The Organized Art Space

Ever since I was a child, I loved tinkering and creating organized art spaces.  I would spend hours color coordinating my crayons in my 1983 Crayola Caddy.  Even many moons ago, when I became an elementary school art teacher, I loved labeling all the classroom art materials and creating an organized, accessible space for my students.  Then I became a parent and entered that mind numbing abyss of just making it through the day.  I was lucky to make dinner and fold a load of laundry, let alone create any sort of organized art space for my own family.  Now that the fog has lifted (my kids are 6.5 and almost 5) I feel capable to create a unique art space and make art making a priority in our home.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to products. I received a free copy of this e-book.  All opinions are my own.

Our Art Space

Are you wondering where to set up a children’s art space in your home?  In our home, I chose to construct a space in our laundry room using a wall adjacent to our kitchen.  Fortunately, I have a glass door that separates the two rooms.  The laundry room acts as a breezeway to the garage (where I have my art studio set up to teach,) and it’s a space that is definitely used often.

 

Initially, I set up this space over a year ago by stenciling a bold pattern on the feature wall tying in the same color paint from our kitchen.  I used repurposed oak for the shelves, a repurposed piece of butcher block with IKEA legs for the table, and my dad finished a piece of pegboard for me.  The chair was a piece I found in my parent’s shed 12 years ago and had spray painted.

The Mess

Unfortunately, when I initially created this art space, I didn’t fully think through how my preschoolers needed to utilize their materials. I wound up storing most of the materials high up on the shelves, and there was nowhere for the kids to store their finished works. Most of their papers wound up piled on top of the table in a huge mess. For an art teacher, this was an embarrassing and stressful sight. Something needed to change!

 

 

The Organization Solution

Enter Megan Schiller, from The Art Pantry who has written a brilliant little e-book called, The New Playroom.  I met Megan through Facebook and I instantly connected with her vision of helping families create art spaces that help children explore materials to work through their ideas.  She graciously sent me a copy of The New Playroom and I fell in love with her simple tips to create an organized art space.  Megan captures the spirit of creativity, exploration, and designing quality art spaces.  There are tips in here that anyone can learn, (even me, an art teacher of 15 years!) She taps into that emotion that any person at any artistic ability level (adult or child) deserves to have an organized place to tinker.

The New Playroom (PDF) Includes:

• 34 pages of step-by-step instructions on how to set up an art space for kids
• Tips on measuring, layout, organizing and more!
• Inspiring photos and stories
• Essential art supply list plus extra goodies
• DIY projects
• Tips on exploring art supplies with kids and keeping them engaged over time
• Additional resources for shopping, design, and art activities
• Free bonus guide (PDF) Invitations To Create: 30 days of easy art prompts

The New Playroom, helped me tweak our unorganized art space.  I was able to sort the most frequently used materials in a way that will be most accessible to my children.  I placed any overflow items such as extra pencils, markers, tape in boxes on the shelves.  I also placed kinetic sand in clear containers on the shelves. If the kids want to use it, they ask and they can play with it outside.  Further, I hung a file/paper holder on the wall to place white paper, black paper, and construction paper.  Smaller sheets of paper are cut and placed in little cups on the table.  The majority of our big art supplies are stored in the garage where I teach my art classes.  Now that I have an organized space in the laundry room, it’s quite easy to refill jars of beads, and other little notions the kids like to use.  I highly recommend The New Playroom to get your art space organized!