About Kids Art Box
Kids Art Box Started as Mommy and Me Art Box at the beginning of 2020. It was created by Melanie and her husband Nick and was started at the dining room table of their home!
As Mommy and Me Art Box received more and more positive feedback from its subscribers, it started to grow, boxes and art supplies of all sorts started to take over their home! Packing boxes for the subscribers became a family effort, each of their three kids enjoyed helping to pack boxes and friends and neighbors participated too! It was so cute to watch all three of the kids help pack boxes, even little Theo had fun! As much fun as it was for the house and garage to be turned into an assembly line of sorts, they needed more space. Melanie and her husband decided to rent a small office in June of 2020. Shortly after they hired their first employee to help them pack.
It was such a relief for Melanie to have her home free of boxes and art supplies. Within months, the business rapidly outgrew the small office space. In September, they moved into a 6,000 square foot warehouse, ten times the size of the old office, with plenty of space to grow even more! At first, it looked huge but was quickly filled with art supplies and packing tables.
As the year continued on, and the art supplies slowly took over every nook and cranny of the warehouse, Melanie received feedback from customers asking for more boxes and activities because many families were enjoying the current activities too quickly. Upon taking this request into consideration, Kids Art Box was born and Mommy and Me Art Box became a product line! With a solid team of employees now behind her, Melanie created 2 new product lines: My Artist Box and Daddy and Me Art Box. The new product lines will help Melanie meet the growing demand for more art activities to enjoy at home and reach the interests of older children and fathers.
And that’s how Mommy and Me Art Box, which started with Melanie making art with her boys, became Kids Art Box!
About
Melanie
Kids Art Box was created by Melanie, a mom of three boys, Alex (8), Matisse (6), Theo (3), in early 2020.
Melanie grew up in France and has always loved art. As a child she enjoyed drawing, watercolor painting, and experimenting with chalk pastels. As she was growing up, Melanie was encouraged to pursue a more scientific career and went to school to become a structural engineer. She moved to the United States in 2004 in order to complete a Masters’ degree at Clemson University. Shortly after this, Melanie moved to Las Vegas for her first engineering job.
She met her husband (Nick) there and their first child, Alex, was born in 2013. Matisse (you can probably recognize the inspiration for the name!) was born two years later. As Melanie had to go back to work, both boys started daycare at 12 weeks old. While searching for a daycare, Melanie and Nick found a Montessori school and instantly fell in love with the Montessori philosophy.
Eventually, the family had to move cross country and Melanie was very happy to leave her job. As a result, she had a good amount of free time to spend with her children. Melanie was elated to be home with her boys.
Since she has always had a passion for art and finally had time, she started creating regular art activities for her boys. She started sharing both her art ideas and Montessori journey on her personal Instagram account @thisfrenchmom. A few months later, Melanie gave birth to their youngest son, Theo.
As time went on, Melanie realized that making art with children was her true passion and she decided she wanted to share her love of art with other families. This is where the idea for Mommy and Me Art Box was born. After brainstorming with her husband, they agreed that a subscription box would be the perfect fit. They loved the idea as it allows families to consistently get exposure to different art mediums and techniques, with everything delivered right to their door. Having been a full-time working mom, she understands the headache of having to find ideas that work (no Pinterest fails!) and the right supplies while having limited free time.
Each month, whenever she is developing the upcoming activities, Melanie tests out each activity with her own children. The boys look forward to this process, Matisse even says, “Is there a new Mommy and Me to do?” The excitement amongst her own children is the excitement that Melanie hopes to deliver to families each month inside their Kids Art Box.
About Nick
Nick is Melanie’s husband and encouraged her to, first, quit her job, then start Kids Art Box! He has always been a great support and takes care of all the technology needs at Kids Art Box. He also helps with coming up with ideas and themes for the Daddy and Me Art Box!
Never miss a beat.