This won’t come as a surprise to most moms, but my kids can tear apart a room in under 15 minutes flat. Have you seen that meme about a mom wondering why she cleans since her kids still live there? That’s me! But I like having a clean house and guests do come over from time to time, so cleaning is a necessary activity. Here is one quick and easy hack that will save you time and space when cleaning up your kids toys.
TRICK – store toys inside other toys
Ok, it’s not rocket science, but stay with me here.
Toys take up a lot of space. By putting toys inside other toys, I am saving tons of useful toy bin realty. My toy bin philospophy is that I like to have toys all over my house. Now this time I’m not being sarcastic! I like having my kids toys on every floor of the house. When we are downstairs, they can play while I do the laundry. When we are upstairs, they can play while I make dinner or put away the laundry. They get to play and I get to supervise while still getting household chores done. For me, it’s the only way!
Here are a few examples of hiding toys within toys.
Barbie purse and Barbie
We have this adorable Barbie purse that my daughters love. There aren’t any Barbie shoes here, but I can save some space by storing a Barbie inside the purse. Ta da!
Fabric Houses
This is actually a set that is meant to be stored together. Place one house inside another and it takes up MUCH less space than one by one. Shove some figurines in there too and you save even more space. Bonus – you keep all the pieces together.
Blocks bag
Another example of a toy that is actually meant to store it’s parts (LOVE!). Every toy should do this so well. However my kids have completely lost the pieces, or they are scattered everywhere. My daughters actually like to use this as a kind of purse (they love purses). But that doesn’t mean I can’t put OTHER toys inside. Just find any other small toys that will fit.
Kitchen and food
This one is a favorite of mine. Hide all the pretend food INSIDE the pretend kitchen. It’s all ready to go when my kids head over to play with the kitchen and it saves tons of space.
Purse and puzzle pieces
You probably got it that my daughters love purses of every kind. So, it’s a no brainer to put toys inside all the purses to save space when cleaning up. This is just one example of maybe half a dozen purses we have.
Here is the BEFORE picture of all these toys, put away in a toy bin.
Here is the AFTER picture, showing you all the space you’re saving by using this one easy trick.
Do you have any tricks to organize toys? Let me know in the comments.
I’ve always cleaned something similar to save space.
I love this “hack!” We have done this in my daughter’s closet and it has saved so much space! Also I wanted to share this cute quote I saw on my friend’s wall. It read “Excuse the mess, my children are making memories.” I love that! It’s okay not to have the perfectly clean house… Our children are busy growing up, making messes, and making memories. <3
Love the quote! My house is clean about 15 minutes a week it seems 🙂
That’s such a practical idea. I should start doing that too. I need help with all my toys lol!
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i do put toys inside each other but the toys go together. My two mix and match while playing but when cleanup time rolls around all pieces are accounted for, searched for if missing then placed in the set’s designated location. This works extremely well at reducing loss: toys are so expensive. (It does help to have a small house eliminating the need for toy sprawl.)