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

Bookcase Project for a Kid's Room

We were looking for a way to reduce the amount of clutter in the kid’s room so we got rid of the big bulky clothing hutch that housed their books, shoes, baby bibs and towels. Though the case could hold all of those items it wasn't visually appealing and it took up a lot of space in the room. With one trip to Ikea we purchased under bed storage for their shoes and we also found these really cool racks that we used for their books.

The shelves were actually in the kitchen area, they’re unfinished spice racks under the name BEKVÄM for $3.99 (wall anchors and screws not included)

We purchased 5 to complete this look.

The shelves took about 5 minutes per shelf to assemble but once they were all together we realized that the holes on the back were too small for the screws we had so we took a quick trip out to HomeDepot and purchased these smaller screws and anchors.

Without the trip to Home Depot, this was a 1/2 -1 hour job. The hardest part was getting the holes in the right spots and making sure the shelves were level. Once we got a system going, they were up in no time. 

The picture frames are from Ikea, they have plastic covers instead of glass so they're safer in the kid's room. The toy box was purchased last year from Ikea also.

In all we spent about $25 on the shelf project alone, if you want to paint the shelves that will run you a bit more.

Hope this gives you some inspiration for your home.

Niki
 (If you'd like to read more about me visit my post on A Bit About Me).