Kids Craft Supplies

In our home, we craft, color and create every single day.  I'm not exaggerating.  Our kids love to bust out ALL the crafting supplies we have and spread it all over the dining area.  Here's what it looks like all nice, clean and picked up (which is how it is 100% of the time it's not being used for crafting or meals...the kitchen and dining area are off limits to clutter - I'm totally serious on this one, I'm a tad bit of a psycho about this):

Nice and clean!!!  Until about 3:15 this afternoon...

Had to post a pic of my fake grass next to my Pinterest inspired center piece.  I'm confident that warmer weather is on its way...all because of my colorful bouquet and fake grass.  :)

I'm purposely showing you a pic of the cupboard and drawer.  The drawer is the official 'Junk Drawer'.  That needs to be re-assessed and purged...another post for another time.  The cupboard is supposed to be for your formal dining dishes, silverware (like REAL silverware I'm guessing), linens...you get the idea.  Well, in our home, our "casual" dining-ware is also our "formal" dining-ware...it's all one in the same.  So instead, it is now used for:

Craft supplies!  It couldn't be in a more convenient place.  It's right by the kitchen table where all the imagination happens!  Let's break it down:

The cleaning caddy (or college shower caddy...I still have mine and it's purple) turned creative caddy!  Markers, crayons, colored pencils, tape, scissors and Aqua Doodle accessories.  This gets put on the table first.  Easy access for everyone.  I just put a few Dixie cups (um...another college memory) in the caddy and filled them up.

Top shelf has 5 different containers:

• Pipe cleaners take up one.  We use these a lot for school projects for Peanutty.
• Flash cards, mini coloring packs (you can get these in the Target dollar bins - they have crayons, stickers and a little book in them), sticker books, mini note pads and stencils.
• The striped container has Color Wonder markers and Sweet Pickles starter markers (just large scale markers) - there are also two packages of kids tattoo's that we keep on top of this container.
• There is a SnapWare container that has three levels and it has pom-poms (we actually bought these for Peanutty to fill up his trucks with them when he was playing), beads and stickers.
• A HUGE container full of coloring books and notebooks.  Our kids love plain notebooks to make their own story books.  Peanutty especially loves to do this.

On top of the coloring book container is the Aqua Doodle mat.  It folds up nicely and can be stowed away easily.

Next is the bottom shelf:

Here we have some easy access to the crayon and marker towers we have.  *Side note:  The Crayola Pip Squeak marker tower has a wonderful variety of markers, but the tower is junk.  It does NOT stay up.  I complained to the company and in return got a $5 off my next Crayola purchase and ANOTHER junk tower (yay-said in a sarcastic voice) - hey, it's better than nothing.  And the little white bin has some newly acquired IKEA marker stamps.  They are super cute and were only $3.  The kids enjoy these a lot!  Breaking it down:

From top to bottom:

• Sock Monkey stamping kit - normally I'd want to take this out of the box to save space, but in this case it fits and there's no room for another container!
• Air Plane kit.  Peanutty received this as a gift from his Aunt, Uncle and cousin and it's been busted out about a million (OK, about 20 times).  The kids love to make a new airplane and see which one flies the furthest.
• The container is full of paper:  construction paper, white scrap paper, and foam board sheets.
• Under that container is the sticker pads and coloring books that are a larger scale.  

On the other side:

• Dry erase board learning books
• The pink container has: unopened crayons and markers to replenish our currently used stuff when needed.  Play-Doh and some accessories.  Drop cloths - we use old curtains and a cheap plastic table cloth for this purpose - when we play with Play-Doh, one of these gets laid down on the ground for easy clean up.  We just grab it, take it outside and shake it out.  Easy peasy!  There is also extra glue sticks in this container as well!

I used containers we had already to do this cupboard (all of the containers were purchased at Target or Walmart - I do remember getting the caddy after the beginning of the school year for $1.98 - woot!).  I love having clear containers so you can see what's in each one, but of course I labeled each one with Washi tape and my label lover - I mean maker.  I purposely used the hot pink container to hide the Play-Doh and extra crayons and markers...they see Play-Doh and they go nuts!  So, I keep the Play-Doh concealed and bust it out when we need it most...cold days, snow days and rainy days!

So, there you have it!  Our crafting supplies cupboard!  It works for us and the kids can get to it without assistance...which sometimes proves to be a DISASTER!!!  Luckily, they're pretty good about helping clean it all up.

*I will not be proof reading this post...I'm running short on time, so if there are typos or grammatikal (hee, hee) errors, eh (insert shoulder shrug), it happens.  Think of it as a game!