Teaching your kids to create beautiful and interesting crafts or helping them finish their school project can be so much fun. However, all the paints, dirty brushes, crayons can make your house look terribly and the worst of all is that the materials, the felt – tip pens as well as the chalks are made of, can cause great difficulty when it comes to cleaning and tidying up the mess once the kids creative session is over.
Every parent wants their kid to keep their workplace as neat as possible but sometimes the kids need some help with preserving their “work station” clean. Take your time and make some preparations, otherwise you might spend several hours in scrubbing and blotting stains. Minimizing the mess is absolutely essential for having proper looking floors, appliances and furniture.
- If the weather conditions allow, let your kids make their crafts outdoors. Cover the garden furniture with an appropriate protector for a complete peace of mind.
- Take care of the floor. Place a rug, you no longer use, over your expensive carpet and even if it get dirty it won’t be necessary to clean it thoroughly.
- Set their place for making crafts. Letting your kids use the glass table or the sofa in the living room to draw, paint or assemble anything is not recommended at all. The reason is simple – they might accidentally damage your furniture. If you have ever experienced cleaning paint from upholstery, you know that it is almost an impossible mission. In case you cannot provide them with a more appropriate place, protect the table by placing a vinyl cloth or a shower curtain over.
- Provide your kids with fancy containers where they can put all their stuff once they are done with the crafts. As a matter of fact, teaching them to clean up after themselves is an important life lesson. The good organizational skills are highly appreciated in every field but let’s concentrate of the current cleaning issues for now. So, in other words, asking your kids to take care of the stuff and put it in the containers can make your life much easier. At least you won’t have to look under the furniture for brushes and chalks and fear that the pet can swallow them.
- What should you do when the clothes your kid was wearing are covered with paint or any other difficult to clean substance? First of all, deal with the stains as soon a soon as you notice them and always put these clothes in the washing machine separately from those that are not damaged.
- Don’t forget to place a box of wet wipes near the crafts area. That’s a really useful trick for dealing with spillages and stubborn stains right away and save yourself all the future troubles. If you don’t have wet wipes around, a towel will also do an excellent job.
- There is no parent who doesn’t realize the importance of making their kids wash their hands regularly. Creating such a habit is extremely beneficial as far as their health is concerned but when making crafts, keeping kids hands as clean as possible is a must. At the end of the day, you don’t want colorful fingerprints on the mirror or the windows, do you?
- Placing a bin near the crafts station is a nice idea as well. Your kids can simply throw the trash into the bin instead of stocking it over the table or scattering it all around the place.
~Guest post from Shanon Gilborg from Deluxe hard floor
