One of my goals for last weekend was to pick up some plastic storage for the playroom. So on Sunday after spending too long looking on the internet I headed over to Walmart to see what I could find. On their website they had some storage that looked promising and was a lot less expensive then the Land of Nod colorful plastic containers. I ended up buying a couple of different sizes of plastic containers in clear and blue. Of course once I got them home I started thinking about how else I could use them, which led to me reorganizing the kids’ arts and crafts area in the Dining Room and using some of the new storage boxes here. I thought I would give you a quick run down.
Kids Arts & Crafts Storage Area in the Dining Room
This area is used a LOT. My budding artists are always looking for their supplies and I have been working on making them as accessible as possible, while trying to keep them organized.
Kvissle Letter Tray from Ikea, $20
1. Kvissle Letter Tray (Ikea, $20): I bought this a couple of months ago to help store the kids paper and coloring books. I quite like it. The only downside is that the “drawers” pull all the way out. I solved that by having it overlap with the cabinet framing by an inch, which acts as a stop.
2. Scrapbook Paper: I don’t scrapbook (I don’t have the patience) but I do like the paper. When I see cute packs on sale at Michael’s or JoAnn’s I will pick them up. I have a pack that I picked up in June for Sam’s party. I still have a lot left over. Fortunately the paper fit almost perfectly at the back of the cabinet. I just used permanent double stick tape to put it in place. You can’t see but I have a stripe in the same color at the back of the bottom shelf.
Kids Puzzles packaged in baggies: They take up a lot less space now but are easy to find
3. Sterlite Latch Box (1.55 Gallon $3.75): I like the size of these containers (11.5″x15″x 3.25″). They will fit a piece of paper and are shallow enough not to loose stuff. They also fit well in the Expedit shelves. So far I have used 2 of them. One for puzzles and one for smaller arts and crafts supplies. I heard rumors that Walmart is discontinuing this model (of course now that I found something I like). So I am considering picking up some more. I really like how the handles keep the box snapped in place. They also stack well and are designed to stack with the smaller sizes. I also picked up some that are 1/4 this size (so 4 fit nicely on top).
Cork Liner, Home Depot $9.95 for 18″x48″ piece
4. Cork Bottom/Liner: I had some leftover cork from a project a few years ago. It had started to dry out and crack so I wasn’t sure if it was going to be useable, but after removing the gross 1970s wallpaper that was covering the bottom of this shelf I decided that cork would be perfect here. The bottom was pretty gross and I was going to either have to do a lot of prep to paint it or just clean it and glue down some cork. Fortunately the old cork adhered pretty well and the cracks mostly disappeared once it was glued in place. I need to buy some more for the top shelf, but fortunately it is quite reasonably priced.
Drawing Bucket from the $1 section at Target
5. Miscellaneous Open Storage: I also have a mix of plastic open storage buckets and boxes. Most of these came from the $1 store or target. These red buckets that store the kids everyday coloring and drawing stuff is a favorite. They are good about pulling these out and putting them back when they are done.
We also have other arts and crafts supplies stored up high (where little fingers can’t reach)that are only for when they are supervised (including markers, paints, specialty paper and stickers).
Does anyone else have good storage ideas for the kids arts and crafts stuff?
