DIY Traveling Art Supplies Book

Art Supplies Book To Go:

My 5 year old loves creating, coloring, tracing, drawing, you name it; we go through paper so fast in this house it's ridiculous. As my husband and I were gearing up for a trip with the kids, I knew we were going to need something to keep our budding artist busy while we traveled. I figured that having his stuff with him would do the trick but I didn't want to just toss all that stuff in his bag and hope for the best. I saw a bunch of different ideas on how to organize art supplies, like these from Color Wheel Meals and One Orange Giraffe 

Color Wheel Meals

One Orange Giraffe

but I know my child and after using something like this the crayons, markers and pencils would all be mixed together and dumped in the bucket, making it pointless. On top of that I wanted something that we could grab and go with as well as something he could put out of sight when not in use. I found this great notebook idea. It's an art supply notebook, good for traveling and your basic everyday organization as well. 

I bought a few items that I know he uses on a regular basis: Crayons, Markers and Pencils ($5.29)

I picked up 4 clear binder pouches that fit in a 3 ring binder ($1.88)

A spiral notebook of wide ruled paper with his favorite characters on the front ($1) and I found a random 3 ring binder in our basement (Free).

I started off by placing the different art supplies into each of the plastic pouches. This helps if you're using the notebook for basic organization, it keeps the supplies separate, neat and easy to put away.

I ripped the front and back covers off of the spiral notebook and cut the spiral fringe off so that I could use it as the cover to the binder.

I took a few pages of the spiral notebook so that he could continue practicing his letters and writing his name while we were away.

I added some plain white paper, a copy of the flash cards we've been using for him to learn his sight words, coloring pages that I printed from the internet and the rest of the lined paper. I ripped the pages out of the spiral notebook because the wire took up too much space and I really just wanted it for the Avengers cover. Here are a few shots of the final project.

Once all of the items were placed in the notebook I just made sure it wasn't too heavy for him to carry in his book bag.

You can definitely use less stuff, especially if you're traveling (8 crayons instead of 28, 2 pencil not 7) but my child doesn't listen when I say "color lightly, you're going to break the point" so we're bringing extra.

I used a small 3 ring binder so there's not tons of stuff  in it. You can get very creative with these notebooks and pouches if you use a larger 3 ring binder. Other art supplies you can stash would include:
Scissors
Glue Sticks
Pencil sharpener
Protractor/Compass
Paintbrushes
Chalk