Kitchen Turned Art Studio

We have two dining room tables in our house.  One has three leaves and can be made VERY small.  When we got our larger table, we used the second table in the foyer to put things like mail and the phone on.  At holidays, we would open it up with the leaves and use it for a buffet table. I wanted a new cabinet to hold toys and games for the kids instead of using the table there.  For my birthday last year I got a really nice cabinet for that spot.  Now what to do with the other table?  We stored it in the basement.  Three months later, Thanksgiving rolled around.  Where were we going to put the food?  Well, when it was completely opened up, it fit in the kitchen by the big window. So the buffet would just be in there.  I decided I would keep it up, full sized, through the holidays to accommodate all of the gatherings we were having.

During this time, I had my nieces over for the day (they are 3 and 4).  So with the three kids (Brooke went somewhere with Daddy), I planned cooking and craft projects and made the table into a square in the kitchen.  This way I would only have one room to clean up.  They did their projects there and ate lunch.  I decided I really liked having it in the kitchen.  So it stayed.  Now I use it all the time.  If I have things to do in the kitchen, cooking or cleaning, Derek and Brooke sit in there and eat or Derek might do a project.  My kitchen has always been the art studio in the house.

Last week, Derek started asking to do projects so I keep a box of "stuff", pom poms, paper, scissors, glue, stickers, crayons, in the kitchen for him to create.  We made doily snowmen and then he found a box that he said looks like windows.  We glued them in the windows and decorated the outside with snowflakes and glitter.  Idea for the snowmen came from here. 

Today I set up the booster seat at the table in there.  This way Brooke can sit up at the table too and I don't have to move the highchair all over the place.  We did a painting project.  I put two squirts of paint in a Ziploc bag and taped it shut.  Brooke's was taped to the table too.  The idea was they would mix the two colors to create a new color.  Fun!

Next, we made play doh.  The other day we left the play doh out and it dried up.  There wasn't that much left anyway so it wasn't a big deal. I was waiting for it to be done so I could make some.  This was the last of the store bought stuff he received as a gift a while ago.  The recipe for the homemade play doh can be found here.  Today we made red and green play doh.  Brooke played with it too.

While they were doing this, I was able to empty the dishwasher, reload it, and reorganize the pantry, which was long overdue. 

Then, before dinner, they had a snack. Derek had carrots and Brooke had peas.  My before dinner snack rule is fruit/veggie only.  Derek was finished so he decided to play a spelling game.