Tackling Toy Clutter

If you have a toddler (or in my case two toddlers) you have often wondered or said the following:

"Why does it look like Toys R Us threw up in my living room?"

"How can such a small person make such a huge mess?"

"Ugh!  I just cleaned in here! Why do I bother?"

You get the picture. 

A personal favorite quote of mine is: "Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing." ~Phyllis Diller

Unfortunately, cleaning is a necessary evil.  I know I personally can't go to sleep at night knowing that there are dirty dishes in the sink (soaking pans are okay in my book).  

I literally will not be able to fall asleep if the play room is a mess and there are toys strewn about everywhere.  So, pretty much every night, without fail, I tidy up before I go to bed.  

Wait!  Before you think I'm a complete neat-freak and obsessive, I promise you, I'm not. 

I just can't stand walking downstairs first thing in the morning (un-caffeinated) to a huge mess!  And lord help someone if I happen to *step* on a random toy -ouch! 
That's the worst - you know!

After doing this for a few years now, I do not consider myself an organizational queen by any means, but I have picked up a few tips and tricks along the way. 

I feel it is my duty as a fellow Mommy, baby planner and human being to share my toy organization with you.  It has made cleaning up easier - and most importantly, my kids can HELP with the clean up process. 

Here is how I organize our toys:

1. Categorize your toys that you need containers for ex. balls, blocks, cars, etc.
2. Go to the local dollar store and pick out some colorful buckets and baskets.
3. Find some construction paper or index cards.  (I used old holiday cards I wasn't going to use and cut them in half)
4. Pick out a few crayons, markers and sharpies.
5. Grab a hole punch and some sort of string or some scotch tape.
6. Dig deep into that elementary school part of you and draw some pictures!

The the end result of the six steps above should look something along the lines of this:

Please ignore the horrible drawings! 
Art clearly was not my strong suit.

Ball basket

This three drawer was bought at a Target, but I actually had
this before we had our kids.



Cars and Little People 



Kitchen Accessories & Food
(Um, yes, those mini M&M's were
purchased as bribery for something!)



Full view of one set of shelves



Phones, Keys & Remotes
(As we all know, they always want the REAL one anyways)

Musical Instruments
(This is the Parents brand Bee Band - super cute!)
*Sorry, I could not get this picture to be centered
for some formatting reason! Grrr!

So, as you can see, everything has a place for the most part.  This not only allows the kids to help put things away as they are labeled with words AND pictures - it also helps when you have friends over, a play date or a party and people don't have to bother you every five seconds to find out what goes where! 

Genius.

Of course, I can't take credit for inventing this system - it's not original.  However, it works for us.  And that's really the key to parenting, isn't it?  Finding what works for YOU.

Don't forget to also periodically go through all those toys and pass them along to friends, organize toy swaps, sell at tag sales or place on Freecycle.  I frequently do all the above and also pass along toys to local charities.

This "system" for lack of a better word was not expensive to create, either.  You can even use containers, Rubbermaid storage bins (I used one for the kitchen toys) or whatever you have laying around.  But I do love the dollar store!

Do you have any toy organizing tips?  If you do, I'd love to hear them.