Organized Chaos: 3 Simple Steps When Cleaning Out the Kids Toy Cabinet
White Toy Cabinet
The white toy cabinet may look clean on the outside…however, that is not the case when you open it up and look inside of it. It has items placed randomly all around and is in a bit of a disarray. Today we are going to talk about organizing the toy cabinets. Our kids love playing, but for some reason the items they play with do not always find the correct homes when it is time for them to be put away. Despite the fact that most toys have a specific location where they call home. Whether it is that they are in a hurry, don’t want to take the time, or are not sure where to put it, who knows. Every once in awhile the white toy cabinet, like everything else in the house, needs a good cleaning.
Sometimes when you are cleaning out the kids stuff you find little treasures that the kids have kept for a variety of bizarre reasons, a candy wrapper from a friend, a 1 inch scrap of paper they are saving to do a craft, a piece of ribbon, or some other item that they stuffed in the cabinet for later use. There are times when the cabinet is so full of items and disorganized that it cannot even completely shut. I often wonder why these instances don’t trigger some thought process that says “Hey time to clean me out, please”! Maybe it does, but they don’t want to do it at that particular moment in time! Thankfully, as the kids are getting older I am starting notice more occasions were they will voluntarily notice a mess and clean it up by themselves. These precious moments makes my heart happy!
It’s a mess, not sure where some of that stuff came from in the toy cabinet
Here are 3 Simple Steps I use when cleaning out the kids toy cabinet:
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If it is broken – throw it away
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If they no longer play with it – give it away
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If it is out of place – put it away
Much better! Now they can actually find the toys and items they are looking for in the toy cabinet!
After going through the cabinet and applying the three simple principles as well as wiping down the inside and outside of the cabinet it is pretty much done. Sometimes there are a handful of items I am not sure about or want the kids to make the choice about what they want to do with them, but otherwise it is done.
While these steps sound really easy there have been times especially when the kids were younger and watching me clean out the toy cabinet I hesitated on some items. They may not have played with it this month, but maybe they will again next month. In those cases I usually held onto the toy for a little bit longer and if they hadn’t played with it by the time I cleaned the toy cabinet out again it was time for it to find another home.
I am a sentimental person so I like to keep special items. The problem is no one has a house large enough to keep everything so while I may hang onto things longer than some people eventually I have to admit when it’s time to let it go.
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Organized Chaos: Kid’s Closets
What a mess!
We live in a home with imperfect people. Life has a way of getting messy. Over time the busy messiness of life over spills into other areas such as our closets. It happens to all of us, including our kids.
On this particular day when I opened the closet I noticed several things out of place – clothes out of their specific baskets, shoes not lined up, headbands askew, and the hair accessories organizer not even hung up, hang up clothes in the wrong spots, crafts all out of sorts, and more disorganization.
Thankfully with the system we have in place it usually doesn’t take too long to get everything back in shape and looking good again. The kids are not always “excited” about cleaning out their closets, but they do enjoy it once it is done. It does look much better to Momma too!
Here are some closet organizational systems we already have in place that make the closet clean up easier:
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Organized Chaos: Jewelry Organizer
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Organized Chaos: Hair Accessory Organizer
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Organized Chaos: Kids Shoes
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Organized Chaos: Closet Clothes Baskets
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Organized Chaos: Kids Crafts & Activities
Once all the items listed above are checked, organized, and put back into their proper places there is only one thing left to do. Make sure all the hanging clothes are properly on the hangers and put them in their correct places. For our family we switch out cold and hot weather clothes depending on the season. In South Carolina we typically have a longer warm season then some other places so we are a little heavier on the short sleeve shirts and tank tops than on the heavier winter long sleeves and sweaters.
I used a picture from the colder season (the long sleeves show the different sections better than pictures with tank tops). As you can see her long sleeves / vests are on the left side of her closet with her short sleeve shirts in the middle and her dresses on the right side. In the summer her tank tops would be on the left where her long sleeve shirts / vests are located in this picture. We do pull out the kids winter dresses and replace them with summer dresses as well.
Looks so much better with everything put away and organized nicely!
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Organized Chaos: Kids Crafts & Activities
Kids crafts
Our kids love doing a variety of crafts and fun activities. Anything from artwork to bead work to pottery and so much more! A lot of times for their birthdays or Christmas they will get some neat crafts and activities gifts to do.
We wanted to find a convenient place to store them until they had time to do the craft. Originally, we had all the craft items stored together in one general location, but not in their room(s). As the girls got older we had to start putting names on the boxes or items so each one knew which ones were theirs when they went looking for a craft to do. Since they are twins it is important as parents to make sure that each child has some items that are specifically for them. We felt like this was something easy to do regarding their crafts and it has worked out well for our family.
Once the kids moved into their own rooms we decided to put their individual crafts on one of their higher shelves in their closets. Each kid has their own individual craft or activity shelf so they can pick out their specific item whenever they want to do a craft. Some of the crafts on their shelves are the same while some are completely different. They can easily get a chair or step stool when they want to pick out a craft to do, but with the crafts being on a higher shelf it isn’t as accessible so when we have younger kids visiting the crafts stay in place and don’t get all spread out.
Crafts lined up, visible, and ready to be used.
Organized Chaos: Closet Clothes Baskets
Baskets of clothes in the closet
On the bottom shelf in the kids closets we have 3 baskets of clothes. Each of these baskets contain specific items. The clothes are easy to access for the kids. The baskets make good use of the space between the the hanging clothes and the bottom rack.
