Sleepless in Milwaukee

As the mother of six active kiddos, I cherish my sleep.  And yet, on the odd occasion, I find myself wide awake in the middle of the night, and if I hang out long enough, the Idea Fairy pops in to shmooze a little.  I seldom have the luxury of jotting these insomnia-induced ideas down, for fear of rousing a short person; only the most interesting make it through my eventual slumber and into fruition.

The latest of these ideas is this one: The Cigar Box Shadowbox.  Inspired by the glut of craft goodies clogging up the tiny Haven o' Craft, this project used up a massive crate-full of cigar boxes and freed up some valuable floorspace, to boot.  Furthermore, it created display space for the 6.5 billion "guys," Lego creations, and random bits of stuff that my boys like to show off without cluttering up their (very minimal) existing shelf space.

The procedure was fairly straightforward:  staple topless cigar boxes to a piece of scrap board.  (If you're smarter than I am, you'll make sure you have nice long staples and you won't have to bust out the E6000 to pick up the slack.)  That being done, there's the option of lining the boxes with fabric or scrapbook paper or spray painting the whole shebang.  Personally, I went pillaged a stack of children's encyclopedias I've had languishing around for ages.  I grabbed a few volumes and my newly-unpacked paper cutter and went to town.

 The boys are enjoying loading it up with their bits and bobs, and I'm that much closer to having unpacked the art stuff.  All in all, a good deal for everyone.  (Now, if someone can just tell me how to get them to keep their clean clothes in their drawers and the dirty clothes in the hamper, we'll be in business...)