Organizing Crafts

As you all know I love all things crafty. My house on the other hand does not. We are busting at the seams here in the King household. Paint, glue, markers, glue, clay, colored sand, play dough, markers, tissue paper, pom poms, googly eyes, card board, stamps and stamp pads...the list goes on and on. How can I possibly coral all of the girls craft materials plus mine? Baby steps! I am not at all an organized soul. I actually have to consciously battle my disorganization on a daily basis. I told my new friend Abbie over at Organizing-life that I must be missing the organization gene! I can relate more to the title of Sharon's blog, Mama's A Mess. (By the way: Sharon is hardly a mess!)

The first step was organizing the girls basics. I put together a basket of basic art supplies that we use daily. I had to store them in plain site due to a storage shortage. Plus they had to be high enough Em (my little wrecking ball) can't reach. That is why they are stored in the dining area in between the wine and the wine glasses. Not ideal but that is all I have to work with. The basket is nice because it hides the contents and is easy to take down for craft time and put pack up afterwards.

I placed little plastic baskets which I had and a few Solo cups in to separate the items. I can grab the basket of markers quickly. The square marker pencil holder in the center of the picture holds those annoying "I'm not a marker" markers. You know the random Magic Pen and Color Wonder markers. So annoying when you go to jot something down and you pick up one of those! So those definitely needed their own spot.

I also organized a shelf for the girls coloring, activity & work books. Plus I came up with a solution for organizing the paper. I am addicted to Korean Seasoned Seaweed. Why is that important? Well, the brand I like comes packaged in really nice heavy duty cardboard box. I have been saving them (because that is what we crazy craft addicts do) waiting for a project to pop into my head. Well, here you go...paper storage! I haven't had a chance to cover them in pretty paper yet but here you get the idea. I cut about 2 inches off the top only to make accessing the paper easier. The bottom box has construction paper, the middle white paper and the top activity pages for Lu taken out of the books for her to work on whenever she wants. If you have any great tips you can pass along please do! I can use all the help you can offer!

This is a work in progress. Next up will be the paints & painting supplies.