How to Organize Pens, Pencils, Markers & Other Drawing Supplies

Are you an artistic person who enjoys creating many pieces of art during your free time? Are you obsessed with coloring your paintings and owning an enormous fortune of drawing supplies, such as pencils, pens, and markers?

Pens, markers, and pencils are useful tools for calligraphy, drawing, coloring, and decorating. However, it can be frustrating when you need to find a particular pencil, but there is no way you can spot it in such a chaotic mess of drawing supplies.

Hence, you will save a lot of time by learning ways to organize pens, pencils, markers, etc. Additionally, the pen and pencil storage ideas will help you save money by knowing the proper ways to preserve your drawing supplies and make them last longer.

In this article, I will introduce some suggestions on how to organize pens, pencils, markers, and other supplies. Firstly, let’s have a look through what are included in today’s article about the appropriate storage for markers and pens:

Are you excited to learn the various ways to organize markers and pens? Proceed to the following sections for some marker organization ideas!

Throw Away What You Can’t Use

I know many people are in the habit of not throwing away the pens or pencils that you can no longer use immediately. For example, when I pick up a pen that can’t be written at that moment, I’ll just put it aside and use another one.

Once I’m done with the pens, I’ll completely forget about the out-of-ink pen and leave it there for good. Therefore, all pen organization ideas should begin with getting rid of the unusable ones.

Don’t hesitate to throw away pens that stop working, or pencils that are too short to be held properly as you are not going to use them anymore anyway. Expand your cleaning area by searching around the room for pens dropped on the floor and rolled to the corners.

During this step, you might also want to sharpen all your pencils so that they are readily available the next time you use them. When you have finished getting rid of those pens, pencils, and markers, refer to the sections below to start putting everything into place.

Categorize Your Drawing Tools

The next step in this tutorial is to separate your drawing gadgets into small clusters so you can easily narrow down the area where to find what you need. It totally depends on you which feature you should categorize your drawing supplies.

You can put them into small groups according to their colors or functions, even though I recommend you follow the latter. Let’s take an example when you want to look for a blue water-based marker. It is, of course, much easier for you to search for a blue one in the area of the water-based marker than storage of fifty blue markers of all kinds.

This step might cost most of your time in the whole tutorial, but believe me, it is the most important one you should invest your time in. Moreover, you probably want to determine where you want to put your markers, pens, and pencils.

Thus, when you need to grab a pen, you will know where to find it and won’t have to look at every corner of the room. In short, group your drawing supplies under different categories and give each of them a particular spot.

DIY Ideas on Storing Your Markers, Pens, and Pencils

1. A Peg Board and Mason Jars

In addition to some mason jars, you will need a rope to hang them up on the pegboard. You can use some glue to attach the two ends of the rope to the top of the jar. Let it sit for a good amount of time so that the glue is completely dry.

If this seems too problematic, you can purchase the mason jars with chain handles so that you do not need additional rope or glue to work on a DIY marker container. Then, just take one from one of the jars and put the jar back up whenever you need a marker.

2. A Peg Board and Plastic Cups

Using plastic cups instead of mason jars is another method that can be much cheaper. Additionally, if these plastic cups drop, you will simply need to pick them up and put them back on the pegboard. On the other hand, it can be quite dangerous if a mason jar accidentally falls.

The procedure is quite simple. Drill two holes on the two sides of your plastic cups, attach a rope through the holes, and tie the rope tightly. Then, you can hang them up without worrying that they might fall down.

Another way to do this is to drill two holes on each plastic cup, which are 4 to 5 cm away from each other. After that, slide a zip tie through the holes on the cups and on the pegboard to secure the cups.

3. Tin Cans

This is a great method to practice recycling used tin cans in your house. Instead of hanging them up on a pegboard, you can just put them on your desk. Moreover, make use of the decorating procedure by letting your kids join! Once your kids have completed their artistic masterpieces, stick the cans together into a flower shape using some glue or tape.

Buy Portable Marker Organizers

For people who are too busy to DIY their own marker containers, here are some readily available products that you can easily find.

1. Toprema Marker Pen Case

This case is extremely convenient for those who love traveling and own a huge number of pens or markers as it can contain up to 122 pens. You can either hold it using the handle on the side or a shoulder strap that can easily be removed and adjusted.

2. Dual Brush Pen Desk Stand

You can tell from its name that this product is specifically used for dual pens, and its capacity is around 96 pens. Moreover, it is easy to assemble as the parts are snapped together.

3. Rotating Marker Stand

I’m a big fan of this product as you can rotate it around to find your marker without standing up to look inside the container. Amazingly, approximately 120 pens can fit this stand, and it doesn’t take up much space on your desk as well.

Tips on Storing Your Markers

If you are a dual-ended marker lover like me, it is vital that you are aware of how you should store your beloved markers. Have you ever found that one end of your marker dries out while the other still works well? It is probably because you have put them on their ends.

Since the gravity force has made the ink flow to the lower end of the marker, the upper end apparently runs out of ink and becomes unusable. Thus, make sure you always place your dual-ended markers horizontally on a flat area.

How about markers with only one end? Well, in this case, you just need to remember to store them upside down so that ink can flow down to the end and they won’t dry out after a long time untouched.

Lastly, it is much less complicated to store colored pencils as long as you let the tip pointing up. If you leave it on a flat surface, make sure you cover its tip with a piece of fabric to avoid being damaged.

Conclusion

So, this is the end of my tutorial on how to organize pens, pencils, markers, and other drawing supplies. I hope that this article is informative for all of you. Let me know which methods you use in the comment section, and share this with your friends and family.

Helen B. Harris

Art has always been a part of my life; it influences my upbringing and later my career choice. For me, it is always a part of my parenting technique. So for whichever purpose that you come to art, you can start here with us.