Conquering the huge task of organizing a child’s supply of toys, games, books and stuffed animals is overwhelming. So far in this series of articles I’ve discussed ways to sort and store clothing and we’ve begun working on toys. Here are some additional pointers on working with storage for toys. Remember, we are trying to avoid a trip to the store. Learning how to organize frugally is important.
Barbies and Other Dolls
Most girls at some point in their life have Barbie dolls, baby dolls, Polly Pockets, Bratz and other types of toys. These items can be hard to store, but if you break it down it’s easier. Separate the toys by type first. Barbie stuff in one pile, Happy Family in another, Polly Pocket in another and so on until everything is sorted. Along the way throw away broken items or pieces that are no longer useful. Now would be a great time to create a pile of garage sale items too.
Once you have the toys separated by type, evaluate what you have. Barbie items are large, and include many other small items too. To sort our Barbie stuff (as well as others), we separated the items into boxes and baskets by the item. Clothes and Accessories are housed in one container. Furniture in another. And the Barbie’s themselves have found a home in an old laundry basket that we no longer used.
Speaking of laundry baskets, there are many unused or seldom used items around your home that you can use to store toys in.
Examples:
- Laundry Baskets
- Laundry Detergent Boxes or Buckets with Handles
- Cardboard Boxes
- Shoe Boxes
- Baskets
- Food Storage Containers – like rubbermaid, cereal containers
- Bulk Food Containers (we purchase large pretzel containers from Sams Club because everyone in our household loves pretzels. We clean the containers out afterwards and save them to store toys and other items.)
- Food Containers (Plastic Jars, Containers and other types of items that food comes in can be cleaned and used for toy storage)
- Pillow Cases (a friend of mine bought a couple of 2×4’s and attached them to the walls in her child’s room. She then used a staple gun to hang old pillow cases from. They decorated the pillow cases, created labels and they store things inside. It actually looks kinda cool, but if you were worried about appearance you could do the same thing only attach them inside a closet.
Be creative when thinking about storage. Walk through your home and see what you can find that is not being used. Check out your storage area. Can you combine items so that you can use some of it for storage?
See the frugal living blog for the next installment of this series of articles on frugally organizing a child’s space without buying a thing.
Related Articles:
Save Time and Money: Frugal Storage Tips For Your Child
Organize a Child’s Room Without Buying A Thing
Organize a Child’s Room Without Buying A Thing (2)
Organize a Child’s Room Without Buying A Thing (3)
Organize a Child’s Room Without Buying a Thing (4)
Organize A Child’s Room Without Buying A Thing (5)