~Save Money on Kids Art~

Do your kids love doing arts and crafts? Do they go through mounds and mounds of paper to create their masterpiece? Do you cringe every time, not only for the cost of the paper but the environmental impact? If so, you will love this post!

If you live in an urban area with retail clothing store chains chances are they have old signage that they throw away after an event is done that is perfectly good for art! I happen to manage for Reitmans and I know that for every one of our events there is usually a few posters that we throw away because they are outdated. The backside of these posters is plain white and it is a fairly heavy material. So I've started to take the ones we will be throwing away home for art projects. It's a win, win situation. My son won't care if there is marketing on the back side...he'll be thrilled to have a 2 foot by 4 foot piece of paper to create on...(In a few years though, he's only 15 months now:) For now the paper goes to his daycare for the other kids)

I also may be a bit weird but I keep the crayons that we are given at family restaurants and take them home. Right now, my son doesn't even use them so I'm taking home full packets but in a few years there will still be lots of usable crayon in them, no sense wasting them.

Speaking of leftover crayons...I can't remember what site I read it on but I read on another blog about taking little bits of crayons and melting them in muffin tins to create multicolor crayon disks. I also have a sister who collects empty glue stick containers and melts the crayon pieces and fills the glue stick holder with the melted crayon. When it dries you have a giant crayon in a holder that won't break!!! I love both these ideas and will use them for sure when the time comes!!!

Hope you can find a local retailer that will give you a call when it's time to change signs. You can really get some great art paper doing this!!!