If you have holiday family gatherings with kids, you most likely need to have crafts or something for the kids to do, so they keep busy during family activities. If your kids enjoy art and you want to motivate them to unplug and help them create - a fun craft room can do the trick. This week we are going to visit one of my favorite places in my house, it's our craft room. I've helped clients organize their kids' craft rooms in the past, and it was fun! It may seem like a lot of work, but it truly pays off when your kids and you share in a creative activity together. Let's begin.
There are so many small items that are in a kids' craft room. Where do you put all the colored pencils, markers, and paper? Let alone the glitter, fabric paint, and craft kits. Art areas need to be well-organized to help the child be able to find what they are looking for and assist the parent in knowing where all the supplies need to go. By keeping it organized, it will help stay focused and be more creative. Now, isn't that better than being in front of a screen? I think so.
Creating a Functional Kids Craft Room
Gather and Sort Craft items
Before we begin, make sure you gather all the crafts from around the house and place them all in the desired kids' craft room. By gathering all these items in one place, it will help you see how much stuff needs to be stored in this room. It will also determine if you need to upgrade some of your bins to larger sizes or maybe even get rid of some half-used crafted items. This room can be a corner of a playroom if you don't have an extra room.
Essential Areas of a Fun Kids Craft Room
First, let's start with the drawing area.
This area should include things like crayons, colored pencils, paints, etc... A fun carousel with lots of compartments is appealing for younger children. Clicking on the products below, you will be directed to Amazon.com, if you choose to buy a product, and at no additional cost to you, I will receive a small commission.
Keep messy craft kits in secure places.
If your kids are younger, you may not want paints and other messy craft kits out for them to reach when you are not there. Using large bins to house craft kits works well. These bins can be stored in a cabinet behind doors or a closet top shelf.
Have a table and some chairs.
It can be small or large but always use an older table and chairs that you don't mind getting paint or stuff on it. The more kids you have, the larger the table, the better. This size table will give them a lot of space to spread out.
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Determine the unit you will use to store the craft supplies
If you use open shelves, store the heavier bins on the bottom shelves. IKEA has some tall open shelves you can use that are affordable. You can interlock them together. Always attach the open shelving and any tall cabinets to the wall with earthquake straps. This will make sure they don't tip over if a kid decides to climb them.
I also found that cubbies work nicely for crafts organizing. Be sure to buy the right size bin when you buy the cabinet. Not all containers will fit inside cubby units. They usually have plastic and fabric bins you can use. Some bins have lids, and others do not. Determine which items you wish to put in them. The fabric bins may not hold heavy items.
Customize your area to your craft projects.
Depending on the crafts your kids do, decide on how you are going to organize many small items you may have for that craft. This is where you get to customize your area. Get enough of these units to hold all the small craft items. Remember, if the things were from another craft project and you don't do the craft any longer, you can get rid of these items. I found that over the years, I didn't get rid of these items, and when my kids reached high school, I realized that it was such a waste of space, so I gave them away.
Now that you have your plan spelled out, below are some additional tips to help you make and keep your kids' craft room organized!
Essential tips for organizing a fun kids' craft room
Use removable plastic drawer units to hold small items. As you may notice in the photo below, this client had purchased several small drawers for smaller items. They worked out nicely because the drawers could come out of the storage unit for use on the table and be able to return quickly to the unit for storing.
Label every bin or drawer unit. Each bin and cabinet should have a label that describes the items inside them. This will help everyone know where things belong. If your children are younger, you can use images that will show them the item inside.
Remove craft tools and return them to the appropriate home and keep the table clear of clutter. Keeping the table clear keeps the room neat and tidy and will allow all the children to use the table for school projects when they are not crafting.
Get your children involved in the designing of their craft room. You will be surprised at the ideas they may have for the area. If your kids like to paint, buy plain wood shelves and have the kids paint and design them in their favorite color. Then, add the decorative craft bins to the shelves.
Here are some additional kids' craft room organizing posts I found online.
15 Creative Craft Room Organization Ideas
12 Amazing Craft Room Organization Ideas
By taking the time and doing the kids craft room now, when you have company and when the kids need something to do, all the items will be where they want to use them. There will be no need to prep the area, nor will you have to gather the items from various parts of the home. This will allow the kids to get creative right when they want to be. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
Now, it's your turn. Please share your best kids' craft room tips. I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below.
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Nancy Haworth
This is such a great collection of tips and storage products for creating a craft room. I especially love your tip about having removable plastic drawers so kids can bring the drawers out to a craft table. Also, I agree on the importance of labeling everything! Thanks for sharing this information!
Linda Samuels
Arts and crafts were always a big part of the activities when our daughters were young. Having bins and places to put the supplies that were easily accessible to the girls was important. And as you mentioned, the items like glitter, paint, and materials that required some supervision were kept out of reach.
We always had the easel set up. Another thing we did was had a fairly large board that could be moved around to be on a table or floor. They could draw or paint on it and not worry about getting "stuff" on it. It created a moveable surface that was great for creating on.
I helped a young mom organized her crafts closet recently. We made the paper, crayons, colored pencils and stickers easy to reach. The stamp pads, ink, glitter, and paint were placed higher up. The freestanding Elfa drawer system worked great inside the craft closet.
Janet Schiesl
You always have the best product ideas for specific areas of a home, thanks. Craft supplies can get so out of hand. It's important to have the right storage for them to make them accessible, easy to use and put away.
Carol Jones, A Jones For Organizing
Ha, great article, Sabrina! My favorite tip was labeling every bin and every cabinet! One drawback of those cube furniture pieces with identical solid color fabric bins, is that without labels on them, it's impossible to know which bin holds which items. Nowadays there are label holders that can clip onto the front of those fabric bins. I also love your idea to have the kids offer design ideas for the space.
Seana Turner
We've always loved crafts in our family. In fact, even though I don't have little ones around anymore, I still have a large closet full of craft supplies, and I pull the out and use them myself. I have to laugh about the "messy crafts." One year I finally decided I was finished with glitter glue, and told my girls that projects using glitter glue were the ones you did in school:)