Fill Up the Art Box

Whether it is one big box or a few boxes and some dedicated shelf space, it's good to have all or most of your art supplies in one area when creating time comes around. In our house, we use a combination of shelf space and the art box. Here I've filled up our art box with some of our most used items to give you an idea of what kinds of things you might want to include in your collection of art supplies.

Having a box like this is handy for those times when you might want to bring your kids outside (on the deck, porch, to the park) to get them creating. Everything you need is there, with the exception of paper and water. Upon close inspection, you should see the following items:

• two kinds of paint
• paint brushes of varying sizes
• sponge pieces
• a container for rinsing brushes (we use repurposed lemonade mix containers)
• scissors
• a star-shaped hole puncher
• two kinds of glue
• pencils
• a box of oil pastels
• markers
• paper towels
• styrofoam for stamping/printing
• repurposed lids and fruit cups for paint mixing
• an eraser
• fabric scraps for collage
• old magazines (on the bottom) for collage 

Some other things you might want to add to your box could be crayons, colored pencils, lengths of yarn or string, and other little bits that could be fun to collage with.

What other things might you put in your box?