How to Organize Kids Art Supplies

Welcome to another day of my series 15 ways to get organized for less than $15! Today I’m going to show you how to organize child art supplies, to keep them from taking over your house, or in my case, my office.

This Christmas the number one thing my daughter wanted for Christmas was “an art set, with everything art”. To her it seemed like hours and hours of entertainment and creativity, but when my mom got her a HUGE box of art stuff for Christmas, to me it looked like hours and hours of cleaning up messes.

The very next day she pulled out everything in the box and spread it all over the floor in my office and I knew if I didn’t come up with a solution to help her organize all her supplies, that I was going to lose my office.

So I headed out to Big Lots, because they always have a good selection of inexpensive organizing supplies, and I was pleasantly surprised to find everything I needed to organize her stuff. The total was $14.84, who-hoo, less than $15! As a side note, some of the containers I bought were food storage containers so don’t forget to look in that section too! Sometimes you can find even better deals if it’s not labeled as an “organizing” item. 🙂

Because her art stuff has to be kept in my office, and I didn’t want my office to turn into a space that looked like her office, I decided to store her art supplies in something that looked more sophisticated, but was still fun for her. I found this ottoman at TJ Maxx and thought it would be the perfect solution. She sees it as a treasure chest for her art stuff, and I see it as a nice piece of furniture that looks great, and adds additional seating in my office. 🙂 It’s a win-win.

I started by taking all of her art supplies out and putting similar items next to each other. After that I put the items into individual plastic containers, and labeled them so it’s all easy for her to find.

Some items share a plastic box, like her markers and colored pencils, but that’s because I know she usually uses them together. Other items like her stamp set, alphabet stickers and glitter pens, got their own boxes.

I love the way it turned out and I also love that when she opens the ottoman everything is easy to see, so she doesn’t have to take everything out to find one thing (why do kids do that?). I also love that it’s organized so simply so it’s easy for her to put everything back and keep it organized. But most of all I love that I don’t have to see all her art stuff, when she’s not using it, and I know that it’s all very organized.

Do your kids love to do art? How do you keep their art supplies organized and out of your hair?

Join Susan, form Organized 31, tomorrow, she’ll be showing you how to prepare and get organized for next year’s taxes! To start from the beginning and see all the posts, click HERE.