I love following Lindsey on instagram @rubyandfrances. She shares joyful and emotional stories about her and her husband’s beautiful life with their daughters. I’m constantly inspired by her. She enjoys doing crafts with her girls, posting about their creative projects, and keeping their supplies organized. I invited her to write a guest blog about her process of tidying up arts and crafts. She writes about how tidying up arts & crafts supplies can be simplified and organized when you divide the items into 3 tiers, based on the accessibility level to your kids. Enjoy!

MEET LINDSEY

Hi! I’m Lindsey, the (slightly obsessive, type A, organized to a fault) mom behind @rubyandfrances. I have a love/hate relationship with crafting with my kids (toddlers with glue, amirite?) but a definite love for keeping things tidy. I’m certainly not an expert at anything but I dabble in many things — like Tyler, I’m a teacher, I have all girls (just two – aged 3 & 5), and I fight anxieties, finding comfort in tidying up. I also live in a small space that makes me often need to think (and rethink) about how I can store everything.

TIER 1 – EASILY ACCESSIBLE

Tier 1 is in our dining room, which is also our craft room, and within it our kitchen table is our art table. And it’s right when you walk in the house so it generally can’t look like a disaster. So that leaves kids arts & crafts right where everyone can see it. I recently revamped from using our wine rack / bar cart as combination storage, to putting in custom shelves (thanks Dad!) to house all the girls’ stuff in one place. In either set-up, however, it’s been all about baskets (from Target) to fulfill two needs of keeping things easily accessible to the girls while not looking like a disaster.

Here, in fairly plain sight, I store all the things I want to the girls to pick up at any point in the day (and they do! And I truly think it’s because of the way it is out for them). So here, we have things like markers, colored pencils, crayons, blank paper, notebooks, and some miscellaneous jars that I (try to) rotate. Currently, that’s feathers and pipe cleaners, fabric scraps, pom poms, and craft sticks.

Again, I think the girls tend to use it because it’s there and they can see it. It’s in their face. Oh, and I forgot – the bottom of this area, much to my dismay, play-doh and accessories. Because whether or not I like it, they use it all the time.

TIER 2 – MODERATELY ACCESSIBLE

Tier 2 is in the hall closet, just off the dining room, however, so still just steps away. However, it’s hidden from plain sight so the girls aren’t as quick to go to it – which I like.

This is things I’d rather not have out at all times — aforementioned glue, paint (except my beloved Kwik Stix paint, you can be out anytime!), stickers, stamps, washi tape, scissors (we’ve had a few too many hair cutting incidents). So usually when this stuff is out, I’m watching.

The very bottom drawer has a vinyl table cloth I pull out when we are painting or doing something extra messy (otherwise we just use wipeable placemats under their work). I HIGHLY recommend one of these storage systems if you don’t already have one.

The girls are pretty good about knowing where things belong, but I’ve also seen some really great ways others have labeled the drawers with pictures so that the little littles know which drawer is which. My FAVORITE feature of this little rolling rack is that you can put extra stoppers in the drawers which act almost like locks. I keep the paint drawer that way 🙂

TIER 3 – NOT EASILY ACCESSIBLE

Tier 3 is in the basement, my craft area which, though the girls *could* get to, they generally aren’t allowed. I have an area to myself that houses my sewing machine, wrapping paper station, fabric, cutting machines and other “adult” crafts. Down there, too, lives things I don’t want the girls to access every day.

There I keep things that are more dangerous (sprays, cutting machines, sewing machines, hot glue, needles) or messy (glitter! ain’t nobody touching that but me) or just in high demand, like ribbon, googly eyes, beads, felt, cardstock, and all of our acrylic paints.

I also store special items for upcoming projects down there (currently: perler beads, tie-dye, fairy wings) as well as recycling I save for projects (paper towel rolls, egg cartons, good cardboard, bubble wrap). So basically, I’m a hoarder! But an organized one?! This is just my little system of tidying up arts & crafts that works (most of the time) in our little house with our little girls, and with my little patience.

Follow @rubyandfrances on instagram for more!

I’d love to hear from you if you have questions or if you want to see more from our adventures in Cincinnati! Feel free to message me @rubyandfrances on instagram! And thanks so much for having me, Tyler, the true tidy king!

Reading Lindsey’s blog was super helpful for us… we are inspired to complete a kids arts & crafts supplies inventory, and organize our items into tiers of accessibility in our own home! We created a kids arts & crafts supplies inventory so that you can easily check which items you already have in each of the 3 tiers, make a wishlist of any fun items you might want to add to your collection (here’s some of our favorites!), and then start organizing! You can download the free Kids Arts & Crafts Supplies Inventory, and tag us @rubyandfrances and @tidydad on instagram when you use it… we’d love to see how it inspires crafting and tidying in YOUR home!

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