We do lots of arts and crafts and Pink will often sit quietly and create something with her paper and goodies (not always sure what she is creating) so I have been thinking about a way of keeping all the supplies together in an easy way for the kids to access them.  We have always just had an art shelf but I really wanted something that could move with the kids.  We have a tendency to do art all over our house – we use the kitchen table, the lounge floor, the kids blue tables in the lounge and we use the outside table in our garden.  So a trolley with wheels was the answer but I never saw the right one until I saw this amasing post at Tinkerlab.  Finally I knew which trolley to get so off to Ikea we went and now we have our very own art and craft trolley (the kids choose the blue colour, Ikea also have it in a cream and a dark gray).

I stocked our trolley specifically for our kids and their ages (My 3.5 year old son would love to have a glitter rainstorm in our lounge so the glitter still remains on a top shelf where only I can reach it as does the poster paints).  I am sure the contents of the trolley will change over time but our first version is detailed below (for more ideas on what you could stock in the trolley head over to Tinkerlab )

The top shelf – these are our basic necessities

• pens / pencil crayons
• dot markers
• scissors and glue
• lots of lolly sticks
• paint brushes
• wet wipes
• some basic coloured stickers and googly eyes
• toilet rolls – a craft necessity in our home

• some left over bits and bobs from old sensory tubs – this is to encourage those creations that Pink loves to make

The middle shelf

• pom poms / feathers / gems / anything which is great for collages
• tissue paper
• shredded paper
• stencils
• oil pastels (not enough space on the top shelf for these)
• some water-colour paints (easy to clean up if need be)

The bottom shelf

• white paper and coloured paper
• white card
• some colouring pages
• some cutting pages that I have downloaded and printed
• a basic white make your own card set (Pink loves making birthday cards for people)
• a basic mosaic set (this has been added for Blue as he has to match the mosaics with the numbers on the pictures)
• 2 re-useable white boards that the kids use to draw and write on (ours we bought at WH Smith in the UK about a year ago for just a few pounds each and they have been used a lot)
• 2 clip boards
• Oh and a last minute addition some empty egg cartons.

Let the creations begin !!!