Treasure Box Craft

Doing arts and crafts with your child can be tons of fun, but cleaning up afterwards isn't. When supplies are stored neatly and are easy to find, both you and your child are more likely to use them. Help your child make a wonderful storage area for her precious art supplies with this themed, collaged art box.

What You Need:

• Old tackle box, jewelry box, or shoe box
• Magazines
• Glue
• Scissors
• Art Supplies

What to Do:

1. Discuss with your child what theme she wants to use for the box. Talk with her about her likes and dislikes, about what captures her imagination, and about what inspires her to draw. Use what makes her unique to decorate the box. Some ideas for themes include: pirates and treasure, outer space, classical paintings, landscapes, animals, or fairies and fantasy.
2. Cut out related pictures from magazines, second-hand children's books, or old coloring books.
3. When you have enough cut-outs to cover the box, glue the pictures on. Let the glue dry. Tackle boxes work great for this project because they have many compartments inside for the various items you may want to store. But recycling an old jewelry box or even a plain shoe box can work just as well.
4. While the box dries, go around the house with your child and gather the items she wants to put inside. Encourage her to look for things that could come in handy for future projects (old buttons or jewelry, safety pins, extra stickers, or cut ribbon).
5. Place your art supplies in the box. If your box doesn't have compartments, use plastic bags or smaller boxes to organize the supplies. If the box is small, you can create multiple art boxes for each medium like a painting box that holds the paints and paintbrushes or a drawing box that holds the pencils and erasers.
6. For easy reference, make a list or a map of the art supplies inside and place it in the box. Now when you say it's time for art, your child will know exactly where to go to get everything she needs!

Note: If you wish, you can also apply coats of decoupage medium using foam brushes to the collage. The decoupage medium will seal the pictures to the box and protect the collage. Decoupage medium and foam brushes are available at any art store.