Ikea Art Cart...

Our playroom was once littered with art supplies. I love that my kids like to create but finding broken crayons and glue without tops was driving me crazy. Every couple days, I would have the kids round up all the supplies and put them back in their place in the playroom. Just hours after cleaning, I would walk in and find art supplies everywhere. I realized it wasn't really the older kids who were creating the mess - its the monster one year old we have running around that seems to make messes wherever goes. The only way to solve the problem was to remove the art supplies but make them very accessible.

Introducing the Ikea art cart that resides in my office closet.


I purchased a cart on wheels from Ikea. This allows the cart to be mobile and can travel to and from the playroom when needed.

Also from Ikea I purchased two sets of white magazine holders. These hold the coloring books, workbooks and clipboards. The clipboards were purchased for another project that I never completed and the kids kept sneaking them to color on. They are a staple on the art cart.


The bottom two layers are filled with quart-sized canning jars. Hallie meticulously sorted out all the supplies and organized them into different jars. Crayons, colored pencils, twistable pencils, twistable crayons, pencils and pens, scissors, markers, glue sticks, glue, whiteboard markers...and more. Everything they need for a art project or school assignment. Sometimes, they don't need the whole cart and they leave it in the closet and take the jars they need. Hallie will take a jar to her room to color and return it later.

It's been over 6 months and the supplies have remained relatively organized. There have been a few casualties including when the cart was left in the playroom by accident and a certain toddler dumped out the jars. But the kids have been great about making sure it gets put away since then.

The best part is anytime they're looking for a supply - they know exactly where to look. It's also easy to see what we're running low on - which doesn't happen to be gluesticks, we've got two jars full!