The Treasure Drawer

We have many treasures (or “tweasures” as the five year old calls them) in our house.

Sadly, I’m not talking about jewellery.

I’m talking about those small kid toys you happen to find all over the house and never know what to do with.

With an eight year old and a five year old, we have accumulated a lot of stuff – a scary amount.

While the kids were still home on holiday break the first week of January, I went through every room of the house and cleaned, organized and purged like crazy. I was ruthless and we got rid of bags and bags of stuff.

It felt fantastic.

The kids were great and were willing to let go of some of their older toys to make room for new gifts they received.

However, for some reason, they always find it difficult to part with the smaller, random crap that they’ve collected – rocks, cards, plastic bugs, windup toys, and the list goes on and on.

So I came up with a solution – The TREASURE DRAWER!

Listen, this is as Martha as I get, so if you have to fake being impressed, feel free.

STEP ONE:

Find an empty drawer in your little culprit’s bedroom. Fill it with drawer storage/dividers/containers that will help keep the drawer somewhat organized.

STEP TWO:

After you force your kids to choose what they absolutely can’t part with, and you toss the broken stuff, put the treasures in the drawer.

TADA!!

Yes, you too can do this at home. And the beauty of it is that it allows for very easy cleanup.

Do you have a little girl with a million hair accessories and play jewellery? Well, then find yourself another empty drawer:

(Allow me to translate the 5 year old speak: joolry – jewellery, wawetts – wallets, hair stuffs – hair accessories)

My son also needed two drawers dedicated to his special things.

In his nightstand drawer, he keeps his special rocks, the coins his Daddy brings him from all his business trips from around the world and his watches.

I truly believe the best thing you can do when organizing is store things, like with like. That’s why this works for us – believe it or not, all of their small toys/items are now contained in these drawers. WIN!

In a future post I’ll show you their playroom, so you can see how I’ve been able to successfully organize all their toys, like with like, in an uncluttered way. And the extra bonus – they’re able to clean it up on their own, and it always looks the same, which makes me very happy.

Everything has it’s place – it’s a good thing.

(A good thing for Mommy’s sanity – clutter makes me itchy.)

Tagged as: Keeping Mommy sane is the real goal, kid toys, Martha, Martha wannabe, organizing toys