If there is anything that gets my family excited it's organizational projects! Do I have the only almost 11 year old that when told today is her day to organize the pantry hollers “Yea!” ? She has definitely caught the bug- labels, bins, sorted items... hooray!
Because we stay at home moms with stay at home kids have different organizational needs that those with 1 or 2 children who are at school all day I wanted to encourage us to post some of our recent projects. I love to see clutter minimizer projects, they just inspire me!
I hope you will post some of your own projects/ hints and link to them in the comments. Feel free to link to an older post that might fit this challenge. If you don't maintain a blog you can e-mail me instead. With your permission, I can post them here.
Today I am going to post about a recent organization project in the kid's closet.
Kid's Closet Storage:
Our children have lots of “special things.” That's what we call them. All of the cards, crafts, and whatnots that need to be saved and look through over and over. They are so special and yet Mama doesn't really want to see them on an everyday basis. ; ) Since we have 4 girls sharing one room, organization in their closet is critical.
After much thought I came up with this- large pull out drawers from Target.
"Special Things" boxes
I purchased the clear drawers because I felt like I could repurpose them later if I wanted to, then I covered the front (inside) with scrapbooking paper and letter stickers from our local Dollar Tree. I got so excited about not seeing stuff that I started putting scrapbooking paper in the fronts of all of their storage containers!
What's in them: The egg crates file their coloring books, scrapbooking and card making supplies, colored paper etc., the thin boxes to the right of the egg crates store their 18” dolls and all of their related clothes and shoes. The trunk holds their dress up clothes and, as you can probably tell, the big box to the right of that stores stuffed animals.
The stuffed animal box is a bit crowded right now- I think the rabbits multiplied at Easter time. We usually we allow each girl just a handful of stuffed animals each in the closet. The rest are stored in a box in our storage container outside. Every few months the girls enjoy pulling out the box and re-selecting their 5 stuffed animals for the season.
That in itself- not allowing every toy into the house at all times really helps to keep their organization and room cleaning simplified.
Hope you have a blessed and clutter free day!
~Rebecca
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For me, the cardinal rule of organization is this:
ReplyDeleteThrow stuff away that you don't need.
We find that most of our household clutter is simply because we have too much stuff.
After that, clever cubbyholes, hangers, and boxes can help.
The closet looks so fresh and new! Looks GREAT!!
ReplyDeleteYou know Evers, that is a fabulous point. We can never underestimate the importance of eliminating things we just don't need! Living in a camper while building the house really opened my eyes to just how little we do need.
ReplyDeleteWhen in doubt, toss it out!
Thanks Kristi, I know you can appreciate what it looked like before- "Special things" in full view. So special... ; )
Like many, I'm still trying to figure out how to sort kid stuff. A few years ago, "papers" seem to be the issue, so I bought my daughter a large plastic file box from Staples. It is the kind with the two closing flaps on top. We gave her Pendaflex hanging files and she made her own labels and file folders. All her Sunday School papers, VBS papers, cards, drawings, stickers, etc go in there. If and when it gets full, we start to purge!
ReplyDeleteThanks Do! I think a filing system for all of their paperwork is a great idea!
ReplyDeleteWhen I moved the last time Holly also encouraged me to take pictures of some of the stuff I was tempted to move and store rather than keep it all.
It was hard to toss those bottle dolls with green hair from the 70's, but I'll always have the photos. : )
another homeschool mom sent me this advice once. i won't say it nearly as nicely as she did :) but it was summed up like this:
ReplyDeleteif you are going to keep it, it should be useful, or beautiful, or you should love it. why else keep it? this has helped me get rid of lots of things! the more i get rid of, the lighter i feel and the more i want to get rid of. :)