Organizing All Those Toys

I'd like to welcome today's guest blogger, Stephanie Greiner from Always Just a Mom to TheNorthForty!  As a fellow lover of organization, Stephanie recently tackled the dreaded task of organizing her children's toys.  Check out her blog for more of her organizational tips!

Hi!  I'm Stephanie from Always Just A Mom and, if you follow my blog, you know I have two toddlers!  String Bean (3) and Biscuit (2)...yup....13 months apart!  I feel my life has become a constant state of movement...similar to Taz (as in Tazmanian Devil)!  Being a Type A, a bit OCD, and a super organized mommy I feel the need to try, try and try to keep our life organized!

My mother in law is getting ready to move in this fall and we needed to make our upstairs toy room (yes...we have an upstairs one and a downstairs room...did I mention my kids are very spoiled?) into her room.  So we had to combine all the toys from upstairs and downstairs and well we also needed to get rid of a bunch of our "infant" toys (yes...insert a few tears...mommy's babies are growing up)!  Here is a quick tutorial on how we created an error proof organizational system for our toys!
 
A few months ago we purchased two of these shelves at Home Depot ON SALE!!!

Now I will tell you I didn't have a "before" picture but for many, many, many months there were no bins.  I was pulling my hair out because toys were just thrown all over this shelving unit.  Drove me nuts...then Target (thank you Target) put their "2 pack" bins on sale for $11.00!!!

I was originally going to just use bins in the bottom 6 cubbies but then I didn't like that so I worked some numbers and went back and purchased 3 more packs.  (I am currently not using two of the bins...the 2nd package of lighter tan ones are still in their wrapper!)

Now I could store soooo many more items in these bins!  We have bins for animals, tinker toys, lincoln logs, blocks, books, puzzles, and BALLS!  Really...made a huge difference.  I liked keeping a few of the cubbies open for more books and for some of their larger toys.

But...the problem was the hubs didn't always know where items went.  Yes...you read that correctly: the hubs.  He occasionally helps put items away at night and well things were just getting thrown together.  Plus I was tired of pulling all the different bins out to figure out where items were suppose to be...so I thought...make some lables woman?!?!  (I sell tags for goodness sake in my etsy shop!)

Headed to my craft studio and found some cardstock I liked and grabbed my scalloped round punch (it's a large)!

Started punching, punching, and punching.

Now I have 10 pretty little labels (I have just realized I better go punch two more out so I won't have to change all 12 of them when we use the two other bins...if these last that long!)

Then I used this awesome straight punch I picked up.  I love this punch because it makes the tags hang/lay so much nicer on items (gifts, bins, jars...whatever you're wanting to hang your tag on)!!!  You could totally use a regular round hole punch too.

Then I just wrote what was in the bin.  Now I know my kiddos won't be "reading" the tags anytime soon but it does help with sight words.  We're all for having our kids pick up the toys and they are doing 100 times better now that they have the bins.  (Really...make it a race and they are all about it!)  This now makes it much quicker for me to remember where items are and well it really was to assist the hubs in helping clean up too!

Some other ideas to organize your kids toys:

1. Shoe boxes - You probably have some in your closet.  Grab them and just show the kids what toy you're putting in there.  Then you can line them up on a book shelf or even just put the lid on it and stack them in a closet or against a wall.
2. Crates - All the superstores are getting ready for "back to school."  They always have great deals on crates but if you wait until September...you'll get an even better deal!  Use crates...they stack on top of each other or again just line them up against the wall.  These are great for larger items and toddler toys especially!  I also love them for books!!!
3. Baskets and Boxes - Use a laundry basket...use anything you can just throw items into and store.  If you still have a little one in diapers...those are GREAT boxes for storage.  (Or those copy paper boxes...with lids...love those!!!)  You can always run to the dollar store and purchase some brown shipping paper and cover the box and decorate or even just spray paint the boxes (see how my husband made a train out of diaper boxes and oatmeal containers at Always Just a Mom and see what we're up to around here)!  Have a great summer!!!