Are you looking for something in which to store your child's precious artwork from school? Perhaps you want to keep it, but don't have a place to file oversized fingerpaint paper without folding it. This has been one of my dilemmas, since my child began preschool.

If you are in need of an art organizer, have I got the solution for you!

Buy a Pampered Chef bar pan!



Okay, okay. So I didn't go out and purchase this bar pan for its box. In fact, I've had the pan for a couple years, now, and (Mom, be still your heart) I had saved the box. Never know when you might need a PC bar pan box!

So anyway. Last night, Nathan was doing laundry, Iliya was in bed, and I was trying to find our dining room table. I know that I want to frame some of Iliya's artwork, but right now, just don't have the spare pennies to do it. But I can't stand a cluttered dining room table and that is just where all of Iliya's artwork ends up...along with assorted mail and other things that could probably be deemed as junk. For the past several weeks, there has been just enough room at the very end of the table for the 3 of us to sit and eat dinner. And that just gets to me for some reason. So last night's task was to get the table mostly devoid of stuff.

After secretly wishing I had asked for a handy dandy art organizer (among other things, like closet organizers) for Christmas, I walked out into the laundry room to tell Nathan something totally unrelated. I happened to glance above his head to a shelf where the above mentioned box sat. At that moment, a lightbulb went off in my head, and I said, "Is that my mom's Pampered Chef stuff?" (you see, a while ago, she had placed an order to support a catalogue party, and since the hostess & I live in the same city, the PC stuff came to me and my job was to get it to my mom. The problem is that sometimes stuff takes a while to be transferred. So I couldn't remember if that box represented something I had mistakenly left behind every time we went up 'north' to see family. Yet again, I digress... anyway...)

After scrambling on top of the dryer and retrieving empty boxes (whew!), I could've smacked myself for keeping empty. boxes. for. so. long. ... but then again, I was ecstatic that I may've found my art organizer!

So you've seen the pictures. I won't go into how well everything - even the oversized finger paintings - fit! Sometimes it pays to be a(n almost) packrat! :)