I let my 2 year old hve her own "ingredients for her cake" whenever I bake
anything - it keeps her busy (mostly measuring and mixing flour, sugar, water
and cinnamon).
I have 3 old, rubber backed rugs (you can get pretty cheap ones at meijers,
target or some other discount store...) and I put them on the floor so that the
edges of the rug butt up about two inches up the three sides of the L shaped
countertop where my little one works (we have a learning tower
<http://www.bareware.net/learningtower.htm> for her to use - I HIGHLY
recommend them if you have anyone ages 2-6 and you bake alot - keeps them on
one place and they can see what you are doing up there and "help" you). Anyway
- the rugs catch everything and I just toss them in the washing machine. HTH!!

sherry