6 Practical Ways to Organize and Store Kids Craft Supplies

Looking for simple and practical ways to organize kid craft supplies? With two young budding artists at home, I have some great tips & 6 practical product recommendations to help get a kids craft cabinet or closet quickly organized!

Tip 1: First, Declutter

The first step of any organizing project is to do some quick decluttering and remove items no longer used. It doesn’t require a lot of materials for kids to be creative.. Try to let go of craft items your kids have outgrown and donate these items to a local school or many charities such as the Teachers Recycling Center in St. Louis also accept craft donations.

Tip 2: Make crafts accessible

The second step when organizing kid craft supplies is to decide where to store supplies. I recommend keeping supplies as close to the crafting/art table as possible. This may mean you need to add a storage cabinet or amoire to a kitchen area or dedicate a kitchen cabinet to crafts. Making kids craft storage super accessible helps foster independence and ignites creativity.

Tip 3: Keep it easy

When storing kids craft supplies I recommend using clear bins that have handles to make things easy for kids to carry over to a crafting area. When organizing kids art supplies I recommend grouping similarly used items together (i.e. all paint supplies) and using broad categories for your labels versus micro-organizing with lots of different bins. Broad categories also fosters creativity (i.e. Building supplies with clay, popsicle sticks, straws, pipe cleaners). Overall keep items they use frequently accessible on lower shelves and store “messier” items you want to supervise like paint up higher on a shelf.

What to use to store Kids Craft Supplies: 6 Practical Options

Now that you are ready to start organizing kids craft supplies into storage containers, here are some specific products I recommend using:

For Paper:

My favorite product to use for organizing paper (whether that be drawing paper, construction paper, etc.) is either a Small or Medium size Multipurpose Bin from Container Store. The tall sides of the bin keeps paper from falling out and it is easy to sort through when paper is not laying flat. The small size multipurpose bins can be used to group paper by type or a larger sized multipurpose bin can be used to contain all paper together.

Small Multipurpose bin from Container Store

For Coloring Books:

My favorite product to use for organizing coloring books is the Connecting Book Bin from Container Store. Available in array of colors, it is a fun addition to a craft room and allows you to assign a “color” for each kid in your house. Assigning a color to a kid or type of activity (i.e. coloring books are in yellow) is a great way for kids to remember where to put items away.

Connecting Book Bin from Container Store

For Paint Bottles:

My favorite product to use for organizing larger bottles of paint are either the Large Multipurpose Bin from Container Store or a Tall Shoe Box. Both allow bottles to be stored upright. For smaller bottles something with a handle that can be transported over to a work table is nice, like the Handy Basket Pantry Organizer from Container Store.

Handy Basket Pantry Organizer

For Coloring Supplies:

My kids like to use a variety of tools for coloring including markers (thin and thick), crayons, and colored pencils. Having all those options in one spot that they can grab from makes it easy for me as a mom versus grabbing several different bins and bringing those over to a table. I recommend storing coloring supplies in an art caddy that can easily be transported to a table. Dollar stores are also a good spot to look for these bins.

mDesign Large Plastic Divided Caddy from Amazon

For Craft Embellishments:

If your kids like to decorate with pom poms, google eyes, glitter glue, sequins, etc. I like to use the Large SmartStore Tote with cup inserts from Container Store. This is for all the odds and ends and it’s fun for kids to see all of their options here versus storing each supply in its own container.

SmartStore Tote with inserts

For Miscellaneous Kid Craft Items:

For all other kid items, I recommend storing in clear bins that can stack. Depending on the size of what needs to be stored, I like to use either a Standard Shoe Box from Container Store, a Large Shoe Box, or a Sweater Box from Container Store. Divide items into broad enough categories so kids aren’t having to unstack several boxes to get to what they need. For example label a box “adhesives” instead of having a separate bins for glue and tape..

Large Shoe Box from Container Store

Hope these product ideas help motivate you to get your craft room organized! Any questions? Let me know in the comments!