The holidays fizzled out pretty quickly around the Huebner house. Our tree was dying (early Thanksgiving means early Xmas tree!) and the first scheduled pick up was Dec 26… I was not about to spend another week sweeping up pine needles.

Then my son’s preschool promptly reopened 2 days after the New Year. Fast forward to January 10th, and it feels like the holidays are a long lost dream – All except for ONE thing: The CLUTTER is REAL and organizing the toy room is a nightmare.

I have many friends who are super planners and rid their home of old/unused toys before the Christmas haul takes over. Sadly, I am not one of these people. This left me with a very clear, distinct New Year’s resolution: Organize toy room clutter!

Luckily I have some pretty nifty tools at my disposal and channeled MacGyver to makeshift other storage solutions.

First and foremost, I categorized the most unsavory messes.

I was able to prioritize my organization based on my children’s play preferences.

What my children play with (and thus mess up my floor with) the most:
1. Arts and Crafts
2. Books
3. Toy Cars

Organizing Arts and Crafts:

Paint, markers, stickers, glue… the biggest messes we make are when we are crafting. Keeping all of our art tools sorted and in one place has revolutionized the way we create around here.

The Parker Baby Diaper Caddy has made organizing toy room craft items simple and convenient. My kids get so excited that they get to choose their own art materials and Mom gets excited that we can clean it all up with ease.

My kids take full creative liberty when picking items out of this stylish caddy.

Creating Book Stations:

I am a real bookworm and both my children take after me. Every room in our house has children’s books stashed somewhere. I decided it was time to designate easily accessible areas for the kids to grab books and put them away.

Some areas came together easily, but other spaces lacked room for a bookshelf. That’s where these amazing Rope Storage Baskets came in handy. They look nice really anywhere and my kids know they are designated catchalls for books and toys, which makes organizing toy room books a breeze.

The sleek rope basket fits in every room of my house and keeps it clean.

Cleaning Up Cars:

Cars on the floor can be dangerous, as Kevin McCallister made us all painfully aware in Home Alone. Every night we go on a car hunt around the house and organizing toy room cars. I wanted the kids to have a container they could easily carry around with them on this hunt.

I LOVE reusing things (as evident in 5 Family Friendly Ways to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) so when I buy those giant tubs of delicious Utz Pretzels I am not sure if it is because of the pretzel or the glorious container I get to repurpose.

Both my kids love filling the bin and closing the lid. As Mary Poppins said, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun!” Now if only I could snap my fingers and have my laundry dance into the drawers.

Get your kids to clean up their own mess by turning it into a game.

Obviously these are not the only things that make organizing toy room clutter difficult, but I have found that once you deal with the common offenders the rest seems to fall into place. Now I am off to watch some Tidying Up with Marie Kondo to figure out how to deal with my never-ending laundry piles once and for all!