new and improved craft corner

Remember this?

It's now this:

I bought a $20 set of table and 2 chairs at Ikea and painted and applied several coats of polyurethane them before assembly.

This is what it would have looked like if I had not painted it.

Then I used the same wrapping paper covered board to lay on top of it. The table has a little lip on the edge--presumably to keep crayon from escaping. It looks like it would be uncomfortable to write on and the board provides a few more inches of surface area, so I kept it.

My son asked me to draw our family. He had so much fun with them after I cut them out. He moved his little family all over the magnet board (really a metal door which has access to the attic). Who knew a little boy would have so much fun with essentially paper dolls!?

 He helped by drawing on them...then later scribbling out all the faces! :)

 He is getting lots of use out of his craft corner. He mostly draws, but also plays with his felts (that jar on his desk has all the bits of felts that get left over from projects) and other projects.

I got a big ol' roll of paper from Ikea so he has a large surface on which to color. I also picked up the wooden base from which you can pull the paper from, but it takes up too much room on his desk, so I just keep it on the closet. I needed a way to keep the paper from unrolling, so I used my handy dandy tights, turned hair bands, turned paper-unroller.

I learned this trick many years ago: Cut up an old pair of tights or nylons to use as hair bands. You can get a ton of them out of one leg-they are free if you have an old pair with a run in it laying around (and who doesn't?) and they are gentler on your hair. I keep one on my wrist at all times in case I need to break out the pony tail! Try it!

Anyhow, I used 2 of them to secure the paper on the roll. It will not crease like a rubber band and it keeps it nice and rolled up!