Keep Your Coloring In Line

I love crayons, color pencils, markers, paints, and pastels.  I am still traumatized by the image of my baby brother when I received a brand new box of Crayola color markers at the start of third grade from my great-grandmother.  I had carefully placed my unopened markers in the room we shared.  Later that evening, he came toddling out, streams of red, blue, and green dripping from his saliva-covered chin.  I was not just horrified; I was absolutely INDIGNANT!!!  To an 8-year-old child of a fiscally-challenged single parent, this was sibling treason!!!

I have to come clean about my art & office supply fetish.  I may be a hot, sloppy mess in reality, but I fantasize about perfectly organized new materials, available at a moment's touch.  My daughter, who follows after my obscene compulsion for colorful and tidy objects, encouraged me to check out organizers available on Amazon.  What I found was either insufficient for all my coupon-collected colors or well outside a teacher's budget!

Wow!

When are these going on sale so I can use my Michael's employee discount?

Gorgeous!

Not enough color pencil slots!

So like any Pinterest addict, I did what I had to do.  I went online and researched.  I added hundreds of pins (because it's like shopping for FREE).  I dug through all the trash cans and recycle in my house to find paper towel and toilet paper rolls for my project.  In my passion I distinctly remember my husband saying, "Jesus, Erin, please make sure when you blog about this you don't tell people I don't give you any money !  I just gave you $500 this month!"  (BTW, I spent it on craft room furniture and supplies, no surprise!)

But now my beautifully grouped color pencils are now at rest in their new homes!

Caveat:  I didn't make this one.  My organizer is a messy comic book decoupage, but I stole this one because it's prettier.  Thanks to this awesome crafty mom at https://thepartyevent.wordpress.com/2013/05/