chaos or creativity?

This may look like chaos, but it's actually creativity at work.  Being stuck inside on these long winter days means we have a lot of time to make something out of nothing - or more accurately, something out of the variety of odds and ends in our craft cupboard.  Tonight the item of inspiration was an egg carton.  I haven't had a lot of time to work on my own projects lately, so most of my creating is relegated to these mid-winter's night craft times with my kids.  Frequent craft times are super easy at our house due to my recent reorganization of the kids' craft supplies.  We used to have all our supplies stuffed into various hard-to-reach draws, but a few months ago I decided that in order to inspire their creativity, I needed to make their craft supplies more accessible to them.  This conviction consequently came at the same time I decided to stop using plastic containers for food storage.  A mountain of unorganized craft supplies plus two dozen empty plastic food containers equals a newly organized craft supply cupboard at kids' eye level.  Yippee!  Organization and repurposed containers that don't end up in a landfill - you can't get much more exciting than that.  (Well, you probably could, but I live a pretty dull life - so that's about as exciting as it gets around here!)

I think that an organized supply closet fosters creativity in adults as well as kids, so whether you have kids or you are a crafter/sewer yourself, I highly recommend finding a way to organize your own supply area.  Perhaps you have a plethora of plastic food containers that need to repurposed and given new life.  

Now back to our egg-carton creations...both girls spent about an hour cutting, coloring and gluing, and they came up with the most unique creations I've seen in a long time.  I think you'll agree.  Check out (from left to right) the three balloons with a caterpillar on the ground, a baby snowgirl, a big sister snowgirl and various foam sticker creations.   Craft on!