Mommy Monday: updated art corner for preschoolers

I'm excited to share a quick, easy, and super-cheap update I made to my preschooler girls' art corner!

Let's take a look at the "before":

Obviously, the only change I made was to add the containers hanging on the wall, but let me tell you, it has made a huge difference! Two things changed since I first had everything stored in the tub under the table: as the girls got older, they 1) acquired, and became more interested in, lots of different coloring books and 2) decided they liked mixed-media projects (well, one of my girls especially). Inside that tub, I had everything organized in different containers by type, with a little space for different kinds of paper:

This system just wasn't working for us anymore, though, because the girls would inevitably dump out all three containers so they could use 2 pencils, a marker, and 5 crayons, and the tub was just getting too crowded (and, honestly, we were at the point of keeping overflow on the floor next to the tub) because of all the additional coloring books etc that the girls were using.

The containers on the rails solve both of these problems. Obviously, getting the writing implements out of the tub makes them easier to access and frees up space in the tub. I actually was also able to bring in the pipe cleaners, which were in a haphazard pile with some other toys before!

But the part I'm really excited about is the container you see on the far left of the picture above. Notice anything?!? That's right, I have crayons, pencils, and markers all mixed together in the same container (*gasp*)! I have two of these, actually- one for each girl. I labeled those with a name sticker so they will know whose is whose.

Because these containers pop right off the railing, the girls can now take one container and just use that, instead of dumping out every single container to get what they need for one picture! I also won't have to deal with the arguments over who is using the green crayon anymore, since they each have their own (I always have had 2 of each color for this very reason- they just couldn't find or keep track of them before because they would rather argue than look through the pile for the color they want...). Whether or not this will actually continue to happen in practice? Only time will tell, but for now I'm excited about the results :)

If you're interested in setting this up yourself, the rail system is super-cheap at IKEA. This is the rail I used and these are the containers that fit on the rails (they have them in several colors). I spent a total of $12 on these things!

What do you use to organize your art supplies? I would love to hear your ideas!