Monday, July 25, 2011

Cereal Box Crayon Caddy


Feeling completely unmotivated today, it seemed like a good time to stick in an audio book, and take on a simple, mindless task, like organizing the crayons in the coloring drawer.

We've always kept one of the bottom drawers in the kitchen reserved for crayons, coloring books, and paper for the children. Generally all the crayons get dumped into one large box.


It keeps them all together, and makes for easy clean-up, but it can also make it difficult to find a sharp crayon, in just the color you want.

I've been thinking for a while about sorting the crayons out by general color, but I wasn't sure what to put them in to keep them organized, that would still fit in the drawer. Finally, it dawned on me the bottom of a cereal box was about the shape of container I needed.


I only had two empty cereal boxes on hand today, so after cutting the bottom off of them, to make the shallow boxes I wanted, I used them as patterns, to cut the rest of the box up into pieces...


...that could be slit on the sides, folded, and glued into additional containers of the same size...


...which I then taped, glued, and secured together with cardboard strips...


...into trays, that could stack in the drawer, plus one loose box, to put broken crayons into (if a person had enough storage space, a cardboard strip for a handle, across the top, would also be a nice touch).


While the glue on the trays dried, held in place with clothespins, I peeled the broken crayons, so they would be ready for future crafts.


Then, I filled the boxes...


...stacked them up...


...and put them in the drawer. I don't know how long they'll stay organized...


...but they drew immediate attention, inspiring a flurry of creativity, already tonight.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

10 comments:

Christy Killoran said...

I'm impressed. That's way more than I do on a lazy day.

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

If you could see the pile of laundry waiting for tomorrow - you'd be less impressed :)

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

Wow - what a way to upcycle those cardboard boxes. I am also blown away by the number of crayons you own.

Debbie said...

I like this idea. While we do not have as many crayons here at home believe me at church we could definitely use a system like this.

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

Raising a Happy Child - I might have gotten carried away at last years back to school sale - I really like sharp, new crayons :)

Sparklee said...

Neat idea! We seem to use our colored pencils more these days, but this idea would work for them, too.

Don't you love how as soon as you organize something and make it look nice, it inspires the kids to use it?

Ticia said...

I'm with you on the sharp new crayons. I too got carried away on those. But, then I also use the crayons to give away for stuff.

I set kids to peeling broken crayons for crafts when they're bored sometimes.

Amanda said...

I love organized any thing. It's inspiring, and peaceful. What I can't seem to get over is how you can have SO many unbroken crayons. Its like, a beautiful thing to behold.

blessings
Amanda

Phyllis said...

Very clever!

Time Lady said...

Our's would stay organized a whole afternoon! lol, I'm happy if I can get them to separate the markers from the crayons!