For the first time ever since starting my homeschooling adventure, I am not doing any back to school supply shopping.
Yes, you heard me correctly.
The Queen of Art Supplies is not going to be purchasing anything new at the start of this year.
My husband doesn't believe that I can do it so this started out as a personal conviction and now it has morphed into a straight-up challenge to prove my husband wrong.
If you only knew how much I love art supplies....fresh markers, gel pens, crisp pads of drawing paper, new binders, Sharpies, and my beloved Post-It notes.
What made me decide on the art supply fast? I cleaned out my craft stuff and my desk drawers. I have enough. I have more than enough. We are not going to be running low on anything so I am challenged now to stretch it out as long as I can.
I will keep you posted. Yesterday I received the Office Max back to school advertisement in the mail and I threw it into the recycle bin. Deep breath.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
11 comments:
I'm right there with ya! I ditched my Teacher Appreciation coupon for Staples. I'm sitting in the middle of a room filled with supplies, with a whole house filled with paper and pencils at every turn. I did, however, read about sharpie pens this morning. . . . . Since I'm not the one convicted and all - I might have to check the pen out. But um, I promise not to do my math with it. ) Maybe.
I liked your last line about recycling!
I went through our supplies earlier this summer and noticed that we had a lot too! I only purchased a set of coloured sharpies so far, to use for art and for geography (maps). My kids were so excited, I thought they were teasing me at first, but they were really looking forward to using these. Funny!
Oh I so can relate. Although, I've not so much gotten into a lot of quality art supplies yet, but things like a new box of crayons and markers, pens, pencils w/erasers, etc.
We just some shopping, but everything was so cheap, it wasn't a big deal (like crayons and comp. notebooks for .25 cents).
I am also a post-it note queen, too! Love my post it's!
But, good for you and I know you can do it! I've had to say no to some things I know we didn't need as well!
http://homeschoolblogger.com/joyfulmothering/
I can relate. I didn't buy anything but composition books this year. No markers, no colored pencils, no perfectly sharpened crayons at only $0.25 a box. Nothing. Like you, I cleaned out and reorganized our supply cabinet and there was more than enough.
It was hard not to buy anything new, though.
Heehee! This was me last year. We used up all of our stuff, and this year, I got to buy new--except for markers. I bought so many of those the first year they went on sale for $1 that I'll probably have enough someday for grandkids!
I hear ya! I'm not planning to bring a single extra thing in this house. We have shelves stocked with notebooks, crayons, art supplies... We're not lacking a thing, so why bring more stuff in?
I'm learning to pass up "good bargains" in favor of a Less-Maintenance-Required-Home.
It's time to let the stuff work for us, and not be a slave to the burden of Too Much.
Good for you. We're setting up for yet another international move within months of school starting.
I can't say that I'm buying nothing. The kids were very wistfully remembering Schultueten (German school cones) so each is getting small box with pencils, a planner and a small dry erase board.
What I am doing is getting what we don't use Out Of The House. Boxes of crayons don't bless us if all the kids prefer colored pencils. Same with boxes of crayola markers. And all the readers that my youngest doesn't want to read . . .
Oh boy, super deep breath! I loooove the supply shopping, but if I was honest with myself, we probably don't need anything either.
Yes, we probably have enough markers and crayons tucked away in drawers (and under couch cushions) to supply a whole elementary school here. You've inspired me to get organized rather than go shopping. I know you've probably posted on this before, but what are your favorites for colored pencils and crayons/pastels? My kids are young so we've usually just stuck to crayolas, but I think it's almost time to invest in some better quality art materials (especially since we'll be starting Harmony Arts this year! Thank you for your curriculum advice, by the way!) And I may even take the plunge on Sharpies, which I LOVE, but are risky with a 4 and 7 year old in the house. But probably worth it. Anyway, great post!
Casey,
I don't use Sharpies as art supplies. We have two sets of markers that we use all the time and believe it or not, one set is Crayola. My boys prefer to use Crayola thin markers over anything else for everyday art projects. For more serious art we use Prismacolor Double Ended Markers...expensive but if you can keep the caps on, they last a long time.
For watercolors I like Prang sets the best, usually 12 colors. If you want tube watercolors, I usually end up with an inexpensive set of Reeves....usually good enough.
If you want some more specifics, here is a page I put together:
http://www.squidoo.com/artsuppliesforkids
Let me know if you have any more questions. Glad you are trying HFA!
Love it!! I'm just the opposite--I need to go buy some stuff! Especially paper--and find new places to hide it all!!
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