Art Supply organization

[Hands&Fire Pottery]

We have a desk, and we have a lot of art supplies. My goal is to have a readily accessible space where DD can help herself to whatever she needs to make her dreams a reality and to bring substance to the inventions she is always coming up with- a safe place where she has enough space to work and can easily clean up after herself. The reality of it is that we have a table that is generally covered with bits of this and that, wrinkled papers, stickers and all sorts of tools that get left all over it. Nothing gets cleaned up unless I do it, and it doesn't ever seem like the materials that are need are easy to find.

Do you have tips of things that work with your art supplies? Would love to see pics or whatever ideas are making things work in your home. (DD is 4 by the way)

We do have a lot of random containers, and I have two caddies that have yet to be put together- not sure if they will be a benefit or just take up more space. The desk doesn't have any drawers, just one kind of narrow shelf that is under it (too narrow to hold paper effectively).

TIA!

[3MonkeysMomma]

I NEED to know this too! We have tried several set ups and nothing has worked well. It drives me crazy bc they are all very interested in creating and WANT their things to stay nice, but they just can't manage to keep the area organized?!

ETA: I have tried a 3 drawer cart, a big bin for everything, individual pencil boxes with "art drawers" to store their papers and boxes, a clear shoe organizer, and can-type pencil holders.

[SaraElise]

We have a 3 drawer cart, paper in the bottom, paint and markers in the middle and scissors, glue, stickers and anything else extra in the top. We keep crayons in 2 old coffee containers that sit on top.

I wish we had a table or something for them to work at, right now it's just the dining room table, so I have to watch a little more carefully. But they are great about picking everything up and putting it back where it goes when they are finished (or when I remind them)

[Hands&Fire Pottery]

DD kind of does "fly by" art... like oh, I need a plane for Wendy... goes over makes one quickly and then takes it back to Wendy (her doll) and continues on her adventure. So it is kind of different than cleaning up after say a playdoh session.

[danner]

We use a highboy chest of drawers (man's dresser). I get the top drawer for gift wrap and the paint, brushes, buttons, pipe cleaners, crayons, sticky and modelling wax, watercolor paper, construction paper, etc. etc. go into the other drawers.

[MomToMyMonkeys]

IKEA. We have a bookshelf of cubes with lots of bins and containers to hold random stuff. It works for us!

Sent from my iPhone