Create a Summer Craft Center for your Kids or Yourself

Keep your kids inspired this summer with a craft room, aka the kitchen table and some shelves brimming with supplies. Fill some shelves with baskets and shoeboxes containing basic art studio supplies plus recyclables, craft supplies (like fun foam, stickers, Play-Doh®, etc.), and fabric scraps. The kids provided the imagination.

If you've got kids at home this summer (your own, your grandkids, etc.), I recommend this list of starter supplies.

• Basic art supplies like white glue, paint, paper, tape, and beads
• Cardboard boxes
• Duct tape (a variety of colors and patterns), painter's tape, electrical tape
• Corks, lids, chopsticks, spools, jars, empty toilet paper rolls, and other recyclables
• Craft sticks
• Fiberfill
• Fabric scraps and sewing supplies
• Wire and beads from the dollar store
• Socks (old ones or socks that have lost their mate to the laundry monster)
• Wood glue and Mod Podge® (plus heavy gel medium or a glue gun—used with supervision—to mount found objects like shells and rocks)
• Ink and stamps
• Paints and cardboard stock paper
• Old buttons
• Beading string
• Discarded jewelry parts
• Old watch parts

Why not hang a clothesline in your craft room and display summer artwork there? At the end of the summer, you can have the kids frame select pieces and mount them on the wall.

Come the end of August when you ask yourself, “Where did the summer go?” you'll be able to point to your kids' artistic treasures and say, “There.”