This post is most definitely inspired by Tedgar’s recent “The Decluttering Rules” post right here in the Home Blog. She mentions the issue of small things becoming clutter. Well, I cannot agree with her more here. In fact, in my household, it is the small things that tend to drive me the craziest.
I do have a solution that tends to work for me. It is a form of containerizing, but with a purpose. Small things have to earn their place and be useful, and at the same time have homes where they can be contained.
I’ll give you an example of one solution that works for us. In fact, I am so happy with this solution, that I am too proud of it for my own good and will happily take all of the accolades that I have been getting when out in public until my head swells and threatens to explode.
This one is for all of those small toys. We have an old metal Thomas the Train lunch box that was given to our children by their grandfather. I really didn’t know what to do with it and yet the kids didn’t want to give it up. So I filled it with a bunch of small toys, you know the ones that either come from kids meals or birthday goodie bags? There the toys reside until they are needed.
We take the lunch box along with us whenever we know the kids will need some entertainment. It makes visits to a restaurant, the accountant or even church services go by more peacefully. Since the kids don’t always get to play with those particular toys, they enjoy them in these moments. And, because the toys are small, there are plenty of things to play with, even for three children.
Periodically, as new small toys come into the home, I will replace some of the old ones. And extras get donated or tossed. This keeps the play value of the lunch box toys intact and keeps us from becoming overwhelmed with small toys.