Tips to Minimize Your Child's Crafting Mess

Crafting with your children can be a fun family bonding experience, but cleaning up the after math can be a nightmare. Kids are not the neatest creatures in the world and often cleaning up their mess falls upon us. Finding ways to minimize their crafting mess can make the whole experience much more enjoyable. Let's face it if we didn't have the anticipation of the mess we would be much more inclined to craft with them more often.

The first thing you should do to minimize the mess when crafting with children is canvas the crafting area. Use a large sheet of roll out paper or newspaper to cover the entire surface that you will be crafting on. That way when the activity is completed you can simply roll up the the paper and toss it out. This also helps to protect the surface from unneeded stains and damage.

When working with items like glitter use containers for pouring. Gather several shallow plastic containers or shoe boxes and have the children use them to shake or pour any glitter related portions of their craft. Additionally, consider using glitter glue, because it is much neater than the loose glitter that usually ends up all over your house and children for weeks to come.

Invest in washable crafting items. Many companies now make washable products, which are great for younger children. Crayola makes markers, crayons and paints that are all washable. These are great, because anything that gets on clothes, walls and furniture cab be easily washed off. Plus, if they get their hands on anything when they are not supposed to you can easily get rid of any childhood graffiti.

Have your children wear smocks. You can either buy plastic smocks or use old button down adult sized shirts. There are benefits to both types of smocks. Plastic smocks are easily wiped down and create a better barrier between clothes and mess. Old shirts cover a larger area of your child's clothes so they protect more, but you do run the risk of some paints soaking through.

The more proactive you are about setting up any easy to clean crafting area, the more likely you will be to want to craft. Cleaning up a huge mess after our children make something can leave us with bad memories and that may make us less likely to allow them to craft often. Creating and making things is part of being a child, so the more that we allow them to craft the better.