Organizing Children's Art Supplies

I have got a plethora of art supplies at the house.  And they are driving me nuts.  Not to mention the fact that my children would get into the supplies and leave them laying around, or color on the walls or furniture or their friends would get into them.  I needed to stop complaining about this and fix it...

Here is a picture of all of the supplies that I gathered up and decided that I no longer liked my attempts to organize.  Sometimes I get really irritated at how much it costs to buy organizational material so that's why I put it off for awhile until it is driving me so crazy that I have a mini freak out on the kids, my husband, or myself.  So what I decided to do was:

1.)  Looked at what I had that could work for what I needed.  I had this older hutch that I held just little extra kitchen things in that I decided they would fit somewhere else.  I measured the hutch and then I searched for some plastic bins that would fit in it.  I found some at Hobby Lobby for a descent price.

2.)  I went through all of the supplies and I got rid of the things that we no longer used or that I had more of one thing of and then I went ahead and organized the supplies by categories.  You will need to choose categories that fit your needs.  As you can see I picked categories like Ribbon and Yarn, Stickers, Paint...Or you could organize your supplies by child.  Give everyone their own bin and let them take responsibility for their own supplies.  Then I placed them in the bins and into the hutch.  Use this as a guideline of how much supplies you want to have once they don't fit get rid of something.
3.) This has worked really well for us.  Our children know where to go when they want something and they know that it goes back there when they are done and I also showed them how to respect and use their supplies.
4.) Don't forget to Label them!
5.)  Think about what you have and how you can use it to hold supplies.  Or look at a garage sale for an old hutch or shelving and see if you can make it useful for you.  Here are some other ideas that I found online:

• Hanging Shoe Holders
• Put Paper over canned foods jars and place markers, crayons, etc.  Try a magnet and put it on a chalkboard.
• Use coffee cups (we always get a lot of these)
• Use Mason Jars and hang them on a wall or attach it to a desk
• Overhaul your kids closet.  Hand up peg boards and hang up supplies and add shelving and some of the other ideas from above.
• Use an old Book Shelf.
• Containers and pull out drawers labeled on their desk (It's amazing what a label or picture will do)
• Old Metal Filing Cabinet

• This Cabinet Makeover is from a book I just love about using and reusing things you have.  The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule.

Be creative and come up with a solution that fits your space and your families needs!