Cooking Up Kids Crafts

Every parent and caregiver knows the simultaneous joy and horror of proudly watching their child make a masterpiece only to find dried glue stuck to the carpet hours later and crayons still scattered all over the floor. Here at GlueStick, we are passionate about empowering kids to unleash their creative potential while keeping the chaos under control. Drawing inspiration from restaurant kitchens, we have cooked up some strategies to streamline your family crafting routine. We imagine every child as the chef of their own creative restaurant, where every project has an easy-to-follow recipe, is executed with flair and confidence, and then tidied up together. From setting up a dedicated crafting space to ensuring all supplies are in place, we will show you how approaching projects the way chefs think about recipes can help the whole family make more projects, and memories, together.

Cooking, like making, gets messy! Chefs know how important it is to keep their workspaces clean and organized. A clean restaurant is a safe restaurant, ensuring that no one gets sick from eating the food or hurt while chopping. Most restaurants have kitchens dedicated to making the food away from the space where people eat it. Similarly, to make sure that your child can create what they want, when they want, designate a specific space to serve as your child's creative kitchen. The best creative spaces for kids feature sturdy surfaces that withstand markers and paints, are easy to clean, and conveniently located near supply storage. When not making, try to avoid using the creative space as a dumping ground for other stuff. Having to clean before you can get started stifles creativity faster than finger paint finds its way onto walls.

Set expectations with children that cleaning up and maintaining their creative space is part of making. Budget enough time to put away supplies and wipe their surface clean before moving on to the next activity. The GlueStick app motivates kids to keep their space tidy by generating a cleanup list at the end of every project. When the kids help clean up, caregivers have more time to balance everything else in their day and support even more making.

Have you ever tried to order a sandwich from a taco truck? Chances are you will be disappointed with the results because a taco truck usually does not have bread. Restaurants prevent disappointing customers by only putting items on the menu that they have all the ingredients for. Kids get similarly disappointed and may give up on creative time if they do not have all the supplies they need. GlueStick helps families keep a digital record of all the craft supplies they have on hand and tells you at a glance if you have got all the items needed for a given project. The app also suggests potential alternatives if you are running low on paper plates or your black marker is running dry. This helps kids narrow the infinite project space down to just the great ideas that they can make right now without waiting for a trip to the store.

Busy chefs know how important it is to mise en place their ingredients — that is a fancy way of saying gathering and prepping all the supplies they need before they start cooking. In a restaurant, this may mean chopping lots of vegetables and making sure that oil, salt, and pepper are close to the stove.

When making with kids, mise en place may involve finding our crayons and markers, gathering enough paper, and setting the glue bottle and scissors close to our workspace. Having everything ready at the start of a project keeps kids engaged with the project because no one has to pause to go searching for a paper clip halfway through. This is especially important for our tiniest makers who have short attention spans and may wander off to do something else while a parent hunts for the glue sticks.

Mise en place requires effort, but it is a task that can be easily shared. Some busy kitchens have sous chefs dedicated just to this kind of prep. When making with kids, mise en place should not be just the work of caregivers — even very young children can help gather supplies. GlueStick makes it easy to engage children in setup by providing setup checklists for every project in our app. We will even read it out loud for the littles who are not ready to read on their own.

If you have ever watched a cooking competition, you know how seriously chefs treat their knives and other cooking tools. Knives especially need to be cleaned and sharpened carefully so that chefs can chop as quickly and safely as possible. When done using them, chefs put their knives back in exactly the same place so they know just where to find them when needed.

Taking care of kids craft supplies and tools is also important to creative success. No one wants to paint with a crusty paint brush or cut with gummed up scissors. GlueStick's project cleanup checklist includes helpful guides for taking care of common craft supplies. If you tell us where you store the supplies in your home, we can even remind your child exactly where they belong.

Treating creative time like a well-organized restaurant can make the crafting experience more fun and successful for both kids and caregivers. With GlueStick's innovative approach and supportive tools, your family can embark on a journey of endless creativity, from idea generation to cleanup.