The Art barn, a magical place for a backyard summer camp

The art barn is the structure in our yard where we do all things creative. It is accessible from our side yard so you don’t need to come through our home to get there. In the art barn, we have all our crafts, art supplies, a large table that can seat about 12 kids, a mini fridge, a sink, and a television. It does not have a bathroom, however, that’s just right inside the house and is not far away.

Years ago when I had four little kids to entertain all summer long, rather than spend a fortune putting all of them in summer camp, I decided it would be a better route to have other people pay me to entertain their kids, while I was entertaining my own. With this thought, Pacific Breeze Farm was born. And after all, we had the art barn, a large yard with a hobby farm full of animals, gardens that we were already tending to, and fun kid things like the inground trampoline, lawns for the slip and slide and plenty of sports equipment and games.

Pacific Breeze Farm is the name of our summer camp. Here is the Instagram link so you can see all the fun things that we do.

Pacific Breeze Farm Instagram Link

Now that my kids are older, they run the summer camp. We typically have four sessions every summer. They are held Monday through Thursday from 10 AM to 2:30 PM. During this time each day we make an item of food, get to see the animals, play games, do art projects, and every day we make homemade lemonade.

The basis for the camp was bringing back old school home making fun that many kids in our area just weren’t learning. How to make homemade bread, homemade lemonade, how to garden, how to tie-dye, and how to get away from screens, and just have a magical childhood experience.

It was funny to me as my kids would get so excited and ask me "mom, when's camp?" because when I run summer camp I am 100% pure fun mom. I’m not unloading the dishwasher, asking for help doing chores or getting distracted with adulting items. I am all in for them during summer camp. I even would allow the occasional food fight. What mom does that? Well being that summer camp is hosted in the art barn as well as outside in the yard, I wasn’t worried about my kitchen getting messy.

Now, with the four sessions of summer camp being held, my oldest daughters switch off on who gets to run the camp as well as make the money. I am, of course, there each day for the whole session of camp, but I have turned into their sous chef, allowing them to lead the way and learn to be a leader. This is such a fun way for my girls to make money which helps to float them over the course of the year for their spending cash. They learn so many things from doing this. How to make fun, crafts, and food items on a budget. They have learned that if they spend their money on expensive craft supplies, this does eat into their profit. Before camp there’s many trips to the dollar tree and Costco where they have learned that it’s about the experience of making fun things rather than the actual item they are making itself. For example, before every camp session, they buy a 25 pound bag of flour at Costco. With this we are able to make homemade rolls, homemade pizza, homemade pretzels, even things like Play-Doh. The campers get to experience the fun and making dough and my girls have realized this fun doesn’t it, make a massive dent in their budget. It’s a win-win for my daughters, hosting the camp, as well as a win for their campers coming to camp. I mean what kid doesn’t like making homemade pizza with the occasional flour fight. We also make homemade lemonade every day to have a refreshing treat. We have plenty of lemons and the kids all have fun juicing them.

This backyard summer camp has been such a blessing in our life. Not only have my kids formed relationships with other kids and their community that they don’t maybe go to the same school Wes or would otherwise play with us, I have also had a great opportunity to form relationships with the kids in my community and get to know them . It’s so wonderful when I see one of these kids at the store or at the beach or the park and they look over and they smile and wave. I wouldn’t otherwise get the opportunity to get to know these kids. They know me as the one who taught them to garden, baked bread, and just get silly and dance around while making a craft.

For my kids they have also learned tips and tricks as they are getting older on how to take care of a bunch of kids at once. How to entertain how to break up fights of "I wanted to go first" "it’s my turn" and how to get kids excited and feed on positive energy when in the beginning, they might not know the other kids who came to camp

We have had a very successful run over the last nine years of having summer camp. So many kids came for multiple summers and now are graduating high school. And it’s so fun to look back on the photos and see how we got to really know these kiddos and create some fun magical memories and summertime experiences. So, if you have a space even if it’s not an art barn but maybe a space in your yard or your dining room or a cleaned out garage, if you can make a space for a summer camp I would encourage you to do it. It not all me allows you to create fun projects, but you also create a tie to your community in such a fun way while making a bit of money on the side as well.

I might’ve been there, and I do know this.

Xo,

Mama