Nowhere to craft but HERE (how the kids craft in the diningroom SUCCESSFULLY)

Several rooms in my home MUST function in more than one way. Previously, I blogged about my craft space or "crafting behind the couch," where I shared how I took a small wall in my livingroom and created a functional craft space clearly separated from the livingroom. Today I will show you where my kids get to craft. Our home only has one family room/livingroom area, one small dining area, and just enough bedrooms for us all to sleep. We do not have a playroom or spare room anywhere in our house to do crafts or play. My solution was to use all the wall space in the home for shelves, shelves, shelves. In the dining room I put a buffet/kitchen island/sideboard/"whatever its called" in between the kitchen counter and our dishes hutch. Originally this was used to store junk, random rags and dishes, and knick knacks. I really wasn't using it well, and at the time I had my kids crafts in huge boxes under my desk. It was difficult to get to, to keep organized, and to clean up, so I never wanted to get the crafts out even though Emily LIVES to craft. This random storage thing would end becoming the PERFECT craft station for my kids. The drawers are large enough to hold cups of organized smaller items such as beads and pom pom balls. The dual layer of shelves allows me to store all the paper, paints, and awkward shaped crafty items in organized, labeled boxes. And the top, well that holds all the many, many books and kits and projects we could ever dream of having out. It is SO much easier for Emily to get to all her projects with them out on display, rather than digging them out of boxes and bags. All her educational books, Girl Scouts projects, American Girl projects, and activity books fit. Ashlyn's legoes, leapster, and other toddler aged toys that I want kept out of her reach also fit well up there.

This is the craft center, which fits well between the dish hutch and the kitchen counter.

The drawers are spacious enough to allow me to organize to fit my needs.

I found these yellow cups at Ikea. They are just the right height for the drawers and are used to sort pom poms and other small multi-use crafty items.

This spinning organizer from Michaels Craft Store ended up being the perfect addition to our craft center, making it very easy to transfer to the diningroom table for the kids to use, and it holds all their markers, colored pencils, scissors, paint brushes, and crayons. The crayons are on a collapsing Crayola tower which fits on top of this storage unit perfectly! Under the crayons is where we keep the glue.

I also display the kids art on the wall above their craft area using Ikea curtain wire.

A closeup of the craft center.

The craft center storage unit, the storage boxes, and the the curtain wire (for displaying art) are all products from Ikea.

The white spinning storage unit and the storage unit with 4 shelves on top of the craft center are both from Michaels Craft Store.