It’s a joy for any parent to see their child involved in a craft, busy cutting and pasting and creating works of art. But the ensuing mess isn’t as pleasant! The worst part is when you don’t have a proper home for all your craft supplies, resulting in everything being dumped into one big basket or box. This way, the next time your kids need to craft something, they need to dig through all the contents of the box just to find two matching sizes of googly eyes, which kind of takes the fun out of crafting!!

So obviously, the solution is organizing your child’s craft supplies. But you need something kid-friendly and practical, a system that can be maintained. A wall with a whole lot of shelves featuring custom painted jars and boxes may look good on Pinterest, but may not work so well in real life!! So here we have

15 Practical Ways to Organize Kids’ Craft Supplies

1. Salt and Pepper Shakers for Glitter

Glitter is probably the messiest among all craft supplies, especially where kids are concerned! Apartment Therapy has an excellent idea of storing glitter in glass salt and pepper shakers so the colors are visible from outside. Next time, just spread glue, and shake the shaker over it – clean fingers!

2. Hanging organizers

Hanging organizers with transparent pockets are widely used for organization, but they’re perfect for craft supplies! Glue tubes, crayons, paint bottles, scissors – all find their own individual slots and are easy to access any time. Idea via Hello Little One

3. Spice Rack

Who knew you could repurpose a spice rack for craft supplies? Motherhood on a Dime features a spice rack where the bottles hold little items like pom pom balls, googly eyes and buttons. Make sure it’s a rack the kids can use without difficulty.

4. Clear Containers 

Here’s another idea from Motherhood on a Dime – clear plastic shoe boxes. These are pretty much available everywhere and are inexpensive and are usually stackable. These are great to corral items like pipe cleaners, markers, sticker packets and foam cutouts. What’s more, the lids help to keep the dust out of everything.

5. Tackle Box 

Googly eyes come in all sizes and it can be a pain digging out two matching eyes (unless you’re making an alien or a minion!!) Kinder Craze has this awesome idea of using a tackle box to sort the googly eyes according to size, in a way that’s easily accessible to little fingers! You can also use a plastic sewing kit with compartments for this.

6. Magazine Holders

Storing flat items like felt sheets, foam sheets and colored or patterned paper can be a challenge since they can’t be folded or stuffed. Popsugar gives us a solution – magazine holders! You can get one for each category and make it easy for kids to take what they need.

7. Mason Jars

We’re back to mason jars! Clean Mama shows us how it’s really easy to use mason jars to store all kinds of art supplies and how good they look when arranged together on a shelf! You don’t even need to paint them, unless, of course you wish to!

8. Recycled Food Jars

It’s not just mason jars that can be used to organize craft supplies, any jar will do!! Pickle jars, sauce jars, jam jars – anything can be washed and dried and repurposed into storage for buttons, beads and what not. Idea via M. Cotton

9. Ribbon organizer

Ribbons are always a problem for us; they get tangled and look limp once we untangle them from each other. Hello Lucky gives us a great idea to contain the mess; shoe boxes with holes punched in them for the ribbon to come out! This way, your kid can just pull the length of ribbon required, cut it and go!! The ribbons are covered and kept dust free.

10. Shower Caddy

This idea is from Better Homes & Gardens and is a great repurposing solution. If you don’t have too many supplies, this will work great to hold some paper, a few small jars, glue, scissors and basic essentials. Also makes a great gift wrap station.

11. Plastic Drawers

A set of plastic drawers can be really useful especially if you live in a small space. It’s inexpensive, mobile, and at a level kids can access. Acasarella shows how these can be used to store various craft supplies with a proper labelling system.

12. Tic Tac boxes

Now this is a unique way to store narrow ribbons and laces. Think Drops features Tic Tac boxes which can hold and dispense narrow ribbon in a very nice way! And they occupy so little space, you can fit many containers in one little box.

13. Pill Boxes

We’ve already shown how tackle boxes make such good organizers, but what about really tiny things like sequins and jewels? Better Homes & Gardens has the solution: pill boxes!! Sort your sequins by color or shape into each compartment and stick one on the outside so your kid knows which one to open.

14. Letter Trays

Here’s another solution for those paper and foam sheets – an old fashioned letter tray. These aren’t as popular in the digital age as before, but they are perfect for flat craft supplies! You can also use it to store kids’ drawings! Idea via Musings from a Stay at Home Mom

15. Trash Cans

We’ve talked about organizing the small, medium and itsy bitsy things. But what about the big rolls of chart and other patterned paper? Throw them in the trash can!! Chez Larrson repurposes a trash can by attaching wheels and making it the ideal storage place for large rolls of paper. How smart is that?

These tips should cover most of the craft supplies that kids generally use, and you won’t even need all of them! Choose the ones that apply the most to your needs and the available space and make crafting even more fun with organization!