Art Supply Organization

Blockette LOVES to draw.  Consequently, she has a nice stash of art supplies.  Previously we were containing them in these stackable bins.

They worked well for a while.  Then she had so many pencils and markers that every time you tried to find a particular marker, twelve would fall out.  The bins were over full, so they never ever got stacked.  So much for a space saving storage unit.

Then I saw this post from Curbly where they took an old shoe box and filled it with empty toilet paper tubes.  I mentioned this idea to Blockette and she thought it was awesome.

It took us a long time to collect up enough tubes.  Luckily, I discovered that for the shoe box I was using, I could get three sections out of one paper towel card board tube.  Every Wed when I helped out in the kitchen at church, I'd snag the empty paper towel rolls.

Finally, this weekend we had enough rolls to fill the box.

Here's what our new storage unit looks like:

 Blockette and I decided that the box would work best if the supplies were arranged in color groupings.  I love how you can find what you are looking for right away.

This box now holds all her pens, mechanical pencils, smencils, regular pencils, the gem topped fancy pencils she got from my uncle, colored pencils, twisty crayons, markers, paint brushes, popsicle sticks and scissors.

 And look:

Empty spaces!  That means she has room to grow and we won't be scrambling to find a new storage solution in 6 months.  Hooray!

She still has her crayons and art supplies of similar height in one bin.  They were too short for the cardboard rolls.  Blockette uses her crayons much less than she does her colored pencils.  Besides, as you can see by the first picture, even with all the random coloring utensils, the bin isn't too full to rummage through.

I did find this link for a different kind of art caddy using rolls of varying heights over at Instructables.  It reminds me a lot of the Advent Calendar I made for Blockette over the winter. I may make a version like that for her if she gets too many short supplies; for now the cardboard box is working great for us.

The funny thing is that I can't tell if Blockette likes the organization better than the shoe box itself.  She has taken it upon herself to decorate the outside of the box.  Even our organization has to be fancy I guess.  Such is the life of a superstar artist.