Engaging in craft projects with the kids is a great way to spend family time together. It provides parents with an outlet to nurture their child’s creativity and encourage them to get more involved with art.

Having a special place designated for crafting will help channel creativity while making a space special and unique just for this purpose. The dining room table may be a great choice for some families. However, this area is most commonly used for eating and doing homework. Therefore, finding another location to heighten the specialness is justified.

Outdoor studio
Making crafts in the outdoors is a great way to gain inspiration. The patio or deck may provide ideal places for kids and parents to make crafts together. One thing the outdoor studio will need is furniture.

Three things to know before buying patio furniture includes selecting something appropriate for your local weather conditions, choosing the right fabric and purchasing through a quality manufacturer. Since crafting areas tend to get messy, having fabric or materials that are easy to clean is ideal. Also, going through a reputable manufacturer will ensure that you are buying well-made furniture that will last for years to come.

You can also pick up some storage cubbies to keep outdoors that can be used to store all your crafting tools such as paints, glues, and materials. Be sure to keep these storage bins under a canopy or type of overhang protection.

The basement
So long as your basement is finished or partially finished, this could be an ideal place to make a crafting studio. Your children can hang their completed projects on the wall thus feeling a sense of accomplishment. Seeing their artwork will also encourage and inspire them to keep getting creative.

The only challenge in this may be lighting. Some basements don’t have windows and therefore use artificial light that can be tricky for seeing true color in paints. Other basements only have small windows that let in little light. Invest in good lighting for an art studio that showcases the colors of the art but that also makes crafting easy on the eyes.

If you get some natural light coming into your basement consider a non-glare light that blends well with daylight. These options can offer good color rendition and most bulbs are long-lasting.

The garage
If the garage isn’t being used to store the car or “man stuff” it can make for a great arts and crafts studio. By going to a wholesale fabric outlet you can pick up some inexpensive brightly colored fabrics to hang from the walls to add splashes of color to liven the place up.

You can even put drywall up on one wall so the kids will have a place to hang their creations. Another wall could house a chalkboard where your kids can draft blueprints of their projects before getting started.

Get creative to be creative
Finding the right arts and crafts space for your projects will not only allow for better concentration and focus, it will inspire heightened levels of creativity.

By finding a space and making it unique for the sake of art, your family will have a long tradition of making creative projects with the kids for years to come.

Image source: NLM Studio

Are you looking for some new arts and crafts projects for you and your kids?

Why not use your next arts and crafts project to teach your children an important lesson about the environment and going green? Teaching your children green habits is important, and teaching them through arts and crafts is a great way to do it.

Green arts and crafts projects are fun for the whole family, and best of all they are inexpensive because many require recycling products that you use everyday! If you are looking for some fun and environmentally friendly arts and crafts projects for your family, look no further, and check out below to get some ideas!

Bird Feeder
Making a bird feeder out of recycled materials is a great way to show your children how to be green and reduce, reuse, and recycle. It’s very simple to make, and your children can decorate it however they’d like. It will look great in your backyard whether it’s day or night, and your solar spotlights can light it up at night.

All you need is a few simple materials that you probably already have in your house to make the bird feeder. First, take an old plastic bowl that you have laying around and sand down the outside of it. Then, take a hole punch and punch four holes near the top of the bowl so they essentially make a square, and hang yarn or string through the holes. Tie the string at the top, and you’ve got a bird feeder. Have your kids use biodegradable non-toxic paint to decorate the bird feeder, and hang it in your yard (filled with seed of course)!

Pencil Holder
Your kids will love making a recycled pencil holder that they can take to school to show off to all of their friends. Take some old, small milk cartons and wash and dry them. With scissors, cut off the top of the milk cartons so you have a tall, square box. Using wallpaper or construction paper, line the inside and outside by gluing the paper to the carton.

You can let your children pick out the colors of construction paper or wallpaper, and then color them however they’d like. It’s a great way to recycle milk cartons, and it’s a great activity for kids at a birthday party so they have souvenirs.

Leaf Prints
Another great idea for a green arts and crafts projects for you and your children to do is creating leaf prints. Have your kids go outside and collect a few of their favorite leaves, and then spread out some newspaper onto the table or floor. Take a single leaf and flip it to the side so its veins are raised. Then have your child paint the leaf, and press the painted side onto some white paper. Then, all you need to do is flatten the leaf and lift it off to reveal a beautiful print.

You can use the same leaf multiple times, or opt to make a collage with multiple leaves. You can use it as an educational opportunity to teach your children about the different kinds of plants and trees in your backyard!

Image credit: http://thehappyhousewife.com/

Many crafters dream of turning their work into a business but don’t know how to go about it.

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Anyone who’s watched television in recent months will have seen adverts for mechanical painting systems that promise to eliminate dirty paint trays and messy rollers that have to be washed out after use. They are usually promoted as being quick and easy to use with flawless results, enabling even the clumsiest painter to transform a room in a fraction of the expected time.

But do these miracle paint systems really work and are they value for money? We tried a system priced at the lower end of the market and felt rather disappointed, especially as the paint container, which was located inside the roller, flipped open halfway through the job and we ended up with a rather irritating spillage on our kitchen floor!

The roller on this particular system was also disappointing, having a slightly longer pile that would traditionally be more useful for painting artexed ceilings.

Checking out consumer reviews for the more expensive models, it seems that the machines themselves are prone to breaking or malfunctioning after a few uses and there have been complaints that paint coverage is rather thin. Perhaps there isn’t a hi-tech solution to decorating those awkward spaces and ceilings after all, and it’s best to employ traditional methods.

Any professional painter and decorator will tell you that the secret to hassle free decorating is in the preparation. Walls should be washed down so that they are free from dirt and greasy marks, holes should be filled in and rubbed down and skirting boards and window and door frames should be neatly masked with a good quality masking tape to create clean lines and avoid unsightly splashes of excess paint.

Floors also should be protected and light fittings unscrewed so that you’re not painting around them, which delivers an amateur finish.

Investing in some good quality paint brushes is a must. Cheap brushes easily lose their filaments, which can become stuck to the wall and cause excess paint to get onto the ceiling when you’re working on the top border. Some decorators swear by rollers, but the finish is all in the action, as paint is worked in from side to side. Simply rolling up and down won’t offer an even result.

Alternatively, good quality paint pads are easy to use and offer more control. They come in different sizes, and are less likely to cause splashes than over-loaded rollers. They’re also easier to clean under running water and if you invest in reasonable ones, they have plenty of life in them, which makes them an economical choice.

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