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.