Spooky Halloween Art Center Add Ons

I love, love, love art for kids. Probably because when kids create they aren’t worried about how the end product will look, they aren’t caught up in the perfection adults often strive for. It’s pure, fun and all about exploring materials. That is why our art center covers what was meant to be a dining room.

Now that Halloween decorations are starting to show up everywhere, our art center got a little make over. Oooohhhhhhhh, spooky!

Spooky Halloween Art Center Add Ons

• Green, orange, white and black beads.
• Wooden beads, marbles, corks and clothes pins that have been taken apart. (The clothes pins were Big M’s idea, not sure why he took them apart, but I bet they’ll end up making something neat!)
• Dyed noodles, feathers and foam pieces.
• Googly eyes, straw and yarn.

Collecting art center materials.
(I don’t spend much money on their art center… here’s why.) 

• I’m not picky. If a friend offers me a box of craft supplies, old toys… um junk, I always say yes. I’ll deal with getting rid of what I can’t use in order to score some great unique materials for FREE!
• Trash equals art. We have a joke at house. “Is this art or trash?” Hubs always asks before he heads out to the trash can. Save plastic containers, lids, corks, jars, fabric scraps, toilet rolls, etc. etc. etc.
• Yard sales and thrift stores are great places to find odds and ends. Think about each piece in a kit individually. Could the board or pieces for a old game make interesting art materials?

Storing and displaying art materials.

The reason you have yet to see pictures of our art center is that albeit AWESOME it’s not well… pretty. I’m no designer and I don’t care if the stickers are still on the plastic bins. Although I’m shocked Hubs hasn’t ripped them off. 😉 While this system has it’s flaws it works for us. So I’ll do a little show and tell.

• Plastic containers with lids hold the materials that are not out for use. M and M are not supposed to get into the bins without asking.
• Keeping the Halloween stuff together, the Christmas stuff together, the magnetic stuff together helps me grab what I need easily.

• A drawer dedicated to recycled materials holds all of the small stuff.
• There is a box for larger items like egg cartons, cardboard boxes, old tissue boxes and milk jugs.
• I have found the neatest ways to display the art materials by paying attention to packages. We use the packaging from Christmas ornaments and veggie platters that were headed to the trash at a party.  I even found this great box that has 4 equal spaces. It’s perfect for craft sticks, stickers, pictures and pipe cleaners!

An art center providing materials with exploration in mind is a great start to raising kids that are creative thinkers.

What is your favorite Halloween art material?

This post originally appeared Oct 2, 2012. You might be interested to know that our art center looks exactly the same except now that the kids are older they are allowed to take from the plastic containers anytime.