Our Kraft Kitchen is the place we can get wild with arts, crafts, and science experiments without worrying about making a mess! I have been obsessed in stocking it so we’ll have all supplies ready for almost any art or craft. The “Kraft Kitchen” is a previously unused basement kitchen with no windows, and previously the walls were bare white, and we didn’t have any reason to use the room. Finally in August, I decided to make this place as sunny and cheerful as I could. A warm yellow is intellectually stimulating, great for learning, and yellow is also cheerful and “sunny”, perfect for a basement room. The far blue wall is inlaid in the wall a bit, so when you’re in the room, it almost feels like it is a huge window, open to blue skies!
Here’s the view entering the room. It makes sense to have a craft room in a kitchen, we can get as messy as we want, and a cleanup sink has been extremely handy. The table and chair is from Lakeshore Learning. The table will “grow” with Satori, as the legs are adjustable. It has a much smoother writing/drawing surface than the adjustable height white tables you can find everywhere lately. The chair is just Satori’s size and is very sturdy.
Now let’s explore the individual areas of the room. In the far right corner is the sink area. On the countertop is:
- Rhinestones/Gems/Beads/Googly Eyes
- Brads/Fasteners/Clothespins
- Markers/3-d glue markers
- Paper Towel and a reusable cloth for cleanups
Sink Area
Above the sink area are cupboards. The Left Cupboard holds “crafty” things. Starting from top shelf going down, we have:
- Tissue Paper – some bleeding, some not, in both warm and cool colors
- Colored Sand
- Do-a-Dot markers
- Stampers of all sorts and stamp pads
- Miscellaneous office supplies
- Glitter Glue, loose glitter
- Felt sheets
- Stickers, including the colorful alphabet stickers I used to label stuff in the room
- Foam sheets and stickers
Right Cupboard
Moving on to the Left Cupboard, we have:
- Paper Bags of all sizes, including brown and some white
- Mom and child craft gloves
- Goggles
- White Cake Circles for crafts
- Sprayers/Funnels/Filters
- Food Coloring/Gelatin/Toothpicks
- Coffee filters
- Nails/screws/hammer
- Colored pasta noodles
- Aluminum foil, Wax/Parchment paper
- Containers of paint brushes
- Paint bowls
- Styrofoam square plates for who knows what (I got these wholesale, so have thousands)
- Cups and Paper plates/bowls
Left Cupboard
Under the sink is all of our paints and clay/sculpting stuff. Also those sticks of bendy colorful plastic. And the usual kitchen stuff like garbage bags. I save toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, newspapers to use for crafts.
Under Sink
On the far wall of the room we have one of the blue sky “windows”. I got the Alphabet set free off HomeschoolShare.com. I printed them off on cardstock, traced them with a bright marker, and then laminated them to put up on the wall. They’re put up with velcro, so we can always take them down and play with them if we want. Below that is an “Inspiration Wire” to hold Satori’s drawings and art work.
Far Wall
Sitting face-out on our sunny ledge are the Art and Craft books. Propped up on the far left is our Draw Write Now books, Artistic Pursuits curriculum and more. Also handy is a green container with all our glue, I quickly realized we use a lot of glue when making crafts!
Far Wall
Under this counter are a bunch of drawers, you can see the colorful alphabet stickers I used to label the drawers with a one-word description. There is a paper puncher drawer, a “Stick” drawer with tape, magnetic tape, velcro, fun-tac and other sticky items, a pen/scissor drawer, and the big area that holds all our paper and file folders. UPDATE: These got very full, so I’ve since moved some stuff to a rolling cart. Now all our Beads, Chenille Stems, and Pom-poms each have their own drawer.
Cupboards
Then a large drawer holds our “Soft” stuff, like pom-poms, yarn, chenille stems of various widths including bumpy type, feathers…
Soft Drawer
Our “Hard” drawer holds wooden craft sticks and shapes.
Hard Drawer
This is our Map Wall. You’ll also notice a large cutter sitting on the counter, this saves tons of time! The ledge here will showcase any small crafts.
Map Wall
A view of the other side of the room, including our desk areas. A large whiteboard, the rolling utensil drawer, paper cutters… Here’s a better look at the adjustable table that will grow with Satori. The surface is a no-glare, wipe-clean laminate tabletop. If you like it, be sure to check with your local store, we got ours for 40% off, as it was an in-store used one! I am hoping to score another one soon.
Above my desk is the latest addition to the Kraft Kitchen. I really wanted something to store the dozens of ribbons I’ve had from my old online baby sling business when we used to wrap gifts. I knew I wasn’t talented enough to make my own ribbon holder, so finally I used a coupon and got this Craft Embellishment Center for $40. (It seems hard to find online, but Michaels had it in stock.)
Finally, a place to display some of the ribbons! I honestly am thinking of getting a second one to store more ribbon, glitter, paints…
These Martha Stewart glitters called out to me from the shelves…
Here’s our handy rolling cart that holds our drawing utensils. Colors, Markers, Crayons, Oil Pastels, Watercolors… We also recycle whenever we can, so there’s a recycle container tucked away under my desk.
Crayon/Marker/Paint Cart
We have a plastic rolling cart under my desk to store all sizes of zip bags. From my past business, I have bags of all sizes and weights, from 2×3 2 mil to 12×15 4 mil, and so on. I use these to organize stuff all the time, and the occasional game/craft idea.
Bags of all kinds
Not shown, but on top of the fridge is a container that holds all kinds of paper, heavy cardstock of all colors for the printer.
With various art curriculums ready such as Artistic Pursuits, Harmony Fine Arts, Meet the Masters and various art/craft books lined up, Satori should be making “masterpieces” in no time!
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