art supply makover

My kids love to draw. All four of them, all the time. And of course, our art supplies need to be sorted and reorganized from time to time because they just get messy when they are not put back properly.


We've been wanting to organize the crayons and colored pencils by color for some time. It just seemed like it would make drawing and coloring easier and more enjoyable. Plus, I am just a pushover for things arranged in rainbow order. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Sometimes I walk into a store where fabric or yarn or paint is arranged on a big wall in rainbow order and it absolutely takes my breath away! So, yes- I am a freak for color.


What we did: purchased 2 Rubbermaid kitchen caddies on the clearance rack at the grocery store, along with one set of small jelly jars and one set of taller ones. We labeled the jars with the handy labels that came with them, and sorted all the pencils and crayons into them. Voila! beautifully organized drawing supplies.


This way, the kids can easily find the exact shade of blue they are looking for, or just check to see what different types of green are there before they choose one to use in their project. The jars are clear, so they can pick it up and easily see even the shorter pencils or broken crayons that might be of use to them. If the jar is too full, we just go through and purge out the ones in really bad shape or those with too many multiples.


And one more great development that came from this sorting project: we got a shiny new pencil sharpener. We used to have an electric one, but that had too many limitations: it only took one size of pencil, it got jammed fairly easily by broken leads, and it ate up the pencils way too fast- which is a major concern when you are talking about decent colored pencils, which are not cheap.


Here is how our broken and dull pencils looked before we got the new sharpener. The kids would just get frustrated because the pencils were so bad and we didn't have a good sharpener.


We went to an office supply store and picked up this all metal pencil sharpener- Old School style- and mounted it in the kitchen on the end of a cabinet where it is out of the way but easily accessible to the kids, as well as nearby where they usually are to draw at the dining room table. My friend Rachel said it made her feel all nostalgic just using it and I agree. We had one mounted on the wall in the basement growing up, and of course used them at school. You just can't beat the super sharp tip you get from this bad boy, and you can go slowly and do just as much as you need without wasting a lot of the pencil in the process. We are very pleased and highly recommend this piece of essential home equipment.


And I just love the fact that my kids get big thrills from super sharp drawing pencils. Sigh.