I conquered the toy clutter! Finally! I feel like I have control over the toys in this house! The picture above and the next few pics were taken yesterday morning. The wall of toys faces into our living room. The shelves are stacked against the back of our long kitchen island. So, when this area is a disaster, the whole house feels out of control.
This is the contents of a puzzle basket that was dumped on the floor. See all the other random toys, dolls, Mr. Potato Head's shoes, baby wipes, blocks, some that belong to a shape sorter that the girl hasn't played with in about 2 yrs. See the clear shoebox on top of the green & white basket? That's full of flashcards that are often dumped out just for the fun of it and end up all over the house.
Another basket filled with miscellaneous toys that were just thrown in there.
And now....
here's what it looked like at the end of the day, after a few hours of sorting, purging, cleaning and putting away!
Doesn't it look SOOOO much better?
These are not all of her toys. She also has the Rose Petal Cottage which is in the dining room, outside of our office/craft room. All of her dolls and doll stuff is in that area. I'll conquer that soon, but it's going to be much less work than this area was. She also has a few toys and books in her bedroom. All of her art supplies are in the craft room.
I love the white cubbies and the purple crates. The cubbies are so versatile and affordable. The 2 cube shelves are about $10. As for the purple crates, I got them about 2 yrs ago at Target for about $5 each, I think. I love that they stack and of course I love the color! I labeled them with handmade tags and just drew a picture of the contents of each crate. "Toys" refers to any toys that we don't have a group of. Slinky, magnadoodle, etc. I moved the 3 tiered white baskets that were in this space into the craft room where they'll be put to better use.
Puzzles! My girl LOVES puzzles! The three boxes on the bottom are giant floor puzzles, the turquoise basket holds the wooden puzzles, the next shelf up holds some board games and other puzzles and her pegboard. Next shelf is a magnetic puzzle, Mr. Potato Head and the flash cards. A basket on top holds boxed puzzles. The magazine holders house random sticker books and a few coloring books (the rest are in the craft room).
Here's her beloved doll house and the purple basket holds the accessories for it. The popular band set is beside that basket. The shelf below houses her Dr's kit and basket of wooden blocks.
Her vacuum and cleaning supplies are behind the cradle. Beside that, which I didn't get a pic of, is the white toy chest that houses all of her dress up clothes.
When I was going through all of her toys, I realized she really does play with all of them. I fully intended to pack up or purge toys that she doesn't play with, but I only had a small box of toys that I honestly feel she doesn't use. Of course, she has a large bin of stuffed animals and she doesn't need all of them, but for now I've just packed them up and will store them in the garage.
So, that's how I've conquered the toy clutter. I'd love to hear your tips on toy organization.
3 comments:
I love bins and baskets on the bookcases I have. It's much easier for a toddler to scoop things up and put them in there, rather than having some sort of set place for everything, which will never get there without my help.
It also makes me feel better about it being neat since all I see is baskets and bins on shelves, instead of the clutter inside of them.
It looks great -- what an improvement!
I've got a tip for when her boxed puzzle collection gets too big (or when you just need a new clean-up project). I cut the fronts off of the puzzle boxes and then store the picture and all the puzzles in a gallon ziploc bag. Then, you can still fit them into a cute little bin. :)
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