spin-off to my Toy post...Creative ways to organize????

The toys are overtaking my house!

We have very small rooms in our house and I feel like we are tripping on toys constantly.

Our current 'system' is to just label large tubs and keep things together that way...

But just seeing if anyone has any more creative ideas or suggestions..

For things like Art Supplies, Cars, Legos, Dolls etc?

for ex. I saw on a blog, to get one of those drawer storage systems for Legos, put different types in different drawers etc and were gonna do that.

TIA!!!!

Re: spin-off to my Toy post...Creative ways to organize????

I had bins for everything..

bin for cars
bin for trains
hamper for books
smaller bins for the little people, action figures, etc.
bin for legos


pretty much a bin for anything we had alot of.. when you start organizing everything down to EVERY little detail, you're going to be wasting alot of time putting that stuff away every time your DC take it out to play.. and for me, it was easier to have the kids clean up after themselves.. I also rotate toys.. the kids get more use out of their toys there way.. there's always something "new"

Re: spin-off to my Toy post...Creative ways to organize????

We do the rotate thing too.
We have canvas bins - one cars (more Ryan stuff), one more Colin's speed.
The Toy Story figures are EVERYWHERE so we are actually usually a TS mesh hamper for those - we just dump them all in and the boys dig through it for their figures. Not as "organized" but easy clean up
I am looking to do higher shelves for board games/puzzles that I don't want him pulling apart on a regular basis.
Art supplies I have a big canvas bin in the kitchen for - coloring books, crayons, markers, paper, paint, etc. They gets to do that stuff in the kitchen only

Re: spin-off to my Toy post...Creative ways to organize????

We have the 3 drawer storage things and are constantly rotating them around.

Barbies in one draw
lego's in another
baby toys in the 3rd

etc.

Re: spin-off to my Toy post...Creative ways to organize????

Re: spin-off to my Toy post...Creative ways to organize????

I have a bin system from Ikea. But for things I need to keep together like Lego. I use ziplock bags. It's great for getting items together.

I also only allow DC to play with 1 toy at a time. So we have to clean up one toy before playing with another one. We do the "clean up" song. It does help control the mess. I meant we will read books. Not just 1 book at a time but only books. Then we put books back in their spot before moving on to another activity.

Re: spin-off to my Toy post...Creative ways to organize????

I am pretty strict about toys. We have a decent amount of storage for toys and anything they have has to go into something at the end of the day or it gets tossed. If there is extra stuff that doesn't fit they need to figure out what they want to get rid of, but we used to have 18956 toys that were never played with and I'm over it. Now there there is less they actually play with their toys more, rather than just tossing it all out on the floor and staring at it.

In our den we have 1 bookshelf with only shared story books, one of the 9 cube Closetmaid Cubeicals (Target) and a 6 cube one with canvas drawers. Those hold board games, art supplies, matchbox cars, legos and Trios, Thomas tracks and cars, Littlest Pet Shop, etc. Then we have 3 wooden toy boxes in the den that double as benches for parties. 1 has Thomas buildings and they each have 1 other to store whatever toys of their own they want in the den.

In their rooms they each have a bookshelf with their coloring books, puzzles, and personal books (like Superheros and Star Wars for DS, Princesses and Hello Kitty for DD) and a big plastic Little Tikes toy box. DS has big planes, cars, action figures in his, DD has costumes in hers. She does also have small bin that holds Barbie junk that doesn't fit in the Barbie House.