i made buckwheat pancakes and blueberry syrup for breakfast. i really didn't like the syrup, but the rest of my family did! (i have been forever spoiled by the yummy foods my mom makes, including delicious fruit syrups. mine was no where near as good as hers - i will have to ask her for her recipe).
shortly before christmas, i became quite aware of the fact that there always seemed to be toys spread all over our main floor. i was constantly stepping over or on toys, pushing them out of the way with my feet, or tripping over them. we have been intentional about our daughter's toys and i think the amount of toys we have is on the small side compared to the average family with one child...but still...there seemed to be too many! christmas was coming and i knew that more toys would be added to the collection (including all of the little cooking utensils and pieces of food we were going to be giving her!), so something had to be done.
our play area is in part of our living room and it looks like this:
the red shelf is from a thrift store (i bought it when i was just out of college and living in my first apartment). we get lots of comments on it because it is so unique. i love that it's perfect as a toy/book shelf! the little table and chairs are from ikea, and the letter cards (i love them!) were in a box of kid's stuff given to us by some friends (thanks guys!). her toys used to be in all the baskets on the red shelf - some of the baskets were overflowing, and it was hard to find specific toys in the midst of all of them.
my solution was nothing amazing or clever...i just got some bins on sale, sorted out her toys (got rid of some of them), and put them in bins, grouping like toys together. i have plans to sew some drawstring bags to further organize her toys in the bins, but i don't know when that will actually happen. my first plan was to keep the bins in the basement and bring up a new one every so often, but i knew that i wouldn't really enjoy lugging toy bins up and down the stairs, especially as i become more pregnant. so...i found a spot for three of the bins in the corner of our dining room, and the other three fit perfectly in our main floor bathroom. i purposely chose bins that are clear so that we can see what toys are in each one.
this solution is working so well. we take one or two bins out at a time to play with, and i like that the toys are on the main floor and that our daughter can see in the bins to choose a specific bin to play with. when she is done playing with a toy bin, we put everything back in and she can choose another one. i have noticed that she is much more engaged with her toys and she doesn't seem overwhelmed with knowing what to play with like she sometimes did when she had access to all her toys. i love that there aren't so many toys strewn all over the house. her red shelf still has a few toys on it...her colorful scarves are in one basket, some of her kitchen toys are in one, and her tea set is in another...but i really think that we could put all of her toys in the bins and she would be fine with it.
anyway...it might just be all the nesting and de-cluttering i continue to do, but i am so excited to have found a system that works so well for us!
how do you deal with toy clutter?
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