Ideas for organising kids toys

Drummer82

My house is a mess and its mainly my childrens toys. We've had a big hoo har today as they were looking for a certain toy that I put up the loft ages ago as they hadnt played with it for ages, its was big and slightly broken, so I had tears when I told them I'd put it away.
I then just looked at the state of everything and gave them a big lecture about having to chuck/sell/give stuff away sometimes to make space, their stuff is everywhere and I cant stand it! but really alot I cant or dont have the heart to chuck.
Ive tried giving my daughter boxes to keep all her little things in but they still end up all over the house so she never plays with them anyway as she cant find the whole set for something when she needs it. Their rooms a full, the living room is full and their stuff is constantly spread all over the coffee and dining table.
Problem is I have no money, a nice big wooden toy box would be lovely but cant afford it.
Any ideas for cheap/free storage or organising ideas? I was thinking maybe lining some cardboard boxes with some fabric or something to put things in just to make my living room look more like a living room and not a playroom :rotfl:

SavingJane

We have got lovely wooden toy boxes from ikea think they was £10.99, we now have 4 of them, they fit a decent amount in them.

I shall keep eyes on here as we also have the problem but only have 1 18m boy but VERY small place with no storage

PixieDust

Slightly moving away from the question you asked, but when mine were little we were similarly overrun with toys and they drove me to distraction. What I did was to get four huge storage boxes (we had them anyway), get shot of the kids for an afternoon and have a massive sort-out by myself. Putting everything back in sets, sifting of broken stuff and setting aside outgrown stuff for charity.

Then I put the sets into drawstring fabric bags which I had made out of old pillowcases, cot sheets etc. Then fairly randomly divided up the toys into the huge boxes.

The children had one huge box a week to play with and the other three were removed from sight. Each week or so I would swop the boxes around so that each week they had "new" toys to play with.

It worked so much better than just a general melee of "stuff", the children actually played with things instead of tipping-and-stomping and less stuff got broken

eta - do you have wall-space for hooks? If you do, you can use fabric (or, let's face it, carrier) bags for storing sets of things.

eta - do try to set sentimentality aside though when you are sorting through their toys. They may have been well-meaning presents, or have been very expensive etc, but how many shape-sorters/push-alongs etc does a kid really need?

Drummer82

I'll have a look for the ikea boxes, though my ikea is a bit of a trek, maybe I'll try ebay.

Thanks Pixie, the bags on hooks sounds like a good idea, I have a few shoe bags that were given to them but they have no use at the moment maybe I could hang them up

The swapping toy boxes makes sense. When we have a sort out all the stuff thats been buried appears and they see it and want to play with it cos they havent seen it in months and have forgotten, unfortunatley I dont really have anywhere to keep the other boxes.

We've had a bit of success today, I found an old shoe box which is quite pretty as it has barbie on it, so I labelled it with my daughter to keep some of her really small things in, and my son now wants to do the same, they've found lots of toys they'd been looking for in the process. Dont know how long that will last or if they'll keep the right things in them, but its worth a go.
I will have to go up the loft and see what boxes I have, maybe decorate them somehow as my daughter especially still has hundreds of these little tiny toys.

Any other ideas welcome, still got a long way to go

PixieDust

how about a couple of these (or similar, mocked up from old sheet/bit of material and a few panel pins/hooks or something) to keep soft toys "there but not there"

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TOY-HAMMOCK-TOY-STORAGE-NET-TEDDY-NET-CORNER-NET-JUMBO-CLIPPASAFE-/150739913030?pt=UK_Soft_Toys_Bears&hash=item2318cc8946

PixieDust

*still pondering*

Make use of over-door-hangers if you possibly can...again, they keep things "there-but-not-there"

