If you’re looking for ways to organize your most frequently used art supplies, the rolling, portable art cart could be a great solution. While we haven’t always had an art cart, I now appreciate that our everyday supplies have their own place, and that the cart can roll around the house and park itself right next to wherever my children decide to make their mark.
What’s on the Art Cart?
There are three broad categories of materials that go onto our cart. You can fill your cart with exactly what you see here, or substitute some of the items for things that are used more frequently in your home. The materials on our cart reflect my kids’ daily interests in drawing and making 2-D art. While you won’t see building and paint supplies on our cart, we do store these other art-making supplies nearby.
Here’s what goes into our cart, for children ages 3 and 5
Top Shelf: Drawing and Cutting Tools
- Washable Markers
- Pencils and Colored Pencils
- Crayons
- Scissors
- Paintbrushes
Middle Shelf: Attaching Tools
- Tape: Colorful washi tapes, colored masking tape, and clear tape
- Glue: White glue, colored glue, and glue sticks
- String: baker’s twine, cotton twine
- Stapler
Bottom shelf: Treasures
- Stickers
- Pom-poms
- Sequins
- Wiggly eyes
- Buttons
- Color coding labels
- We sometimes store our sketchbooks on the bottom shelf too
Other ideas
Dough Tools: Sculpting Cart
- Play dough
- Play dough tools
- Air dry clay
- Mini muffin pan
- Spoons and bowl
Building Tools: Tinkering Cart
- Low-heat glue gun
- Recyclables
- Broken toys and appliances
- Hammer
- Tacks
- Goggles
- Duct Tape
- Scissors
- Screwdriver
Paint Tools: Painter’s Cart
- Tempera Paint
- Watercolors
- Paintbrushes
- Rags
- Water containers
- Apron
- Paper
How the Art Cart Works
When my kids want to create something, the art cart is self-service. They can find what they need, remove it from the cart, and then put it back in its place when they’re done. These are some of the projects we’ve worked on with materials form our art cart (top to bottom):
- Sequins, beads, and buttons stuck into dough
- Homemade crown with Sharpies, glue stick, and scissors
- Office stickers and Tape in paper frames
- Paper doll with clear tape, stickers, and permanent marker
Where to buy an Art Cart
Ikea:
- We love our Raskog Kitchen Cart. Like anything IKEA, you have to assemble it yourself, but it’s not a difficult assembly. The cart is sturdy (made of steel), the casters are solid, and I don’t imagine we’ll have to replace it any time soon.
- As of this date, these come in turquoise, dark grey, and beige.
Amazon:
There are lots of choices on Amazon. We’re an affiliate and selected a few carts that look promising.
- 3-tray heavy duty steel, red workshop cart
- This narrow cart with metal frame and plastic sliding rainbow-colored drawers
- Heavy duty chrome utility cart with three shelves
- Professional style studio art cart (I used one like this when I was a teacher)
- Small studio art cart: a narrower version of the studio art cart (above)
- Chrome commercial-grade utility cart like the kind you might see in restaurant
Do you like this post? Pop over here to see our Art Cart in Action