a creative space {new bookshelf and table}.

Recently Audrey has really picked up coloring. Like, sit down for a good thirty minutes and focus on a page coloring in each bow, foot, kitty, she can find. She also loves to paint, do play-dough, and she can put a 24 piece puzzle together in five minutes flat by herself. Especially if its a princess one. Anyway, all of her art supplies and puzzles used to be in a closest that she had a hard time opening the door (it's old and gets stuck) and it was dark in there, so we always had to help her. I wanted to create a space where she could openly and freely get out crayons, markers, paper, stickers, puzzles. [Yeah, she is two and the possibility of her writing on the couch with a marker is a high risk. We set boundaries. And she breaks them and she learns. That's life. We are okay with that.]

So, when we took a big trip to Ikea, Mother's Day weekend, we picked up a bookshelf. Which was sort of a big deal, because I very rarely buy any pieces of new furniture, it is usually vintage and from a thrift store or garage sale. I not only wanted a place to store art supplies, I wanted to get our DVD's out where they have been stored away in a cute, but inconvenient place so we never watched them. I wanted to get my books out too, again, stored away in a cute, but never used place.

purchased the print here

I'm happy with the over-all function of our new bookshelf. It's not complete, I still have an empty shelf and I need to arrange our books and magazines better. The fabric came from Ikea as well, I like the kookiness of it, wolves, deer, birds, yes please.  I just hemmed up the sides and added a curtain rod to hang it. Behind the curtain is all the puzzles and art supplies.

Then, just a couple of feet away from the shelf is a small white table and two stools for Audrey (and one day, Naomi) to create, also purchased from Ikea.

There you have it, a little creative space for the kiddos. That I often take advantage of as well. I can make a pretty darn good snake, butterfly, even Dora out of play-dough. And don't get me started on my mad coloring skills.