff just lying around. In fact one of the fondest memories and something I'm so envious of today, now that I'm a mom with my own house to run, was our Art Cupboard. It was gigantic. I live in a house w/ zero storage built in. The cupboards in our old house were built in, and the art cupboard was beautiful. It was probably six feet tall, double doored, and had sliding-out shelving. I can't remember if all the shelves had art stuff, but a lot of them did. You could find just about everything. Ah bliss. Anyways my mother has always had a love of art stuff. She would always find new things to stir up our artistic imagination.
Well none of us are artists. But I'm betting you that if you go into any of my sisters houses you will find an art supplies cabinet, cupboard, dresser, with many many many supplies in it. I know I have 5000 crayons, twenty sets of markers, 5 sets of colored pencils, 10 scissors (regular and textured), umptillion coloring books, glue sticks coming out my wazoo, stickers to beat the band, etc. Its been permanently placed in our DNA.
I'm a dysfunctional drawer, although I can color in the lines as well as anyone, just ask OJ. My older boys always used to ooooh and ahhh over my coloring pages I'd work up with them. I'm famous in our home. That's as good as its gonna get I'm afraid. But growing up this way engrained in me the same want to fill our house with all the art stuff one could want. My mom has helped me out numerous times in the past 10 years filling the gaps, and buying the newest markers, or stickers, etc.
To this day my mom still has a sizeable art-stuff collection. The grandkids can find anything to draw or color with. However, I was lucky enough to be the recepient of a tote full of artsy stuff yesterday. My mom was cleaning out the storage room in her basement. Or she just cleared this tote out so I could take it home. Its a plethora of art supplies. The kids are thrilled, they haven't been doing much else.
OJ's always loved to color, paint, cut, play with the doh, and all other things. But she is reinvigorated with artsiness. The tote contains stamp pads galore, for the wooden stamps she gave OJ last year. So fantastic! They stamped for an hour and a half last night. It also 
contained these giant tablets of watercolor paints. My mom bought them in every hue and a holder that can hold six of these giant tablets at a time. Old-timey clothes pins, I'm assuming for some craft project. Popsicle sticks, premade decorated paper strips used to make paper chains. Glue stick after gluestick, fingerpaints (to be utilized in the spring, and at the picnic table), regular paints from crayola, a pad of colored paper, and booklets on how to make animals and such out of your thumbprints (these are truly adorable, and will be used soon).
contained these giant tablets of watercolor paints. My mom bought them in every hue and a holder that can hold six of these giant tablets at a time. Old-timey clothes pins, I'm assuming for some craft project. Popsicle sticks, premade decorated paper strips used to make paper chains. Glue stick after gluestick, fingerpaints (to be utilized in the spring, and at the picnic table), regular paints from crayola, a pad of colored paper, and booklets on how to make animals and such out of your thumbprints (these are truly adorable, and will be used soon). Wyatt woke up this morning, came running into my room (the kid wakes up running, Jarrod and I giggle about it) and asked to use the stamppads. I had to put him off until 8:30. OJ and Wyatt painted for a long time this morning. We got some great pictures out of the deal. The giant tablet paints are not like regular watercolors, they are more vibrant and deep and OJ made a great rainbow. The colors can be quite stunning.
Needless to say this is a boost to our daily routine. I even found a couple old ratty flannel shirts of the boys to use as smocks. As a general rule OJ is opposed to such shirts, but made an exception when I told her it would save HER clothes from getting ruined. This aspect Wyatt loved, heck he gets to wear his big brothers' shirts.
2 comments:
How fun! I too reminisce about the incredible storage in the house we grew up in. I would die for that kind of storage. The hall closets, the laundry room storage, it was immense. Yes, I have converted my television armoire into art storage for my kids. they too know it as the "art cupboard" and it is over flowing with supplies. I go crazy at back to school time and stock up in a way that is unnecessary. I have hundreds of pencils from a friend's store that went out of business. I always have a keen eye out when shopping for fun supplies we dont already have. I want the paint tablets. *jealous*!!
So glad they're loving it!! Fun to see pictures of the art. And Emily I'd found the last paint tablets online. I think Joe had ordered them too. I'll check.
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