Art! I love that my eldest is at that stage where she wants to create but boy is she messy! I think its so great, but cleaning up after her is a lot. I decided to contain the mess by giving her a dedicated space to do her art…and get this, it is OUTDOORS! We built her an outdoor raised structure with a slide about a year or so ago, so I gave it a makeover and have dubbed it her outdoor art play structure.
Unfortunately, this is a not a full DIY post for this structure. We built this raised structure a couple years ago, before this blog existed. If you have any questions or need more photos of it for inspiration, please let me know! We are working on the roof now so when that is finished, I will add some new pictures.
Do you need a raised structure to create a great outdoor art space for your child? No way! I hope this inspires you to create some sort of creative space for your child, wherever and however that might be. I do think this would be super great on a fence!
Let me take you on a tour of her outdoor art play structure.
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I gave her three stations for different types of art that she enjoys doing. The far left is plexiglass for paint, the middle is a DIY magnetic chalkboard, and the far right is a roll of paper for markers, dot art, and paint as well.
I purchased the plexiglass from Amazon. My husband used his table saw (a circular saw should work as well) to cut it to size. He used a countersink bit when attaching it to the wall so the screws would sit flush.
Below the plexiglass my husband added a shelf with four holes (cut out with a hole saw) to hold the paint cups as well as paint brushes.
The “chalkboard” is actually just a piece of plywood. We painted it first with this magnetic paint (3 coats I believe). Then, we painted it with this chalk paint (probably 2 coats, I did not write it down sorry!). I purchased this neat chalk that has paper on it and is dustless and non-toxic!
Below the chalkboard and paper, we hung string in between each post and tied the string to eyehooks. I have letter magnets and chalk hanging below the chalkboard and markers hanging below the paper.
To hang up the paper roll, my husband took two pieces of a 2×4 and chiseled out each piece at the top, large enough for the dowel to fit.
Behind the paper roll is a piece of plywood attached to the wall to give her a flat surface. As you can see, the structure has horizontal boards that have slight gaps in between so we needed to add something to give her a better surface to work on.
We added three shelves to the right of the paper that can hold extra paint and other supplies, like this paint roller set from IKEA.
On the very far right, we put up this IKEA rack and hung two fun yellow aprons (also from IKEA)!
Now, lets be real. Do I leave all of those supplies out there all the time? Absolutely not! I know my kid. She would destroy it. It is also 100 degrees this summer so the paint wouldn’t do well. I give her a limited amount of supplies at a time.
What do you think!? Does this look like something your kids would enjoy? Please share your kids art spaces with me, I would love to see them!
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