This is my first time participating in Works For Me Wednesday, and it’s a “backwards” edition. That is, instead of me giving you a tip, I’m going to ask a question and hopefully you, dear readers, can offer some advice. And what perfect timing because I have a huge problem with arts & crafts storage. Over the past few months, Jake has really gotten into arts & crafts which thrills me! I’ve also started accumulating a lot of supplies — egg cartons, pipe cleaners, foam stickers, paper, markers, glitter glue, small craft kits, you name it. My current storage solution is… well, less than ideal. Crayons and coloring books are in the cupboard under the fish tank (this way Noah can easily get at them too), and everything else that should be out of Noah’s reach basically gets thrown into a tote bag that I put in the laundry closet. This worked OK for a while, but now the tote bag is just a huge mess of stuff and in order to find anything, the entire bag needs to be dumped out:
Any storage ideas? The hard part is separating out the stuff that I don’t want my two-year-old’s hands on. I’d prefer to use what I already have (though you probably guessed that!), and I have plenty of baskets, plastic “shoebox” containers, etc. But I am open to any and all suggestions!
Hi. Well, here are some ideas I’ve used and seen used over the years….
1. I keep all my stickers in a cookie tin.
2. I have one large tote that I limit my craft supplies too….if I get more that fits in there, it’s time to purge.
3. Cardboard boxes with the lids off work great for different colors and kinds of paper….these stack well on a closet shelf.
4. A flat box or tall tin (like from chocolate sticks) works well to keep pens, pencils, and scissors in.
5. Any old lunch boxes are great for crayons, glues, glitter, and beads.
Hope that helps!
Build a sweet garage like mine with a nice loft just for craft brewing .. um I mean crafts :)!
This idea is doable only if you have space for an extra piece of furniture, but I saw one setup where the family had almost like a chest of drawers near the kitchen/dining room table that was solely for the kids art materials. If I remember correctly I think they’d found an old one and refinished/repainted it.
I wish I had more ideas. All my stuff is crammed into the kitchen cabinets.
Ok, you’ve encouraged me to take a picture of what I’ve done. For the most part it works out well for us. We have a buffet in the kitchen breakfast nook which is now taken over with craft stuff. It works well because the children can access it easily and it’s in the place where they do most of their creating (kitchen table or kid’s table in the kitchen). I do keep paint and glue out of reach of Tristan though. 🙂 I’ll post a picture on Flickr for you tonight!
Do this one night when Drew is home or after the boys are in bed… go through everything you have and make piles of like items… Then put them into the containers you already have and label them… since the containers you have are stackable kind of stuff… you should be able to store it pretty well… but that is how I organized my scrappy stuff and the arts and craft stuff Lore is starting to get now…