If you have small children chances are you have toys up to your eyeballs, especially at this “just after Christmas” time of year. It can be hard trying to organize them and keep them from invading your living space. And often times it feels like a losing battle, as right after you get them all cleaned up they’re typically right back out all over the place just seconds later. Does any of this sound familiar?
One way that I’ve learned to deal with this very issue is to stop battling the toy chaos and start embracing it. Sounds a little crazy, but bear with me. There’s no sense in trying to hide the fact that you’re in that stage of life where crayons and hot wheels rule your world. And while you’ve probably heard that saying a million times over “this too shall pass” it really is true. Someday in the not too distant future we’ll all look back and miss those days of walking across the floor barefoot and stepping on a pile of legos. Okay we may not miss that excruciating pain, but we’ll definitely miss the lego building days when our kids are out shopping for their senior prom attire!
Decorating with my kids toys has not only added a fun vibe to our house but it’s also made the toy clean up process a lot easier for them. So it’s a win-win! Here are a few of my favorite ideas.
I like to leave the crayons out on the breakfast room table in my kitchen. Putting them in a big bowl as a centerpiece means never having to put them away or get them back out; it also encourages creativity. Obviously this idea probably won’t work too well for toddlers who need to be supervised and have big “coloring on walls” ideas, but for the preschoolers and elementary school aged kiddos this works great.
Rather than keeping all the board games in a closet where they never get stacked back up right, I turned a console table into a game center for my kiddos. It fits in perfectly in our family room and adds a fun vibe to the decor. I used two large canvas bins to wrangle their ever growing collection of stuffed animals and the fort-making blankets. It’s all out in the open so they can clean up easily. You’ll notice that the blankets are just tossed in there. I believe some battles aren’t worth fighting. Forts are going to be built and a million blankets are going to be used. Kids just don’t have the skills to fold a blanket, and I don’t have the patience to fold them 27 times a day. So throw ’em in a bin and call it done. Those polka dotted bins are so cute anything you thrown in them will look great.
I basically live by the mantra “put it in a mason jar”. Everything looks better in a mason jar – am I right?! If your kids are too young to be around glass don’t fret. Just use clear plastic or acrylic jars. This is such a great way to corral little pieces as well as those items like Jenga blocks that never fit back perfectly in the box.
If you’ve got any lego builders in your house this is a fun idea for all those random pieces. My son builds things then takes them apart and never builds them back the same way again, so we end up with lots of extra lonely pieces. Last year he and I made this lego lamp together. It’s in his words “a cool addition to his desk” and a great way to keep some legos around when his lego building phase has long passed.
For little artists, creating an art center in your home will fuel their creativity. Keeping all of the supplies out and accessible means never really having to clean up and will save you, the mom, from having to pull everything out every time your kids want to color or draw. You don’t need to have a huge space to make this happen either. I used a wonky wall in our home that would otherwise be a pain to decorate around.
Embracing the fact that you have lots of toys in your house really does make life more enjoyable and definitely breathes a fun decor element in to your home! How do you deal with the toy chaos in your home?
