How to Organize an Art Cart for Kids

August 10, 2024 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

As my daughter has grown, our extra room over the garage has gone from a playroom to an art/hangout room and has had to be revamped several times as we clear out old supplies, toys and books that we aren’t using anymore.

One thing that has been in there for a long time is an art cart, but even though I’ve written about how to organize one of these carts ours has never been very well organized.

You can get these carts just about anywhere these days (ours is a Raskog from Ikea, but you can get a dupe from Amazon) and they are super handy if you don’t have a whole room dedicated to creativity and need to store things in a way that they can easily be moved, such as when the art space is also the dining room.

If you have a cart for your bonus room, home school room or classroom, Little Bins for Little Hands has some great tips (and their cart looks much better than mine!). It looks like she has the Amazon version mentioned above, and her post gives you the rundown of all the things on her cart or that you might want to add to yours depending on the interests of your kids.

If yours is in a classroom you can always change up the kinds of supplies that are available through the year or add in seasonal stickers, paper and other supplies.

The post also talks about why it’s great to have an art cart, but for me the main thing is to keep things accessible and visible because that’s how I like my supplies in my office, too. That way you can get inspired by things and not necessarily have to think as much about what you want to make before you get started because you have some boundaries based on what’s on the cart.

Check out the post on Little Bins for Little Hands for more details. If you have an art cart I’d love to hear what you use it for!

[Photo: Little Bins for Little Hands.]

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Easy Lacing Cards to Make for Kids

Lacing is a great fine motor activity, and most kids go through a phase where they enjoy working with lacing cards. It helps promote focus and is a great quiet activity for kids to do in the car or to fill time in the classroom. And of course knowing how to lace is the beginning of knowing how to sew, which is great for all kids to learn (more on teaching kids to sew here).

There are lots of ways to make your own lacing cards. This one is just a pin but it’s easy to make lacing cards with any shape a child is into using cardboard and a nail to poke the holes. This could be fun for letter and number recognition or spelling the child’s name. Or try this version from Hey Azka, which uses a hole punch to make bigger holes so you can lace with shoe laces.

You can also just do lacing cards with paper, but it’s a great idea to print them on card stock and/or laminate them to make them sturdier for little hands. Homeschool Share has a set of alphabet lacing cards, which are free with email signup. Deceptively Educational has a set of number lacing cards with numbers 0 to 10.

Picklebums has some basic shape lacing cards, too.

Living Life and Learning has a bunch of cute printable lacing cards, including back to school designs, shoes kids can lace and learn to tie and ocean themed lacing cards. She also has tips for making your own lacing cards.

A Rose Tinted World made their lacing cards with craft foam, which makes them a little more durable than paper and you can cut it more easily than cardboard. They used a die cutting machine but you can also cut shapes by hand.

I also love the cat and mouse cards from Seam Whisperer. They also have some spring themed designs. So cute!

If you want to make lacing cards that are more open ended, check out this tutorial form Pretty Life Girls to make lacing cards that are more like geo boards. Theirs are made with wood but you can also do this with cardboard, craft foam or card stock.

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