Storing Art Supplies - Any Good Ideas?

Updated on May 25, 2014
K.C. asks from Irvine, CA
12 answers

My kids have a ton of art supplies and they are terrible about keeping them organized. How do you store your art supplies and what works to actually get the kids to put them in the right places? We have markers, crayons, colored pencils, tons of stamps, lots of glue, several pairs of scissors, etc.

Also, if you have several different kinds of markers (or crayons, or colored pencils), do you keep them in their original packages or do you put them all into one place?

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So What Happened?

Lots of good ideas. Hopefully I can get it all under control. Tomorrow, I have to drop my son at a birthday party in a shopping center that has Michaels, Jo-Ann, Hobby Lobby, Target and Walmart! I can do some crazy shopping. : )

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B..

answers from Dallas on

One of the best places I've found is an over the door clear shoe holder.

With in that, I put the crayons, colored pencils, markers in ziplocks.
Erasers, scissors, stamps, ink, etc. in individual "shoe pouches".

Those shoe holders held different things as they grew including, compasses, stencils, rulers, glues, glitter, note cards, highlighters, perminate markers, the cords to things, random craft stuff, etc, right on through college. Love those things!

1 mom found this helpful

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❤.M.

answers from Los Angeles on

Art supplies are kept in our laundry room.
It's very organized.
I have a few shelves in there & tons of plastic see through boxes (the shoe box size). They are labeled but you can see what's in there.
I keep things as organized as poss: ribbon, felt, paint, brushes, wood pieces etc. Then I take pencil cases ($! ones) & keep crayons in one, markers in another etc.
Stamps/ink pad igo in other clear drawer.
I , also, use those 3 drawer standing things on wheels to store craft items in each drawer.

2 moms found this helpful
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D.D.

answers from Pittsburgh on

For my niece who is very crafty, I bought a craft bin from Michael's (it was in the adult scrapbooking part of the store). It has a bunch of small drawers for things like markers, crayons, beads, etc. Some of the drawers have adjustable dividers. And a bigger one at the bottom for paper. It's original price was $40, but between as sale and a coupon, I got it for $20.

My kids have their stuff in a big wicker picnic basket right now. It looks nice in the living room when everything is put away because it's a nice basket and not a plastic bin. But everything is jumbled inside. Every time they want to color something, they end up dumping the entire basket looking for the particular marker they want. I need to go get another one of those craft bins for my house...

2 moms found this helpful

T.S.

answers from San Francisco on

I organized them the same way they did at preschool: clear plastic bins (shoebox size or smaller) one each for markers, crayons, stamps, beads, paint & brushes, play doh, etc. I kept them in a cabinet near the kitchen table. They could only have out one or two bins at a time, and everything had to be put back before getting out something else.
Just like at school :-)
Oh, and we had a little caddy that had scissors, tape and glue. That stayed on the table most of the time. And paper was on a low shelf they could get to easily.

1 mom found this helpful

S.G.

answers from Grand Forks on

We have a Rubbermaid Storage Cart with drawers for everything.

1 mom found this helpful
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G.T.

answers from Rochester on

It depends on who is putting things away. If the kids are doing it, then one big bin is fine. If I'm doing it, then several bins are used!

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H.W.

answers from Portland on

Well, pencil boxes are a great place to start. You can often buy them for about a dollar each. Have your kids make labels for them (colored pencils, markers) etc. and then, find a cupboard or set of drawers for them.

I have one kiddo and different tiers of accessibility for different levels of activity. Markers, crayons, scissors, pencils... in our house we have large cups for these items (as well as rubber bands, hole punch, fasteners) in a basket we call the 'homework' basket. These items are available for use for homework (because we don't need to spend twenty minutes searching down pencils!) and most art.

In a drawer, he must ask for all contents:
In ziplock bags, I have stickers, feathers, art trimmings, temporary tattoos, etc. These must be asked for. I sometimes will grab the stickers on the way out to a restaurant and also grab a set of markers we keep in a pencil box just for outings. (I have multiples, so like the ease of having a set to grab and go waiting in the drawer) We also have some of the messier items in there like watercolor crayons, pastels, glue bottles, glitter glue, watercolors....

And in a bin, I have 'mom supervised' items, including my sets of watercolor pencils and ink pencils, good Micron pens, a variety of better-quality brushes (I still select his brushes based on what he's using/how he is painting. He doesn't understand that the acrylic paints need a different brush than my watercolors, etc.

We also have a basket of paper for him to use. Another cupboard has crafting items (craft sticks, little interesting bits to build/construct with/colored pipe cleaners, etc.), stamps in a box, and I have several available oilcloth pieces, so I will direct him to get one of those before we start. Playdough is stored separately with a basket of various implements.

What works best for me is to have Kiddo ask for certain items and to ensure he gets them cleaned up before we move on. Kids need a lot of help with doing a good cleanup and getting everything to where it should be. I limit access because I want to limit mess. Anything which is self-serve, he could use on a clipboard with paper... very little mess. Messier items which require a prepared area, he has to ask. This cues me to help direct him to prepare his area and cues me to know I need to stick around, just in case.

And I do keep some marker sets separate. Some, I hold back in storage, along with all the extra tape, glue sticks, etc. Kids tend to use the items better when they have less, in my opinion, so we might test the markers every once in a while and replace the colors which are dry, but leave the other stuff in storage. Multiple kids? You might want to let them have their own sets, or make sure there are duplicates of popular colors. Good luck!

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M.F.

answers from Phoenix on

I bought one of those scrapbooking carts with the multicolored drawers. The small drawers are perfect for separating craft supplies and keeping them organized. When we have so many of one thing that it's busing out of its drawer (like stickers or crayon boxes), we either do something to use them up or give them away.
We have all of our markers in a toolbox my daughter made, but the crayons and other stuff are in their original boxes.

C.M.

answers from Washington DC on

I usually try to keep everything in the original package, but I do keep everything together in a medium sized container with a lid. It just keeps everything together and more organized that way. We do a lot of art here in our house :)

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E.T.

answers from Rochester on

We have several plastic containers to hold art supplies. I also have a couple of the plastic sets of 3 drawers with casters that hold paper, yarns, and other bigger things. All of our crayons, etc are out of the boxes. The plastic containers that baby wipes come in are great for them. Most of our containers came from dollar stores or when Shopko had buy one get one 1/2 off. If you don't mind spending the money, check a craft store like Michaels. They have storage for scrap booking supplies that are great (but can be spendy). You can label drawers or boxes with words or pictures. That might help with things staying in the right spot.

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G.B.

answers from Oklahoma City on

I keep them put up in one of my closets and the kids have to earn them. They colored on the walls a few times and lost that privilege.

I keep all the crayons in one tub, all the markers in one tub, and other stuff in smaller plastic boxes or tubs too.

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M.P.

answers from Portland on

I have one large see through plastic bin in which we keep the art supplies. My 13 yo granddaughter keeps all of hers in one dresser drawer in her room. At my daughter's house they keep all pens, pencil's, markers in a clear plastic shoe box. Other supplies go on a shelf in the cupboard in the dining room.

I've found we need to keep it simple. My daughter and grandkids will not sort the supplies into different boxes. My goal is to keep them in one place.

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