Image: Lauca and her friends at a painting class
From an email exchange with my brother.
My brother: If the kids make any Xmas decorations this year I would love some for my tree.
Me: Expect a parcel in the mail. Asking if these kids make Xmas decorations is like asking if a bear shits in the woods.
Lauca is an art machine. Or as Bill likes to say: Lauca is like a rabbit, she leaves a trail of art and craft behind her everywhere she goes like a rabbit leaves droppings. I do adore her and her art. Really, I do.
And now, here are some amazing blogs for those of you with arty children. These inspired me to set up a dedicated art space for Lauca in our house. Why fight it any longer, I decided. It has helped us contain the craft droppings and she is a very content little person when she has space out of Cormac’s reach To Do Serious Art. My great moment of insight over the last couple of years has been discovering that you should design the house the way you live, so her art space is right near the kitchen and our computers. If Lauca can hang where we are hanging then she is happy.
And you must check out Filth Wizadry. Probably some of the coolest parents known to humankind.
blue milk 
Best site I’ve found is Crafty Crow: http://belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/
A sort of collective for all those craft bloggers out there
I decided to make an art space for Sage when he was still too tiny to care (or hold a pencil) after a conversation with a mother who hated her child’s passion for art because she always left all her pencils and craft shit everywhere. It used to be tucked away on the wall, but we ended up getting an old table from his preschool which is now “the kid’s table”, where they can leave their stuff and do their art in the middle of the loungeroom. How many of us spend time (and money) getting back in touch with the freedom and creativity that they show so well?
Thanks for the links, I’m off on a happy explore 🙂
Thanks for the links! My 2 year old appears to be going in this direction – can’t get enough of markers and crayons and whatever else he can get his hands on. Also thanks for the tip on moving the art space closer to the other “work”spaces in the home. I think there might be some redecorating in my future.
Thanks for sharing a link to my site! I recently had the same realization about setting the house up to accommodate the way we actually live. It totally allowed me to purge extra furniture and turn my living room into a work space. Maybe having kids around has something to do with this a-ha moment. Cheers.
Now can you help me work out two things:
a) how to keep the kid craft shit in the dedicated space, and how to get a kid to put lids back on the bloody textas so I don’t find open textas on the floor
b) how to keep my craft shit in my dedicated room, and once it’s in my room, how to keep it off the floor, I suspect the answer may be heating the studio
Thanking you in advance, yours & c.
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