Misselthwaite Manor's secret

In our basement we have an "extra" room, which is bliss. It has always wanted to be an art/craft/school room, but it served more as a closet for the past year or so. 

We finally whipped it into shape, and now I don't know what I'd ever do without it! 

I just want to sit in there and create stuff all day long. So does Emmy. And Jonah. And Claire. 

And Caleb! Half of the room (well... ok, that was the idea... but now it's more like an eighth of the room, he he) is his for his fly tying table. It's cool. 

 Our schoolbook work still takes place upstairs at the kitchen table, because that seems to work better in the mornings. I can help the kids and load the dishwasher at the same time, so what's not to love about that?
All other projects take place down here, in our art room.

Emmy's currently working up quite the concoction. There is a student art exhibit coming up at the Kimball Art Center in Park City, where she goes to a monthly homeschool art class, and the center invited the home schoolers to enter artwork this year. She took it to heart, and schemed on this project for weeks before starting it. 

I told her that if she wanted to enter this in the exhibit, she'd need to create her project on her own, be her own idea. Trust me, that was no deterrent. 

We're reading The Secret Garden for the third time right now, and she's making a model of the garden. Cardboard walls and everything!

She's been giving me craft supply lists, which I've mostly been able to comply with. Pipe cleaners and felt? I can do that. 

I did intervene when she plugged in the glue gun. I don't think I'm quite ready to hand that responsibility over to her yet. I like her hands scar-free. But aren't these trees cute? She cracks me up.

Jonah is usually in on the action too. Mostly it involves him running in with a pirate hat on and "chopping" Emmy with a foam sword, then running back out... but that's involvement, right?

Claire, on the other hand, has taken a liking to Murals. Full wall marker murals.

We all have our ways of expressing ourselves.