The Art Bucket

I am not crafty.  Nor am I artistic.  Those genes all went to my siblings.  I got the hayfever gene.  Where is the justice?

But my seasonal allergies are not the topic of this post.  Instead we will talk about The Art Bucket.  Genetics, being the fickle thing it is, skipped me but hit my kids.  Hard.  They love crafts and creating and doing.  In order to facilitate that I created an art bucket.  Well, to be perfectly honest I created it mostly for that, but also because they kept taking my "teacher supplies" and when we'd go to do a science project or craft I wouldn't have what I needed.  But the first reason sounds nicer, doesn't it?

So, they have a large plastic container with the following items:

1.  Pipe cleaners (aka chenille stems) - these can be used for a bazillion things.  Right now they are using them to make Transformers.  A lot of Transformers.
2.  Pom-poms
3.  Googly eyes
4.  Scissors
5.  Tape
6.  Glue - both white and stick
7.  Felt
8.  Watercolors
9.  Pastels - both chalk and oils
10.  Sequins, jewels and other shiny things
11.  Beads of all shapes and sizes
12.  Popsicle/craft sticks
13.  Toothpicks
14.  Straws
15.  Construction paper
16.  Colored pencils, crayons and markers
17.  Yarn
18.  Craft foam, some sheets, some assorted beads
19.  Stickers - regular and foam

They have free access to this at all times.  The only rules being they have to put all the stuff away when they're done and they need to use a Messy Mat (a large plasticy mat to protect the table).  I have been amazed at the things they have created - bats, owls, adorable cards showing me with enormous googly eyes, robots and the list goes on.  If they run low on something they let me know and we restock.  We also keep our eyes open whenever we're shopping for cool things to add to the bucket.

Now my supplies are safe and they can create whenever the mood strikes instead of waiting for me to haul everything out of the closet.