The 3 Baskets contain:
- Basket of Blue Jeans and Pants
- Basket of Shorts and Skirts
- Basket of Outside Play Clothes
In the Spring and Summer the short and skirt basket will be in the center with the jeans / pants as well as the outside play clothes are on the sides. During the Fall and Winter the jeans and pants are in the middle with the short / skirt as well as the outside play clothes are on the sides. All the girls have to do is grab a shirt from the hanger above, a bottom (jeans, pants, shorts, or skirt) from one of the baskets and they have the majority of their outfits picked out. When they are going to play outside they can pick a shirt and bottom out of their outside play clothes.
They usually do pretty well with keeping the correct items in the right baskets. Although, sometimes when they are in a hurry or if they are digging for a specific pair of jeans they don’t always keep all their items folded nicely. For the most part they keep the baskets looking good. If the baskets do get messed up we can just pull out one or all three baskets and fold or organize them again.
We have been using this system for a few years now and it works well for our kids. It helps makes those busy mornings go more smoothly. Even though they are suppose to lay out their clothes the night before sometimes they forget or decide to switch into something else at the last minute.
Basket on the left is full of shorts & skirts. The middle basket is full of jeans and pants.
The middle basket is jeans / pants and on the left side the basket is full of outside play clothes.
Organized Chaos: Kids Shoes
Organized Kids Shoes
We live in an older house. Most days it’s fine, but there are a few things (like any house) that we would love to change. The closets in this house are pretty small. When the girls shared a room their closet was full even though they were babies. All the closets had in them when we moved in was a small wooden shelf with one metal bar underneath to hang clothes on. We have slowly been converting the closets to a rack system* which allows us to use the space we have more efficiently.
The kids are now in their own rooms and we have updated both of their closets with the rack system. We decided to leave a space underneath the bottom rack for their shoes. They have enough space to stack both shoes from each set under their bottom rack and line them up.
The shoes that are stored in their closets are slippers, sandals, crocs, dress shoes, and ones they were for special occasions. The girls dirtier shoes like their school shoes, outside boots, and other outside shoes or sandals stay in a basket by the back door or the garage. It makes me happy when I look into their closets and see them neat with their shoes lined up.
Shoes lined up in the kids closet!
*If you are looking at converting your closets to a rack system you can locate them at Lowe’s, Home Depot, or another store.
Organized Chaos: Hair Accessory Organizer
All Brina’s headbands, flowers, decorative hair ornaments organized and in one spot
A few months ago I showed you our Easy DIY Headband Holder. As you can see from the pictures on this post we are still using it. It works very well for our girls. Since they wear more than just headbands I wanted to find a solution that would help organize all the pretty, fluffy, and decorative hair ornaments they have as well.
My qualifications for getting these items organized:
- Must assist in making these items more organized
- Able to be hung in a visible location and still look nice
- Easy to see, reach, and get access to the items when the kids need them
- Reasonably priced organizer because I will need 2 (one in each of the kids room)
- Something that we could hang near to the headbands (which were already hanging on the back of their closet doors).
It took me a little longer to find the perfect organizer for these items. Part of the reason it took longer is I wasn’t really sure what I wanted for the decorative hair accessories. I wasn’t in a rush so I just kept an eye out for ideas while in various stores. One day when I was going through CVS the clearance section happened to catch my eye. I paused for a moment and these little blue and black organizers were in the clearance section marked down to $1.* After looking at them and thinking about them I decided to pick them up and see if I could make them work for the kids hair accessories.
It was exactly the type of item I was looking for and at a great price! The organizer fit all the current hair accessories items I wanted to put in it plus had room for some extra ones too. When I am on top of things (which doesn’t always happen) I will put the kids seasonal hair accessories in the extra pockets on the organizer too (ie. Christmas, July 4th, Halloween, etc… hair accessories during that specific season).
The organizer hangs on the back of the closet door where the kids can easily reach it. It goes right under the Easy DIY Headband Holder so everything is available in one spot. The items are visible and easy to reach. It meets all my qualifications for getting the kids hair accessories organized. These have worked very well for our family!
*I tried to find these on the CVS website, but either they do not carry them online or they are not available. You can look in your local store or I am sure there are other stores that carry a similar item. This one on Amazon or something similar might work well too if you are looking for one.
Looking down on the Easy DIY Headband Holder and Hair Accessory Organizer as it is hanging on the closet door
Organized and ready to go!
Organized Chaos: Jewelry Organizer
Necklace & Jewelry Organizer
Having girls in the house means you are bound to have some jewelry around. As the girls got older they continued to accumulate more necklaces. It slowly became harder to keep the necklaces organized without them getting tangled or putting them in a spot that was hard for them to easily access.
I wanted to find something simple, easy, and reasonably priced. It took awhile of looking around to find one that I liked and could hang on the back of their closet doors. I ended up finding this one at our local Michaels store and bought it using a coupon. At first I only got one because I wanted to make sure I really liked it before getting another one. After a couple weeks I still liked it so I used another coupon and got the second one. It has been nice to having all their necklaces organized and visible.
Our kids are using it mostly for necklaces since they do not have pierced ears yet, but you can use it for earrings, belts, watches, scarves, rings, bracelets, ties, or a multitude of other things. I like that it is simple design, not too big, and yet pretty. It hung on the back of the closet door so it is accessible for the kids to reach when they want to wear one of their special necklaces. All of these necklaces were given to them from family or friends and have special memories so I am happy that they are now displayed well and tangle free.
Brina’s necklaces are organized now!
