A Portable, Organized Kids' Art Station

This simple portable, organized kids' art station makes it easy for kids to be creative anywhere in the house!

Sometimes we do big, "glamorous" organizing projects like full room reveals that have a big, dramatic "before and after." Other times our organizing projects are small and simple.

These small and simple projects usually arise because I happen to notice a need, something that is not working efficiently in our house. That is exactly house our new little portable and organized art station came about.

A Portable, Organized Kids' Art Station

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

When we moved into this house, with input from our boys, we decided to have them sleep in the same room and use the extra bedroom as a playroom.

The playroom holds all of their toys, books, and arts and crafts supplies. This setup has worked well because, unlike our townhouse where we had to have all of the toys in the same space as our living room, the playroom is on the upper level of the house. Since it is away from our main living area, it makes it much easier to keep the living spaces tidy and uncluttered.

I had started to notice, though, that a few times a week, the boys would have a homework assignment or project where they were having to go upstairs to the playroom, grab their bin of crayons or markers, and bring it down to the kitchen island where they typically do their work.

The crayon and marker bins would then linger on the island or on our steps for a few days, waiting for the boys to take them back upstairs.

It wasn't a huge deal, but I realized that it would be much easier if they had a downstairs set of art supplies that they could more easily grab and put away, so I set out to create a small art station for the lower level of our house.

Because we have a mudroom and keep all of our shoes, bags, and outerwear in that space, the cabinet in the entry of our house has remained fairly empty. Since it had the extra space, I thought it would be the perfect place to keep our little art station.

cabinet | mirror | basket- TJ Maxx | pillows

What I love about this organizing project is that it could probably be done with items that you already have or at the very most would just require one quick trip to the store.

Supplies

Here's what I used to create our portable kids' art station:

• Small case with adjustable dividers
• Crayons
• Markers (I used the smaller "Pip Squeaks" to keep our station compact.)
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Small file box (I found mine in the Target Dollar Spot, but this one is similar.)
• Hanging folders (The ones I used are from Target and are not sold online, but I've also used these for past projects and liked them!)
• Colorful paper and/or coloring books (I love this one and this one.)

Putting Together the Art Station

The cabinet where I wanted to store our art supplies is fairly narrow, so I was sure to take measurements before choosing my file box and crayon/marker bin so I didn't pick something too large.

Once I had my supplies, it just took a few minutes to put my two boxes together. I like that the crayon case has adjustable dividers so that if the boys want to get a different type of markers or want to add colored pencils or something, we can easily reconfigure it to meet their needs.

Right now I have all of the markers in one section, the crayons divided by color, and one section for a set of kid's scissors and a glue stick.

For the file box, I tried to stock it with a mix of colorful paper, coloring books, and activity books to give the boys a bunch of options.

I used hanging folders to hold all of the supplies in place. Colorful paper is in one folder, neutral paper in another, coloring books in another, sticker books in another, etc. The boys should be able to find what they're looking for easily!

Both containers are small and light enough that the Cs can grab them themselves and take them to the kitchen island, dining room table, coffee table, etc. AND they're easy to put back, too, so we shouldn't have crayon and marker containers floating around anymore.

This project only took a few minutes to do, but it should help streamline our house a little more and keep everything a little tidier!

For more ideas for staying organized with kids, see these posts:

How to Organize Kids' School Papers

Our Boys’ Shared Organized Bedroom

The Boys’ Shared Bedroom in Our Townhouse

Our Organized Playroom

LEGO Organization Strategies to Help Save Your Sanity

How to Organize LEGO Instruction Manuals

How to Stay Organized When You Have Kids

[Psssttt… Get 100 brilliant ideas for organizing every room of the house here!]

Do you have any systems that help you stay organized with kids? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below!

Happy Organizing!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.