Tuesday, April 13, 2010

For My Little Artists

This is my art cabinet:


Actually, what that is is the cleaned up version of what it normally looks like. A week ago I had enough of paper, pens, markers and glue sticks falling out onto my head every time I opened the doors. I could never find the staple remover, was always trying to scrounge up kid sized scissors and I had no idea where all my dry erase markers had gone. And Husband is the king of sticking random stuff in there (notice the light bulbs.)

So I cleaned it up.

It was better, as you can see above, but not great. I still had stuff behind more stuff and more than once this week I couldn't find a pen or a pencil.

But I can now:





A stroke of genius if I do say so myself; a simple $8 shoe organizer on the inside of the pantry door. The top row is all stuff I don't necessarily want the kids just to be able to access at will, like scissors, Sharpies, ink cartridges and such. And I still have lots of pockets left to fill, or leave empty as I need or don't need. I even have a pocket for those teeny little Nintendo DS game cartridges we seem to easily misplace.

When the kids got home, they shrieked with glee at being able to see their art supplies and so easily choose their tools of creativity. They spent all afternoon coloring and making and gluing...it was awesome. And when they were finished they happily put it all right back where it belonged, ready to do more tomorrow.

Aaaahhh. I love feeling organized. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's the best!

4 comments:

  1. love this! I'm going to have to come up with a similar solution for my "art stash". My door is an accordion-style, but I think one of those flat sock or shoe storage units on a shelf should have the same effect!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love it! I'm using those same shoe holders in my kitchen pantry and in each of the kiddo's closets. They're fab for organizing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have our art stuff in a shoe holder exactly like this, except yours looks so much neater than ours does right now! I think I'm a bit obsessed with them now...I also have one for all of the girls' hair accessories (occasionally organized by color, but more often organized by a 4-yr-old) one in the hall closet has all kinds of random stuff, bathroom stuff in another. I've heard they're great for little toys...cars, dolls, etc. But I'm not that obsessed YET. :)

    ReplyDelete