How to Organize Your Child's Craft Supplies

If there is one thing that kids like to do it’s crafting. Globs of glue, blobs of paint, scissors, scraps of paper, and googly eyes can quickly take over your living space and make organizing your kids craft time a total nightmare. Crafts are fun and a very important part of childhood. You may after all have a little budding artist on your hands. So how do you keep all those fun little goodies organized and ready to use for the next crafting party? Check out these tips on How to Organize Your Child’s Craft Supplies to keep everything neat and tidy.

How to Organize Your Child’s Craft Supplies

Find a space to keep your crafts. Whether it’s a dresser, cabinet, shelving unit, or a drawer or two, you need to have a designated area to organize your kids’ craft supplies that should be easy to get to and have plenty of space to keep it tidy and clean. An area that is easily reached by your children will also aid in letting them help with cleaning up and organizing after their crafting adventure.

Gather all your supplies and group them into categories. Depending on the age of your children you will have very different supplies for them to use, but once you have them all gathered together you should be able to put them into groups. At our home we have them grouped in the following categories:

Paint and painting supplies
Paper
Embellishments: This includes googly eyes, pipe cleaners, yarn, felt and so on.
Glue: All types of glue and tapes are included here.
Reuseables: We keep tons of toilet paper rolls, tin cans, egg cartons and milk jugs.

The list of items that we have goes on and on, but I think once you get your supplies gathered up you will come up with a system to put them into some sort of category list. Now it’s time for some creative thinking.

Keep your categories neat and tidy. Once you have them all gathered together you can begin to find ways to organize them and keep them that way. Here are a few items that we use in our house:

Shoe Organizer: The ones that hang on the back of a door work wonders for children that are a little older. Shoe organizers can be found fairly cheep and can be found with clear plastic that makes finding items very easy for your child. These work well in organizing paints and paint brushes, glue sticks and markers, and small craft supplies like puff balls and pop-cycle sticks. They can be kept on the back of a door in your crafting room, on the back of your child’s door or in a pantry.
Toilet Paper Rolls: This may sound silly but if you save up your toilet paper rolls and glue them together with the opening upright you can use this to store and organize many little items. This can be set up in and drawer and very helpful in keeping all you child’s smaller craft supplies or pens and pencils all neat and tidy.
Magazine Holders: These are very handy at keeping your paperwork organized and can be found fairly cheap if you grab the cardboard ones. I have often found these at garage sales and local thrift stores.
Clear Plastic Containers– If you have a spare cabinet or two that you are using for your art supplies clear plastic containers can work well at keeping everything in its own space. Keeping them clear can make everything easier to find and they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes for all your stack-able storing needs. Labeling with words or pictures can also help you find what is located inside a little easier if the cabinet is dark and hard to see inside the bins.
Buckets and Carry-Caddies– These work great for sitting on a desk and for moving art supplies that are often used from table to table. Especially when it comes to art supplies that kids use on a daily basis like pens and markers.

So now that you have your art supplies neat and organized, I figured I would give you a few tips on keeping them that way!

Designate a drying station for your child’s artwork. Stringing yarn on a back porch or unused wall space can help keep your dining room table clean and free of paperwork. Use cloths pins to hang the artwork on the yarn as it is drying.

Pick up and put away all artwork after your child is finished with their masterpiece. Depending on their age enlist their help in cleaning and putting everything back in its spot. You might want to implement a sticker system to help encourage them to pick up their messes. When they do a good job at cleaning up they can pick a sticker or small prize. A little positive encouragement is always helpful.

Always wash out paint brushes and wipe off paint jars and tubes immediately after use. It will be much easier to clean them off right away instead of waiting until the paint is caked on.

Use a shower curtain or plastic tablecloth to cover work surfaces. This will make clean up easier.

Keep baby wipes nearby. They make cleaning up small spills easy.

Once a week do a quick tidy up of your art supplies. This will keep things neat and tidy and prevent them from getting out of control.