If you have any hanging baskets knocking about, I guess this could be a solution

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=storage+solutions+for+toys&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=649&tbm=isch&tbnid=z4ym3A5q_febzM:&imgrefurl=http://houseonashwelllane.blogspot.com/2011/07/clever-and-unusual-toy-storage.html&docid=Sje3tQo-qDVeiM&imgurl=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F-b5T8HNG6Q/TjLHTGMAl0I/AAAAAAAADn0/oEcOlVu33GU/s400/17283866_nD7q1Nkl_c.jpg&w=400&h=307&ei=blg5T6qPJYqr8QP-kp2nAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=533&vpy=338&dur=270&hovh=197&hovw=256&tx=112&ty=82&sig=115436703154234883230&page=1&tbnh=171&tbnw=226&start=0&ndsp=12&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:0

PixieDust

ooh I remember something I did with mine, but it has limited success with little toddlers. In the Lego, K'Nex, Ello etc boxes there was also a large sheet of material....usually half of an old single quilt cover - quite big...I tried to get them to spread the sheet out and then tip the box out on to the sheet. WHen clearing away, just get all the bits on to the sheet, gather it up and tip the lot bacl in the box. Fold the sheet and Bob's your uncle. Saved me SO much effort in getting them to help me clear away once I did this

If pens, pencils and crayons are a problem then get empty Pringles/cotton buds/Bisto etc pots and cut to size, if necessary. You can either leave them as they are, decorate them yourself or get the kids to papier mache them...doesn't really matter as long as the wretched pens etc have a home!! You can just use mugs - nice handle for the kids to carry and they're a perfect size and shape

If you don't have a bookshelf for these to live on, then a labelled shoebox is fine - try asking in Clarks if they have any baby or toddler boxes going spare, they are really sturdy and a lovely size

PixieDust

You can get pop-up laundry "boxes" in Poundl@nd and 99pstores - these are great, too - and dirt cheap

What's your especial bugbear?

hermum

If you can go to an auction house, you may get some cheap wooden boxes there, my general one usually has them & they sell for a couple £. They need some tlc, but the kids could paint & decorate them.
Or try asking on freecycle for anything useable, including sturdy boxes that could be covered in brown or lining paper and decorated.

Aarons_mummy

I asked my sons grandparents for storage boxes for his christmas a couple of years ago, they may seem cheap but when you have a lot of them to buy they can be costly! We ended up with 4 large plastic boxes with lids of varying sizes which I can store in the cupboard.

He has one of those things from argos that have 9 fabric baskets on a wooden frame, I paid just £12.50 for his and it holds all sorts of little cars, crafts etc etc.

Pens, crayons, stickers, sticky bits are all in individual tins, I did have them in old potato salad tubs but I seen Cars ones in the pound shop that were the perfect size and stacked neatly in the shelves in his cupboard.

We also have those fabric baskets that are foldable on his bedroom shelves, one holds his pull ups for night time, another a huge stock of wipes, another all his playdough stuff, you can get them with butterflies and pink or blue with footballs on. £1 each in Poundland.

An argos value bookcase holds all his books and DVD's so everything has a place. We also have a couple of those Stratta tub things that I bought for 50p in Asda when they were selling them off, one has a lego set with various bits for a fire station and accompanying vehicles and another has a car garage lego set.

Onto the main point, it took me a good while to build up the storage I have and I bought things when I saw them, that's probably the easiest way to do it, especially on a budget. Otherwise cardboard boxes covered with scrap fabric would be nice, hunt through charity shops, ask on freecycle for storage boxes for moving, there is generally always someone with something for moving.

Biggest tip from me is don't try to sort it all at once, get rid of all the broken bits and things that have bits missing and when you do find a storage solution keep everything together. The best thing I did with my son who is 3 is make sure he puts all the pieces back into the boxes where they come from. You could have a crafty afternoon making nice bright glittery labels to stick onto the boxes so you know what goes where. Also keeps it nice and tidy and you don't have to face looking at all those tiny pieces of lego and try to figure out which set they belong too!

Slow and steady wins the race as the tortoise said

Rummer

We have a two pronged approach to toys. The first is Ikea Trofast Storage which allows us to store loads and the second is a rotation of toys so that my DD only has a small number of toys that can be played with at any given time.

We have a lot of generous relative and friends so my DD has more than she could ever cope with so we have a weekly/monthly rotation of toys so she has a new box every week. This reduces the mess and keeps her interest going as every week there is something new or different to look at.